Oh how I miss the 80's...I'm listening to We Are The World (God I hate Bruce "I'm constipated" Springsteen, but I digress) ... that was a really cool time in my life, save for a few things I wish would not have happened, but I guess it molded me into a part of the person I am today...

This just really takes me back to when I lived in Chicago. I was 12, soon to be 13, and this was the 1st time I heard We Are The World.

It was when all girls (and some guys) just wanted to have fun.

We all did the Truffle Shuffle with Chunk and the rest of the Goonies.

Prince was IT, man and I knew every song and every move he made...It was me and Denise and Wendy and we performed for our parents and the neighbor kids...my God, what dorks we were!

My step mother has pictures of me dressed up as Boy George. :::shudders:::

Michael Jackson ruled the world and Cyndi Lauper actually gave a shit about her fans. I still enjoy her music but I will never go to a concert again - unless it's free!

Stand By Me was the movie of the year ( In my book anyway.)

My step brothers and I always went out to a wooded area and built a raft out of sticks and fallen tree limbs and sailed across the pond, in a land we dubbed "Fantasia," from The Neverending Story. I remember and will never forget the hundreds of water spiders that came up out of the water and onto the raft - that was the day we discovered it really is possible to walk on water, only we ran our asses off!

We constantly referred to each other as Skeksis and Gelflings and ran around outside looking for the crystal shard... I applaud anyone who reads this and can tell me what movie this is from (without having to look it up.)

This was also the 1st time I had actually witnessed the first snow fall. My brothers and I were looking out the window and it started to snow. I thought somebody was on the roof tossing styrofoam or something down. That would turn out to be a very cold and miserable winter for me.

I went back there 13 years ago while on vacation to D.C., decided to stop by and visit my brothers (who still lived in IL at the time), take a look around at our old stomping grounds...how sad that none of it was there anymore. It's all apartments and shopping centers now. Fantasia lives only in our memories. We must never forget.

What's your fondest childhood memory?