Some of my most standout memories from my childhood are of TV. Like a lot of kids who grew up in the 80s the earliest shows I can remember watching were cartoons and my favorites to watch were Transformers, Go-Bots and He-Man. These memories are especially clear from when we moved to California in 1984-85. I was 5 years old or so. My friends and I would run around the neighborhood singing the Transformers theme song pretending to be Autobots or Decepticons. One of my friends even had the GoBot Command Center, which I’m still jealous about. Ah, to be that young again.
There were other shows I recall from the 80s too. Silver Spoons being one and Saturday Morning Kung Fu another. But the one that I keep coming back to was the Wonder Years. It depicted the life of a boy growing up in Everywhere, America in the 60’s and early 70s, covering the ages of 12-17. Each year it was on took place 20 years from when it was airing. The funny thing being is that I never watched it and yet it wormed itself into my memory. Maybe it was the theme song.
One day soon after my dad passed, I found myself thinking about the show. When would have been my Wonder Years era? After some quick math I realized it had me passed by years ago. It would have had to kickoff in 2010 when I was 32 and cover the years 1990 thru 1995 which were tumultuous years for me. Like Kevin, I went through many changes and saw some crazy events. Not as monumental as the ones Kevin experienced but still up there. Waco, Ruby Ridge, Desert Storm. All things that would come back around in 2017.
Thinking on that moment, I began reminiscing about how different my kid’s childhoods have been. Even among themselves they have had contrasting experiences. The oldest grew up as I did with TV. Yet, the youngest has so many options, from Netflix to Amazon Video to Apple TV, it’s a miracle he has any favorite shows. The thing I notice most about him though is his patience. Whereas I and even his older siblings had to wait or scrounge virus-laden Torrent sites (Remember LimeWire??) for missing episodes of a show, he just has to find the right streaming service and he is on his way to consuming episode after episode. I’m not too concerned yet or worried an A.I. will replace his brain. I do have to wonder how it will all play out for him and his siblings later in life.