All I need to know, I learned in the '80s

There’s a great book, titled, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” written by Robert Fulghum in 1986. The book was so elegant in its simplicity that it sold seven million copies, made Fulgham an instant celebrity (and a millionaire), and spawned numerous sequels and imitators.

In the book, Fulghum argued that the essential lessons taught in kindergarten classes, like playing fair, washing our hands, telling the truth, and putting things back where we found them are every bit as important in our adult lives as they were to us as children. He also finds deeper meanings in established kindergarten activities. The seed planted in a styrofoam cup takes sprouts and grows. We don’t know why, but it does. We also know that if we water it, it thrives. If we do not water it, it withers. Fulghum also explores the importance of the class goldfish or hamster. They also die, as we do.

The world of politics did not escape Mr. Fulghum’s analogies when he wrote, “Think what a better world it would be if we all-the whole world-had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.”

In the long-standing tradition of ripping off Fulghum’s gift to the world, I have often considered my experiences in the 1980s as a part of my “all I needed to know” trajectory. I do so in part, because I was in my twenties, discovering the world and the joys and the pains that go with it, as well as the events of the day and their impact on our present world.

It was in the dawning days of the 1980s that the commencement speaker at my High School graduation told us that one day, computers would play a vital role in our lives. We believed him but had no idea that “someday” would arrive so quickly or have such a dramatic impact on our lives (In 1986 Microsoft went public, selling 3.5 million shares for $28).

In the fall of 1980, I learned the word “travesty.” While sitting next to a congressional staffer on the commuter train into Washington DC the day after John Lennon was murdered. We discussed the sad news and he used the word as we passed by the old DC Coliseum where the beatles had played two nights after their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. I was sure that he had meant “tragedy,” and was mistaken, but I looked it up in a paper dictionary and “travesty” was indeed correct. I have been looking up interesting words ever since.

In the 1980s, we all learned that in technology there were winners and losers and that despite the venerable Sony brand, Betamax was destined to be a loser. The Betamax foreshadowed the similar fate of 8-track tapes, cassettes, DVDs and compact disks. Now, in the 2020s, when our primary medium is ones and zeros, we are finding our way back to the vinyl disks that we purchased throughout the 1970s.

In the 80s, the terror of aids forced us to realize that casual intimacy was risky business, and upcoming actor Tom Cruise celebrated the intensity of off-the-hook capitalism in a movie of the same name. Also at the movies, we learned that Beaver Cleaver’s mom could speak jive.

Some of us learned that many well-intentioned programs designed to help people out of poverty didn’t always have the intended outcome. We also learned that anyone who dared discuss the topic should expect to be called a racist, regardless of the peer-reviewed research supporting those concerns.

I also recall when we proudly (and arrogantly) announced that “disco sucks,” but that cool people listen to European Techno music. In retrospect, 80s Techno sounds an awful lot like disco, but with Elvis Costello, Nina Haagen, the Flying Lizards, Devo, and the Talking Heads, the sky was the creative limit and who can forget when, in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanac, Frankie goes to Hollywood taught us about the virtue of delayed gratification?

We also learned that wealthy people prefer dijon mustard, but eating dijon mustard doesn’t make us wealthy. We learned from the debacle that was “New Coke,” that Americans loved what is now called “classic” Coca-cola, but also that there was a new, less expensive form of cocaine hitting the streets in major cities called “crack.”

During the 80s, the Supreme Court told us that destroying an American flag was not treason, but an exercise of speech protected by the constitution. Meanwhile, our government, under the auspices of a charismatic Marine Colonel was busy freeing hostages, trading arms with “moderate” forces in Iran, and funding counter-revolutionary forces in Nicaragua in an effort that was eventually deemed to be “extra-constitutional.”

It was in the 1980s that NASA’s shuttle program made space travel so common that it became routine until it wasn’t. Then we learned seven crew members, including one special school teacher, could break our hearts. We also flocked to the movie theaters to see a movie about a friendly little alien who wanted nothing more than to phone home.

Americans learned that television evangelists Jerry Falwell and Jim Bakker were hypocrites and scoundrels, while Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama were winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace (Mother Teresa won in 1979). We also learned that a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, could be a very effective vice presidential candidate, but that Dan Quale was “no Jack Kennedy.”

Prince made “Purple Rain” and a pop singer calling herself simply “Madonna” made “Desperately Seeking Susan,” but it was in the later days of the decade that we learned that the one-time pop icon Cat Stevens who sang the contemplative songs “Morning has Broken,” “Oh Very Young” and “Peace Train,” endorsed Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for the execution of author Salman Rushdie, who nearly lost his life in a knife attack as recently as August of 2022. We also learned that top musicians could get together and raise huge sums of money for benevolent works when Bob Geldoff organized Live Aid.

In the latter days of the 1980s, we also learned that, unlike their somewhat more socialistic American counterparts, Polish labor unions could lead the path to freedom and democracy. Then, with the fall of the Berlin wall in November of 1989, we learned that our dreaded cold war enemy was not invincible and that David Hasslehoff was a singer? Who knew?

Amazingly, much of this feels like it just happened yesterday. Some of these are things that (we hope) kids will read in history texts, but many of us lived them. As I write this, between tears of laughter and just plain tears, I can’t help but wonder, “What lessons of the 2020s will be carried forward for the next 40 years?