While we were waiting for the rain to let up in PEI, I was surfing Facebook (I’d rather be surfing the actual sea!) and came across this BuzzFeed article about a new trending hashtag on #GrowingUpCanadian. I should have known I was not the target demographic audience when the first point made reference to autocorrect, but yeesh – I have no idea what *most* of these things are.
So, my Gen X bloggy peeps, let’s do this properly. Never mind the millennial edition, what did it mean for you to be #GrowingUpCanadian in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s?
I’ll start! #GrowingUpCanadian in the 1970s meant:
Wanting Fran to see you in her magic mirror on Romper Room.
Dreaming of being featured on Tiny Talent Time (I was back in London last summer and tickled to see that CHCH has relaunched a new version of this old favourite of mine.)
You know the theme song that starts:
There’s a voice that keeps on calling me
Down the road, that’s where I’ll always be.
Every stop I make, I make a new friend,
Can’t stay for long, just turn around and I’m gone again
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, I’ll just keep moving on.
You slow danced to Bryan Adams’ Heaven at the school dance.
Coveting the breakfast cereals you could see on commercials but not get in Canada.
You wrote a school project about Terry Fox.
Wearing Beaver Canoe and Roots long before the Americans discovered them.
You brought boxes of Kraft Dinner to throw at the stage during a BNL concert.
You had a crush on JD Roberts or Erica Ehm.
Your favourite snack foods were Hostess ketchup chips and Pop Shoppe pop (lime was my favourite!)
Beloved grew up in Windsor and is a few years younger than me, so I asked him for his input. I laughed out loud when he said, “Bear wrestling on CBC.” Um, okay, I’ll have to take his word on that one – somehow that escaped my cultural experience.
Okay, that’s all I could come up with off the top of my head. What about you? What defines #GrowingUpCanadian from your childhood?
as a young kid…… Mr.Dress Up, Polka Dot Door, Raffi
as a teen in Canada… legwarmers, Cougar Boots, Adidas bags, Bryan Adams, Corey Hart, video taping favorite music videos on Much and watching them over & over & over again. when you called your friend and got the busy signal.. over & over again. (oh yeah… I was that friend!)
mixed tapes. enough said (not just in Canada but such a part of life as a teen)
. . . knowing what’s behind the Polka Dot Door and watching Beachcombers!