However, I saw that Michael Jackson’s Thriller album was 40 years old. Man, that was a shock. I couldn’t comprehend how that was 40 years ago and it seemed like yesterday as I eagerly anticipated the crazy launch of that video on MTV and Much Music for those who are Canadian.
We were living in HeartLake Brampton on 68 Braidwood Lake Road at the time in a back split-style house. We all sat around the family room that had a nice little fireplace. Not a shitty gas one but a real wood-burning fireplace and sliding door to the backyard. In the winter our dog and cat used to lay there basking in the sun. Often, we would lie there with them and take amazing naps.
Not Getting Old
But today is about Thriller and not getting old. In Indonesia, men and women in their 50’s and 60’s are old. In North America, it’s the new 30.
The idea of that album being 40 years old is like wow. From having a VIC 20 or a Commodore 64 to the rotary phones being replaced by buttons and wired remote control went to wireless and cars all had fuel injections by this time.
We were having amazing movie channels born and when Star Trek The Next Generation was on, no one moved until the commercial break. Potty time and snack time, get back before the commercial is over. So was the night we watched the premier of the Thriller music video.
He was the biggest star in history and being part of that amazing bit of history just dawned on me as I came across this bit of information the other day.
We Were Lucky
Being born with such timing… we got to enjoy the analog world as well as the digital world. Kids will never know records, 8-track, and rotary phones. Or when kids were free to roam in cornfields and leave the house in the morning and come home when their stomachs told them to. The days when kids were allowed to be kids and not given an iPad or a cell phone for a babysitter.
We got to experience the dawn of the computer age, the cell phone. We knew what DOS, looked like on a monochrome computer screen, and got to insert floppy discs in computers.
How can we forget the lovely sound of dial-up internet and typewriters? Say what’s a typewriter anyway?
Oh, it’s like a computer screen with paper and no spellcheck.
Yes the good old days, the days where we got to be kids. The days were long hot summer days we got to be kids the way kids are meant to be. Looking back on the days of Thriller and that era truly made me think that nothing has changed in my head. The world around us has changed for the better and for the worse. But one thing is for sure. No matter how mature I’ll get, I will never be old.
