How old am I anyways?

I think it happened at 26. I just started to forget how old I was. Age was such an important thing when I was a kid. How old are you? The answer never was I'm 7. No it was I'm 7 and a half. Or I'm 7 and 3/4's. And I always knew. Somewhere in my later 20's I just started to forget. I pick 26 because I got married when I was 26. I moved across the country at 26. It was a real adult experience year. Ask me how old I am now and I have to think about it. (I'm 33).
So today I read an article about Pac-Man. Pac-Man was such a marker of my childhood. A recognisable symbol. Everyone knew pac-man. We played Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man...collected Pac-Man cards and stickers...even watched a Pac-Man cartoon. Do you want to know how old Pac-Man is? Almost 30. That's right, next year is the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. Right there in my face an age marker.
So I started to wonder about other age markers.
Here's some of the pop-culture items that mark my past.
Cabbage Patch Kids: ahh the frenzy of 3rd grade. Having a Cabbage Patch Kid was like a marker of the great mom that you were sure to be one day. Cabbage Patch Kids were 1st mass produced in 1982, making them 27 years old.
Tetris: what a computer addiction Tetris was (and is, I've recently rediscovered in Tetris Friends on Facebook) - 1985 was the design date on this one making it 24 years old.
Strawberry Shortcake: orginally designed in 1977 making her 32 this year.
The Dukes of Hazzard: How I loved Bo Duke and how my brother and I tried to enter and exit our parents Red Ford through the rolled-down windows. John Schneider who played Bo Duke is turning 49 next month folks. The Show originally aired from 1979 to 1985.
Underoos - the fun dress up underwear. I had Wonder Woman. 1978 Fruit of the Loom started to produce these babies.

The Facts of Life: What girl didn't love this show? We even pretended to be these characters. FYI - This year Blair will be 46, Jo and Natalie will be 43, and Tootie will be 40...or at least the actresses who played them.
Monchhichi - does anyone else remember these? I really, really wanted one when I was 7. They were a Japanese toy/cartoon that spread throughout the western world in the late 70's/early 80's.
Star Blazers: for a long while I thought my brother and I were the only ones who remembered this show. Then sometime back in my early 20's we found someone else who not only remembered it, but could sing the theme song with us. Then we found someone who not only rembered it, but owned the DVD release. Ahh, my sanity was verified. For those of you not in the know, or racking your brain, Star Blazers was one of the first true Anime English dubbed cartoons to do well in North America. The premise was that the crew travelled in a big spaceship (the Argo) that looked a lot like a sea ship with a big red bottom on various missions to save the planet earth. The charcters included Derek Wildstar, Nova, and my favorite Queen Starsha.



Star Blazers Closing Lyrics

We're off in outer space
Protecting Mother Earth
To save the human race
Our Star Blazers

Danger lurking everywhere
But we know we've got to dare
Evil men with evil schemes
They can't destroy all our dreams

We must be strong and brave
Our home we've got to save
We must make the fighting cease
So Mother Earth will be at peace

Through all the fire and the smoke
We will never give up hope
If we can win the Earth will survive
We'll keep peace alive
With our Star Blazers

Sorry, I went off on a nostalgic tangent there. Back in my childhood memories. You know what's sad? and kind of contributed to this nostalgia today? One of my gr. 8 lessons this week was based on TV music. The CD clips that were in the lesson were to me really, really easy. (and yes, I know these shows were already running in re-runs when I saw them the first time around, but...) But I couldn't believe that not one person got all 7 of them. And only 1 student (out of 2 classes) got 6. The themes were": The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Sesame Street, The Andy Griffith Show (not a single one got that one), Mission Impossible (some got it thanks to the movies), the Addams Family and Gilligan's Island (some in one class got this one, nobody in the other class figured it out). Gilligan's Island people! I know it still runs in re-runs or Deja-View. And I've seen the DVD's out in the stores. The other thing that was a marker of my age was in the discussion we had on family sitcoms and the music for them. When I think Family sit-com my first thought is The Cosby Show. That name never crossed a student's lips. Their family sit-coms are the Simpsons (granted it's been around for about 20 years and I probably would list it too), the Family Guy (only ever watched one episode), Everybody Loves Raymond and My Wife and Kids. But then when I got to think about it, they hey-day of the family sit-com really doesn't exist anymore. It was a staple of my generation (Family Ties, Growing Pains, Full House, Who's the Boss?, Mr, Belvedere...) and the generations before (the Brady Bunch, the Partridge Family, All in the Family...) but what's on like that now? It is The Simpsons and the Family Guy.