Oh, you don't know me but you make me so happy

1982 starts on a Friday. I begin my second semester of 8th grade at the Modale campus of West Harrison Community Schools.

The San Francisco 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bungles 26 to 21 in Super Bowl XVI. The Clemson Tigers beat the Cornhumpers in the Orange Bowl and are crowned (voted) champs of the '81 season.

Ozzy Osbourne dined on a bat head at the Barn in Des Moines. Blues Brother John Belushi died from a drug overdose thus beginning the curse of the fat SNL guy. Hall & Oates, Men at Work, Toni Basil, and Lionel Richie all have number 1 hits. It is not a good year for music.

Michael Jordon's Tarheels beats Patrick Ewing's Hoyas 63 to 62 to win the 1982 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. My Clones had a 10 and 17 season and were not part of the Madness. Oh, and the Lakers were NBA champs in the pro version of basketball.

I have my 14th birthday. Three days later Argentina invades the Falkland Islands starting the Falklands "War." A few weeks later I get my learner's permit to drive (legally). Coincidence? I think not.

Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken, Jr. plays game number 1 of what would end as record-breaking 2632 consecutive baseball games.

Laura Hougen and I deliver speeches at our 8th Grade Promotion ceremony. Mom told me to remove the line "memories we will never forget" because it's redundant. Laura starts her speech with the riddle "How do you catch a unique rabbit? Unique up on it." Both are memories I have never forgotten.

Chicks and babes across the United States despair as the pane of glass over their heads is reinforced when the proposed Constitutional Amendment to guarantee "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex" fails to get ratification.

"Poltergeist" reinforced my loathing of clowns. "E.T." made me try Reece's Pieces (don't know that I've bought them since). Mr. T becomes the best adversary ever in a Sly Stallone movie. And, best of all, Ricardo Montalbán proves there is such a thing as a good Star Trek movie and a sequel better than an original. To this day I have never seen "Porky's" from start to finish though I understand it is very popular with teen-aged boys.

Lawrence Richard "Lawnchair Larry" Walters realized a childhood dream when he tied a bunch of balloons to his lawn-chair and floated across California at 15,000 feet above the ground. He disrupted flights into LAX and caused a power outage in Los Angeles before being arrested. He committed suicide eleven years later.

Johnny Gosch is abducted while delivering newspapers in West Des Moines, Iowa. He is never found. His case helps spur the creation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

The Cardinals need seven games to take the World Series from the Brewers. That summer I played Cub A ball for Mondamin and Junior Varsity ball for the high school. In a JV game against East Monona I hit a towering flyball that hit the right field fence - the closest I would ever come to a dinger in any league.

"Family Ties," "Newhart," and "Cheers" premier on the boobtube. Unfortunately, so do "T.J. Hooker" and "Knight Rider." Alex P. Keaton is still one of my heroes. So is Cliff Clavin.

Cal Bears player Kevin Moen stiff-arms two Stanford flautists and a trombone player before scoring a game winning touchdown. The penalty for having too many band members on the field is declined. UC-Berkely 25, Stanford 20. In Coach Donnie Duncan's last season at ISU my Cyclones stumble to a 4-6-1 record. Surely new coach, Jim Criner, will do better.

In the Fall I start my freshman year of high school. The Class of '83 did not haze us nearly as badly as we were led to believe they would.

Our classmate, Kenneth Duane "Tobi" Neill passes away on a cold, gray day in November. I was in the lunch room/locker room when the announcement came over the school public address speakers just minutes after someone told me it was just a rumor and that he was fine.

1982 really wasn't that great of a year.

This post's title is a lyric from Tommy Tutone's "867-5309(Jenny)" which hit number four on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1982.