I grew up middle class during a time when being middle class offered you a pretty comfortable lifestyle. My family was by no means rich, but we never wanted for much. This is probably a similar story to many people growing up in the 80s and 90s. One luxury that my family always had was...satellite tv. It was a non-negotiable with my dad. I knew about HBO way before any elementary school kid should. My dad was a satellite savant. We are not talking about the small dish that we are accustomed to nowadays, but a beast that looked like you were trying to contact life on another planet. I remember having some kind of paper guide for the box that came with the dish, but you essentially had to know the right "galaxy" code to pick up any kind of programming. ESPN may be on channel 24 on Galaxy G4. You'd punch in this information and then the satellite dish would actually rotate to the correct position. The only way to fix the dish was to get parts from Radio Shack - back when Radio Shack was predominately for ham radio nerds :). I remember moving houses when I was 7 and my dad actually brought the satellite dish and the equipment with us to the new house. I think he actually installed it himself. I caught on to the navigation of this system this pretty quickly. My parents did not have a ton of rules on TV, but there were programs that my mom was not a fan of and would make me turn off immediately. Some of the programs I remember were - Dinosaurs (not the momma!) and The Simpsons. One program that my parents were not quite hip to was MTV - which was surprising given my dad's position as a school administrator.
MTV was obviously huge in the 80s and 90s. This is no secret. The majority of the reason that the network was so popular during this time was that they actually showed music videos. As a young, impressionable white kid growing up in a small town - it was a window into the world I had not previously been exposed to. You could gain access to all types of genres, clothing styles, and regional cultures. It was absolutely fascinating. I remember the early 90s as being the time that I fell in love with two things (primarily because they were becoming increasingly popular) - the NBA and rap music. One TV show that bridged these two for me was The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Will Smith was talented. I had read somewhere that he had achieved a perfect score on his SAT. Once I had saved up enough money to buy my first CD, it was up to my parent's consent to actually let me make that purchase. I'm pretty sure the CD cost $16 back then. I remember it like it was yesterday - my parents had taken me to the local KMart and had allowed me to use some birthday money to purchase this bad boy - in all of its over the top, cardboard induced, packaging glory....
Hear's to you Will Smith - I've been supporting you since 1991. Maybe you can give me some test prep tips if I ever see you. I also want to thank you for being wholesome enough for my parents to allow me to purchase you and Jeff's work :).
I leave you with a couple of my questionable, early purchases - probably around 3rd to 5th grade. Due to the early cost of CDs, my rule was I had to like more than 3 songs if I was going to make the investment. I'm glad to know that these guys went on to bigger successes :). Shoutout to Teddy Riley.
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