Tonight I'm Not Gonna Party Cuz It's 1893

I've been reading Steve Hockensmith's nostalgic rambles of late with great interest. For I, too, have a certain fondness for the eighties.

Poverty. Back-breaking labor. Blizzards and droughts and disease. Who wouldn't miss 'em?

Ahhhh, the 1880s. Happy days!

Facetiousness aside -- if I can actually get it aside for a second...you know me -- there were some good times for the Amlingmeyer clan back in the (for me) last decade. We were still a family then, all of us together on the farm. And oh, how nice it would be to pop in a BVD of one of the better days as easily as you moderners can pop in a Charles in Charge from Netflix.

(Note: I have no idea who "Charles" was or what exactly he was in charge of. Hockensmith just told me it would remind y'all of the 1980s. If he's funning with me somehow, please let me know so that I can put myself in charge of kicking his ass.)

I'll be interested to see what Hockensmith has to say about his Romancing the Stone and his My Ever Changing Moods and his (he tells me) Gremlins and Dungeons & Dragons and Indiana Jones. Not that I have any more of a clue about 'em than Charles in Charge. (Though I must say -- "Indiana Jones" would make a great cowboy name.) But I'm curious to see if Hockensmith's past can be bottled up so easy in a BVD.

If so -- if hitting "PLAY" is all it takes for you moderners to truly relive your youth -- I'll be both jealous of you and a little sad for you. My childhood's gone forever, and that's too bad...I guess. But the moments of it I miss most were real.

In other words, I don't want any fairy tale Charles in charge of me.

Otto "Big Red" Amlingmeyer
May 15, 1893

P.S.: Now get back to work, Hockensmith! You're supposed to be helping me finish the next book, not laying on the couch watching The Last &*$#ing Starfighter!

Whatever that is....