Category: History

Saturday Night Retro

Last Saturday night on the ‘Retro’ I presented to you for your review the 1996 smash “1979” from The Smashing Pumpkins. This week I take you back to 1979. It was exactly 30 years ago, and it closed out a crazy decade of decadence.

I entered 1979 as an 11½-year-old 6TH grader at Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham Maryland – located right in the middle of my neighbourhood at the time. Later in the year in September I moved on to Robert H. Goddard Junior High School several miles away. I was also a Boy Scout at the time. We had meetings weekly, and we went on hiking and camping trips monthly – mostly up to the mountains of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. They were ancient history editions of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ ! 😀

During my spare time (after school and on weekends) I enjoyed riding my bike up and down Red Wing Lane, Wood Thrush Drive, Nightingale Drive, Kingfisher Lane, Wren Lane, and Brae Brooke Drive. I can see recent images of all of those roads (and my old house of over 5½-years) right now online via the use of Google Street View. My old neighbourhood has aged quite a bit over the past 30 years – and so have I. Back then it was brand new (built from around 1973 to 1975). That’s how I remember it. It doesn’t look like that anymore.

On the hit music radio stations nationwide disco music was still alive and kicking – at least during the first-half of 1979. It started dying out during that Summer. Here’s one of the last big disco hits of the era. It managed to sneak up the Billboard HOT 100 to # 11 in September of 1979. It’s Bonnie Pointer making a LIVE July 1979 appearance on ‘The Midnight Special’ on a Friday night on NBC-TV. Here’s her disco smash “Heaven Must Have Sent You”. Check out the way that we used to control the dance floor back then !

Tags 1979

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New Year’s Day Morning Shenanigans

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 1, 2009

THIS MORNING I said hello to 2009 for the very first time just before 7 AM. I got a good 7 hours of sleep overnight. That means that when 2008 officially became 2009 at the stroke of Midnight (leap second notwithstanding) I was already asleep.

It’s 2009 now – the start of the 44TH year of existence for me since I was created by God (in 1966). It’s also my 26TH year as a U.S. Government employee, and it’s my 23RD year of living here in Homestead America’s Riviera. Most important of them all it’s the start of the 4TH year of this fantastic journey that I’m on following Jesus Christ. 2009 is going be the greatest year of my entire Life !

This morning I continued an unofficial New Year’s Day Morning tradition for me – I did my grocery shopping for the next couple of weeks or so at Publix. As is usually the case on New Year’s Day Morning I pretty much had the entire store to myself and perhaps not even a dozen of my fellow hungry pleasure-filled shoppers. Due to a MA$$IVE $ale at Publix I nabbed about $80 in food and other general merchandise for less than $45. That included the use of a surprising Publix gift card that I got for Christmas that was so amazing that I created a happy spectacle of myself right there at the checkout lane. Talk about Shenanigans !

New Year’s Day shall continue for me as I do several loads of laundry while watching hours and hours of televised New Year’s Eve festivities that I recorded last night from Carson Daly (NBC), Dick Clark / Ryan Seacrest (ABC), Spike Feresten / Mark Thompson (FOX), and Anderson Cooper / Kathy Griffin (CNN).

Have a great New Year’s Day my friends ! THRIVE IN 2009 !

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Bedtime Stories

As I begin writing this blog entry tonight there are just about 115 minutes remaining in 2008. I’ll probably be in bed asleep as 2009 officially arrives, but I’ll catch it fairly new – about 6 or 7 hours – once I awake in the morning.

2008 was the greatest year of my entire Life, and I expect 2009 to surpass it – just as 2008 surpassed 2007 – and 2007 surpassed 2006. It just keeps on getting brighter and more glorious on God’s fantastic journey for me. He constantly amazes me with His miracles.

If you wish to see why 2008 was so glorious for me then simply read any of the 613 blog entries that I posted – at least one per day – every single day from January 01ST through December 31ST.

Thank You Everyone for spending just a small portion of your Life with me via this blog and-or LIVE and in-person. Let’s keep on doing it into 2009. I’m ready. You ?

Until we hang out again in 2009 I wish you a very Happy New Year, and REMEMBER THIS ! It’s a Chevrolet commercial in living technicolor from nearly 60 years ago that plays more like a Chamber Of Commerce promo for the Miami Florida area – the way that it was back in 1950 !

History Holidays

Saturday Night Retro

This edition of the ‘Retro’ is not about a specific year, but rather the good times and past memories of Christmas Day mornings gone by with my family.

Back during the early-1980s in Northern Virginia me and my little brother would wake up extra early – like at around 4 AM or so. We would quietly bundle up, go out in the dark and cold of wintertime, and deliver newspapers for a couple of hours. We would then come back inside into the warmth of the house and prepare for the opening of the Christmas presents that had gathered and multiplied underneath the Christmas tree since about Thanksgiving Day.

Mom, Dad, Me, My Brother, and even Fluffy our Manx cat were all together for about an hour of warm giving and receiving. Even our lovable cat got a present or two, and as the gifts were opened and the wrapping paper was thrown astray a bunch of the decorative bows and ribbons eventually ended up on Fluffy. She would also tend to play with all of the wrapping paper that was all around her. We would rather that she play with the wrapping paper than ingest the icicles off of the Christmas tree and then wait for the undesirable result of that a day or two later.

My very first Christmas Day away from home occurred in 1985. I had only been living in the U.K. for about 6 weeks, and since I was so new over there (as an Air Force Airman) I couldn’t take time off to fly back to the States. I wouldn’t miss many more Christmases after that one.

During much of the early-1990s I drove the 2,200+ miles to and from the Washington D.C. area to visit my family from Homestead. Late in 1996 they moved down to Jacksonville Florida, so that 2,200+ mile round trip was reduced down to 800 miles or so.

This Christmas Eve I’ll be driving up there again to visit my Mom, Dad, and their current cat – Pumpkin. My brother and his wife won’t be there, but it will still be fine. We enjoyed Thanksgiving together at their place in the north of Dallas Texas.