Tag: 1988

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1980s God Music Radio

The Major’s Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1988

Every Friday night I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference from either 10, 20, or 30 years ago (rotating each week). Here it is – for the week ending Sunday August 21ST 1988:

  1. “Baby I Love Your Way / Freebird” – Will To Power
  2. “What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy)” – The Information Society
  3. “Staying Together” – Debbie Gibson
  4. “It Would Take A Strong, Strong Man” – Rick Astley
  5. “Monkey” – George Michael

30 years ago this weekend the 21-year-old edition of me lived 7½-miles away (by road) from where I live today, and I worked about a mile away from where I work today on the same United States Air Force installation that I worked back then. A 10-speed bike was my only form of transportation in 1988. Today it’s a 2018 Honda Civic.

By the Summer of 1988 I had made the decision to reenlist in the USAF for another 4 years in uniform. Now I’ve got over 33 years of Federal service in, and I plan to retire 5 years from now. I also plan to move away from here 5 years from now.

But while those are my plans – they may not be God’s plans for me. On this 12TH Anniversary of the start of my salvation I’ve figured it out by now. Go with God’s plans. They are plans for good – and not for disaster – to give me a future and a hope.

It’s halftime. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with my remaining two blogs for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Make memories of a lifetime !

Categories
1980s Music Radio

The Major’s Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1988

Every Friday night I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference from either 10, 20, or 30 years ago (rotating each week). Here it is – for the week ending Sunday July 24TH 1988:

  1. “I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That” – Elton John
  2. “Lost In You” – Rod Stewart
  3. “Simply Irresistible” – Robert Palmer
  4. “Hole In My Heart” – Cyndi Lauper
  5. “Do You Love Me ?” – The Contours

I’ve got an old-school early-2010s-era iPod Shuffle (4TH Generation – orange in color) that I listen to at work, and it’s essentially got 305 of the greatest hits of my lifetime – from the mid-1960s clear through to present-day time. 120 of the 305 are hits before 1980, and another 45 hits are from the 1980s.

Looking back at my entire Top 40 chart for this weekend exactly 30 years ago there are a few songs that are on my iPod Shuffle, so I hear them almost every day at work:  Guns ‘N Roses debuted with their massive smash – “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – at # 37. I consider it to be one of the greatest hard rock songs of its time. Cheap Trick’s “The Flame” rose to # 28. It still sounds fresh today – just like it did in 1988. Additionally Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible” (# 3) is a long-running hit on my iPod Shuffle – garnering 864 plays over the past 6½ years.

# 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for this weekend exactly 30 years ago – Richard Marx with “Hold On To The Nights”.

It’s halftime. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with my remaining two blogs for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Make memories of a lifetime !

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1980s Advertising Food Music Radio

The Major’s Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1988

Every Friday night I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference from either 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Here it is – for the week ending Sunday June 19TH 1988:

  1. I Should Be So Lucky – Kylie Minogue
  2. Together Forever – Rick Astley
  3. That’s The Way It Is – Mel And Kim
  4. Stutter Rap – Morris Minor And The Majors
  5. Doctorin’ The House – Coldcut Ft. Yazz And The Plastic Population

I just checked out my original checkbook registers from exactly 30 years ago this week. (Believe it or not I’m still using the exact same checking account today as I did 30 years ago.)

I was certainly a regular customer of Little Caesar’s Pizza back then, and they delivered all day every day to all of the dorms on base (Homestead Air Force Base Florida – where I still work today). I always paid via check, and according to my checkbook register I was a big fan of their two pepperoni pizza-pizzas, crazy bread, and coca colas back then.

 

Nowadays I rarely eat carry-out pizza (from anywhere), and I gave up all carbonated beverages a few years ago. I have eaten Little Caesar’s Pizza a few times over this past year, and it’s good, but I think that it was so much better back in 1988 !

This concludes my 2 blogs this weekend. “Saturday Night Retro” is taking a rest for the next week. I’ll be back with “Sunday Scripture” in 9 days on Sunday June 24TH 2018.

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Blogging Career Driving Food Health History Home Life Money Music People Radio Television Travel

Saturday Night Retro

On This 95TH weekly edition of my ‘Retro’ I take you back 22½ years ago to the Spring of 1988. I remember it well. I was a young 20-year-old USAF Airman First Class (two stripes) on the verge of becoming 21 and a Senior Airman (three stripes) at bustling Homestead Air Force Base Florida. My total annual salary was about $11,000, but I had no car, lived on-base in a dormitory, and all of the food was free. I rode my bike to and from work on-base through the heat, the wind, and the rain. I dreamed of someday owning a car and driving it all around South Florida. That day would NOT occur in 1988, but rather in January of 1989. So back in 1988 I had friends with cars, and that’s all that mattered. All I wanted to do was to eat and party – and so I did. I ate and partied so much that I ended up gaining a lot of weight. In fact I reached my maximum lifetime weight of approximately 185 pounds !  That’s about 15 pounds more than my stable weight of today. I was not very healthy back then, and the situation would only get worse once I hit the legal drinking age of 21 that June (of 1988).

Back then during what I like to refer to as ‘The Golden Age Of Miami Top 40 Radio’ we here were blessed with three competing hit music radio stations – Power-96, Y-100, and Hot-105. All three played the big hits of the day, and each station also specialized in its own genre. Power-96 was a bit more urban than the other two, and Hot-105 actually played American hard rock and European club dance back-to-back. Y-100 was the heritage mainstream pop station of its time.

As I rode my bike all over the air base – dreaming of tuning in to each of these three stations on my eventual new car’s radio – this smash was playing everywhere. It’s the Spring of 1988 here in South Florida !

‘The Awesome ’80s In August International Dance Party’ continues next week as we enter the wild and crazy world that was 1989.

Until then my friends – “GET OUT OF THE CITY !” (Balki Bartokomous from “Perfect Strangers”)