Cory, I Never Even Knew You

In 1988 I was just graduating from highschool. I had an older boyfriend, skinny jeans and had just realized that I had an affinity for another entirely different set of Lost Boys, Guns & Roses. I remember the Corys. As in, "Oh look, all the younger girls are crushing on a River Phoenix lookalike and a ferret"  But I would have been a pervert to notice them. They certainly were no....hmmm. Rob Lowe? I can't remember who was the sensation that year.



But I can remember being in college, and having a friend, Pleather Kathy, of the $5 Rave throwaway outfits, and cruising at Old Orchard Beach, a full 2 hours north of our house, looking for all the world like party favor groupies in her Pontiac Firebird (well beyond any time that a Firebird was cool, mind you, The VW Rabbit was cool), meeting all the bands, and then the next morning pretending I didn't know them on the beach. Because to be fair, long hair, tight jeans and necklaces look fantastic at 3am but at high noon on the sand? Just stop it.

And for all people talk about big hair in the 80's, by 87, 88, 89 - well, it's like the scene in Summer of Sam when Mira Sorvino and whatever Vinny Boombatsi's real name was go into the bar and disco is dead and grunge is king. At this point girls were in penny loafers and blazers and every good club turned into an Irish Pub, and we were all expected to be biatheletes and play hackey-sack and snowboard and really, the list goes on. We had to go to Southern Maine, dress like we were from Montreal and sneak gin into Porkeys by the Pier just to try and capture some of the early 80s mojo we missed by the raised drinking age.

Yes, when I was  15 they raised the drinking age from 18 to 20.
The shortly after to 21.
Bitter, those years.

But I digress.

I think though there were the Corys, and NKoTB, and likely myriad other young boy bands all the while I was discovering Bad Company and wearing skinny jeans with white heels to the Montley Crue Theater of Pain  concert... but only in secret.

To class I wore the de rigueur gap headband, jeans and cardigan.
An outfit, I might at, I am still HANDLING today. Yes, that's my new expression.
I'm no longer rocking things, I'm handling them.

So I suppose farewell to Cory, one of you.
and also to Merlin Olsen, aka Jonathan Garvey on Little House on the Prairie who by the way, NEVER appeared in any of the 8 books or The First Four Years, Rose Wilder's publication of her mothers notes  so obviously I'm calling BALDERDASH and SHENANIGANS on this one.

Ah my youth.
Farrah, Michael, Brittany, Cory, and the made up Prairie guy.

I wonder if number three will be someone from Men at Work?
Or Irene Cara.