Like many a youth of my (or any) generation, I served a sentence at the requisite fast food restaurant. My prison of choice was McDonald’s, where I slaved away 20-30 hours a week during my junior and senior years of high school. Minimum wage in 1982-1983 was $3.35, so my take-home was $60-90 a week. Pitiful from today’s perspective, but more than enough to keep me in gas and support the occasional movie date (tickets were $3 each) and trips to the mall.
Friday and Saturday I worked as a closer, from 4:00pm - 1:30am. The closing crew was pretty regular: me, Troy, Judy, Sarah, Kim, Gordon, Porter and a few others. Sometimes, after shift, we’d get together and do a little partying, enjoying a few cold beers pulled from the green 5-gallon pickle bucket (courtesy of McDonald’s) stuffed with ice (also courtesy of McDonald’s) that had been chilling in the trunk of my car.
One night we rolled out of the parking lot after closing and headed down to park behind a nearby school. We popped a few and put on an Eagles tape (you remember cassette tapes don’t you?). Troy and I were in the front seat, Judy and Sarah in the back. It was a beautiful spring night, a slight breeze, the stars bits of glass on black cloth. The radio cast a faint blue light.
We drank our Michelob (the high schooler’s beer of choice in the early 80s) and listened. After the the song finished, Judy sighed and said “Now that’s harmony”.
Yeah, sometimes I was a bit of a delinquent. Cruising the back rounds of Calvert County in my 1972 Buick Skylark, this song blaring, Ted hanging out the window with a baseball bat, teaching mailboxes a lesson while the rest of us cheered him on…..
In the first semester of my sophomore year in college, I began dating Vanessa. Over Christmas break, I drove up to visit her in New Jersey (I lived in Maryland). It was about a 5 hour drive. At the time I owned a lime-green ‘69 Mustang coupe. The most significant part if this story? The car had no heat.
I was on my way home after the visit, in line to go through a toll booth on the New Jersey turnpike when this song came on the radio. I was so cold, I mean COLD…. totally miserable, my feet and hands completely numb despite the layers of socks and gloves and mittens. The line inched forward, and this song played, and my hands and feet were ice, and I remember thinking I’m not making this drive again.
After break, Vanessa and I dated another month or so before going our separate ways.
There’s this photograph of my wife, she’s probably nineteen or twenty at the time, early 1980s, well before I met her. She’s sitting on a concrete berm on a beach with her dog, a shepherd mix named Sting (coolest dog ever).
Hey…. Duran Duran called. They want their hair back. Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand….
I first met my wife at the Old Cutler Oyster Company Raw Bar and Grill. The original restaurant blew away in Hurricane Andrew in 1992 (a year after we left for Japan), but they’ve long since opened at a new location.
She was a waitress and I a young Air Force guy stationed at the nearby Homestead Air Force Base (also blown away; it’s an Air National Guard base now, with only the runway open).
The Raw Bar (as we called it) was a popular spot - good food, good prices, plenty of week day specials, and two pool tables. They had live music, a band called the Instamatics that played popular hits as well as some classics. Around 9:00, they’d clear some tables out of the way to make space for a small dance floor and the Instamatics took their place on a little raised stage against the wall. The lead singer’s name was Sarah; she dated a guy named Kenny, whom I played pool with upon occasion. One of the songs Sarah often sang was Love Shack.
When I hear the song, I can see the layout of the Raw Bar clearly and easily recall the friends I hung out with (as well as a jerk named Frank who used to get drunk and try to start fights). I remember always seeing a very attractive blond waitress hurrying about….
