“…where everyone’s on your case? From the teacher all the way down to your best girlfriend?” – Motley Crue

As I write this, the first day of school is in effect in my area, and teachers all over are getting on the cases of children everywhere!

The first day of school. You remember don’t you? First day wardrobe decisions to make, car lines to navigate, crossing guards on patrol dressed in their finest brights, and young parents walking their children down the street and dropping them off for the beginnings of another school year.

My wife and I made that first day walk for six years with our daughter Caroline from kindergarten through 5th grade when she finished elementary school. We only lived a block from the elementary school so it was easy. We’d hold hands and walk our excited daughter to the school chatting all the way about being good for the teacher, listening more, talking less, and about being a good classmate. It was just a matter of minutes before we were there and taking her into the school, and ultimately into what would be her homeroom classroom for the next nine months.

The walk back home for my wife and I was a little quieter, and a little more reflective knowing that those times were precious and fleeting. Those walks were mere minutes and they’ve been followed by thousands of days that are now a blur. We have the pictures though, because that’s what you do on the first day of school, right? You’re either posing for the pictures or you’ve become the parent and you’re taking the pictures. It’s a first day right of passage fulfilled on the Facebook pages of proud parents and grandparents around the world at this point in our technology-driven lives.

But in the 80’s, oh those 80’s, you had a camera with actual film in it. You snapped a few pictures and the results were left to the Kodak gods after you drove your film to Walmart or a Kodak photo lab somewhere, filled out the owner information and sealed your film inside the special envelope. Then, you waited weeks to get a phone call from the photo lab saying your photos were in and then you drove to pay for and pick up your photos. It was all so very 1980’s inefficient!

Anyway, first day of school photos have probably been around a lot longer than just the 80’s, but I always thought Gen Xers like myself were likely the first kids to be publicly humiliated outside of our houses every first day of school. I have no actual proof, just a hunch, and photographs from a bygone era. Speaking of…

Checking out the halls, making sure the coast is clear
Looking in the stalls, nah, there ain’t nobody here
My buddies, Sixx, Mick, and Tom
To get caught would surely be the death of us all

One guy that wasn’t smokin’ in the boys room in the 80’s is that stud in the picture above. BUT, I was just starting to really get into “heavy metal” music when Motley Crue released their album, “Theatre of Pain” in June of ’85. You can look at the picture above taken in August of 1985 and just tell I was into heavy metal music by my luxurious, dark, long, curly heavy metal hair in the back! Actually, I’m more likely the very definition of rocker meets banker when you combined my wild hair, the “crazy” shorts I’m wearing called “jams,” and the pristine white banker polo. I was a big Polo guy back in the day mostly because my mom thought I looked very nice in them so she stocked my wardrobe with several colors from Ralph Lauren.

My journey into hard rock had probably only begun about a year or two earlier with cassette purchases of Def Leppard’s “Pyromania” and Van Halen’s “Diver Down.” Motley Crue was still a little more “on the dangerous side” because their previous album from 1983 was called “Shout at the Devil” and I’m pretty sure anyone listening to that album around that time was high on drugs and probably going to Hell, except me of course. I never paid money for that particular album though, instead settling for a cassette copy someone made me. It wasn’t one of my favorite albums, but I played it several times and actually preferred “Looks That Kill” on that album. I didn’t listen to it a whole lot also for fear that mom would bust in my room with a “what are you listening to?” bewildered look on her face which in turn would lead to her shipping me off to a private Catholic school somewhere where the nuns would force me to listen to monks singing daily Latin chants as my only source of musical education.

Listening to dangerous music in the 80’s was a very real concern for teenagers, and there was no antagonist quite like the teacher.

Now, teacher, don’t you fill me up with your rule
‘Cause everybody knows that smoking ain’t allowed in school

I remember that we had smoking sections (or maybe just one particular section) at our high school, but I never really hung out with the smokers of the day. I had a few friends that would light up a cig on occasion, but it was never my thing, plus it was tough being an athlete running the basketball court with black lungs because you were chugging Marlboros all the time.

Released in June of 1985, this was Motley Crue’s first top 40 hit as it climbed all the way up to #16 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. A cover of the original performed by Brownsville Station in 1973, here is Vince, Nikki, Mick, Tommy and actor Michael Berryman portraying the principal as the Crue try to get their smoke on in “Smokin’ in the Boys Room”…

Thanks for reading, and go thank a teacher somewhere because you can read.

sincerely,

the80s