(Photo was taken by my friend Robert @rjackso714 on instagram)

I was born in 1982, which means I entered this world mid-hangover, sometime after the party peaked and before anyone bothered to clean up. America was sweating through the last good years of the Cold War, still convinced it could win an arm-wrestling match with the entire planet. Reagan was on TV smiling like a used-car prophet, missiles were pointed at everything, and everyone pretended this was normal.

1982 was the year of neon lies and analog dreams. Arcades glowed like temples. Atari was king—right before it ate itself alive. Kids were learning hand-eye coordination from pixels and rage, smashing joysticks while adults worried about nuclear winter. E.T. crash-landed in theaters and took an entire industry down with it. Spielberg giveth, Spielberg taketh away.

Music was mutating. Vinyl spun rebellion at 33⅓ RPM. Michael Jackson dropped Thriller and turned pop into a global weapon. MTV flickered to life like a dangerous new drug—suddenly you didn’t just hear music, you watched it. Image became currency. Substance optional. The future was learning how to lie louder.

The Cold War was still cold, but everyone could feel it thawing into something weirder. Falklands War. Beirut burning. The word “terrorism” starting to show up more often in headlines, like a bad omen testing the waters. Meanwhile, kids like me were born into wood-paneled living rooms with cigarette smoke hanging in the air, raised by parents who drank coffee like it was survival fuel and trusted the TV more than they should have.

1982 was pre-internet, pre-cell phone, pre-safety rails. You disappeared all day and came home when the streetlights came on. Helmets were optional. Consequences were not. It was an era that taught you how to fall down early and get back up without filing a report.

I came from a year balanced between optimism and collapse—when the world still believed in progress but hadn’t yet admitted the bill was coming due. A year that raised kids tough enough to adapt, skeptical enough to question, and stubborn enough to keep going even when the signal cuts out.

1982 didn’t promise us much.

It just shoved us onto the road and said, Good luck. Try not to blow it.