When I was a kid in the 80s, you had to call the movie theater with the wall phone in your mom’s kitchen and listen to a recording that told you the showtimes and the movies that were playing. Then you had to go and just hope they had tickets—a leap of faith but exciting.

For me summers will always be eating grilled cheese sandwiches while watching reruns of The Monkees on a grainy TV and going in the backyard to play on the Slip ’N Slide

Going to the matinee over the summer, seeing Ghostbusters II, then coming out into the bright parking lot felt like traveling across dimensions, just sitting there waiting for your mom to pick you up

There was something special about walking into a local video rental store, with no idea what you were going to get, then strolling the aisles before heading up to the counter and handing over your card as they put an “Out on Rental” tag on everything, then going home happy

Why can’t they bring back the old Pizza Hut with the red vinyl booths, the pitchers of Pepsi on your table, the salad bars, the arcade games, and the jukebox? The personal pan pizzas served in a SKILLET that you got for reading books all summer?

I remember getting a poster for The Karate Kid Part Il in a box of Chips Ahoy one time and putting it up on my wall. My sister got the record with the soundtrack on it and we sat on her floor listening to "Glory of Love" all summer

Waking up on a Saturday morning before your parents, fixing a bowl of Cap’n Crunch Berries, then sitting on the floor in front of the TV and watching cartoons as the milk in your cereal bowl turns pink

watching horror movies on betamax made them seem scarier, all that blood was so much brighter than on vhs

A giant slice of pizza at the food court, a large ICEE, a pocket full of quarters for the arcade, driving home in your mom’s Dodge Caravan

That Thundercats shirt you wore so many times that the logo started to crack and fade but you still wore it anyway

When we were in elementary school and it rained during recess, they’d put all of the kids in the gym and roll out a TV in the middle of the basketball court and put on THE NEVERENDING STORY and we’d all watch it like we were in a movie theater, it was easy to be happy

Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of THE GOONIES and it just occurred to me that Josh Brolin was watching a music video by Cyndi Lauper, which was literally about the goonies, when he got tied up with his exercise equipment and that seems worth mentioning

I was six years old when TOP GUN came out and we went to the movie theater to see it and the part when that Berlin song is playing felt so scandalous for a six year old to see, those silhouettes of Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis licking each other

We were too poor to afford a Members Only jacket so I had one from Wal-Mart that said David Michael instead and I used to just tell kids that was my name

i wish the summer was like season three of stranger things, sneaking into the movie theater at the mall, eating ice cream, going to the community pool, the fourth of july celebration, walking in the woods with winona ryder smoking camel cigarettes

i feel like a lot of kids’ perspectives were shaped by how much harder it was to use the power glove than the ads made it look, or that movie with fred savage from the wonder years

when your friend from elementary school invited you to their birthday party at mcdonald’s, that was peak childhood and you didn’t even know it