What was life like in the 1980's?

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people were, on the whole, fitter then. at least here in amuuurica.

Newspapers were far bigger then than they are now (and I've collected a few lately-- one being a Thanksgiving 1987 Chicago Sun-Times that had a whopping *152* pages, not to leave out all the Thanksgiving shopping inserts; it only cost a quarter as well in 1987 [a dime more than that outside of Chicago]).

I remember, when I was around 2 years old, the mail lady gave me a Hello Kitty toothbrush + case.

Seems like a lot of my memories from the 80s involve friendly strangers giving me things for no reason =) I remember some man at the bar gave me a cube of colby jack cheese, and the concept of a cheese (which is already awesome) mixed together with a different color of cheese just blew my tiny mind. I'm fairly certain that was the beginning of a lifelong addiction.

animated tv shows for kids were starting to become a thing around that time, i think.

3? because they kept breaking down?

my dad had a 1995 plymouth voyager, i think the transmission was made of glass. it soon failed and sat for a few years until my uncle bought it and fixed it up.

i got to drive a 1989 chrysler tc recently, that was probably the king of k cars or something.


the faux wood is atrocious, but i like the angular boxiness and the straight lines, no nonsense design. they're cheap cars and aren't afraid to flaunt it.

bought one [Plymouth Reliant K "America"] new when I was in the army, me and the finance company owned it it was a damned good car for the time that I owned it, a year of good driving until some GD zoned out druggie almost killed me when he rear-ended me at a stoplight. I think god had plans for me because with the gas tank in the rear just like those infamously incendiary Ford Pintos, one little spark would have sent me to the elysian fields, express. gas all over the place. I had just filled the tank up on the way to a job interview, and that full tank probably acted a bit like a cushion that kept me from feeling the full impact [he was going in excess of 40 miles per hour, trying to beat the left turn lane light which had already turned yellow]. I got whiplash outta that, laid up for a few months before I was healthy enough to get outta bed and look for work. got hired by uncle sam's army hospital and hadda get another car, so I found a used Reliant but it turns out it was an older model with a BAD electronic carburetor [remember those?] that leaked gas and was a fire hazard, the overhaul broke my bank account, it started dollar n'dime'in' me to death, so I hadda trade that in [on another used model] on what was the REAL king of all K-cars, the Dodge Dynasty, which had one of those "glass" transmissions you mentioned, after two years the thing would barley shift so I ended up getting rid of it. it rode very well though, floated over bumps like a Cadillac, and was roomy enough to wear a hat inside, nice cushy seats great for the long haul, but still compact enough to park easily anywhere. just the transmission ruined it.

The "K-cars" probably saved Chrysler's hide.

Am I enamored of the 1980s?" No, I'm not. There was lots of cynicism around, biting cynicism. There was an "enlightened self-interest" quality to many people. And lots of apathy, too.

Maybe, to a kid, it was a nice decade because the array of things one can "do" expanded considerably in the '80's.

I liked the 90s a LOT BETTER.

Why do you say that?

Clinton VS Reagan as President. That would be my reason number one. A senile religious fanatic replaced by a sane and rational man. The economy of the 90s was great and not the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer decade long poverty fest of the 80s. The country enjoyed a decade of peace and we relaxed from the constant anxiety of nuclear weapons wiping out most of the globe. The post WWII animosities were finally relaxed in favor of the Global Village. Liberalism enjoyed a resurgence and it was OK once again to be homosexual, anti military, anti corporation, and pro feminism.

I really miss the 90s.

There were a lot of revitalization efforts in the mid to late 80s that paid off in the 90s.

The car of the 80s

Toyota Corolla


The car of the 90s

Chevy Suburban


Upscale shopping center of the 80s


Upscale shopping center of the 90s


Park of the (early) 80s


Park of the late 80s and 90s (Pepsi Parks)


Trash cans of the 80s


Trash bins (cans) of the 90s


Before urban renewal.


After urban renewal.


Another thing that happened in the 90s is crime began to drop. It peaked in the late 70s and early 80s. A lot of people think this was due to the crack epidemic, and that played a role, but a lot of people also erroneously think the drop in crime was due to police forces getting tougher on crime than they were. What had actually happened though, was that crime peaked in the 70s and early 80s and then began to drop because large swaths of the population of people who were exposed to lead as young children before gasoline became unleaded, reached their teens and early adulthood by the late 70s and early 80s. Lead poisoning lowers IQ and is associated with criminality. Most of these individuals eventually died or became incarcerated, or their inclination towards criminality declined with age, as it naturally does. By the mid 90s, crime had dropped significantly and the Bloods and the Crips, who had been in a notorious gang war, called a truce which was surprisingly fairly well maintained.

[url=Lead-Crime hypothesis]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-crime_hypothesis[/url]

My favourite decade was the 70s...

the 70s IMHO were like a lower octave of the 90s. what happened in the 90s had a lot of its germs in the 70s.

The 70s were very salient for me. Particularly 1978

if you don't mind, what happened in '78?

I know a place that looks just like that, but I don't see Jimmy John's in that photo.

War.