I listen to 80s music every day, but I like the music of your time, too

I am someone who enjoys music from all eras. That includes the 1990s, most of which I spent lugging babies around, changing their diapers, and playing Barbies with my girls, rather than paying much attention to popular music.

I've come to appreciate that decade's musical offerings retrospectively.

The point is, I like a lot of music today, I like classical music of 200 years ago, I like Big Band and bebop jazz of the 1940s and 50s, I like a whole bunch of 60s and 70s tunes, and I like music from the 80s.

Actually, I love the music of the 80s. New Wave, "college music" (that's what they used to call bands like REM, Husker Du, The Smiths and U2), heavy metal, whatever. I'm pretty sure not a day goes by when I don't listen to at least one 80s tune in my car, while I'm washing the dishes, or while I'm out walking.

A lot of people make fun of 80s music, and I get why. The associated fashion of the time was, shall we say, often garish. And there are plenty of songs from that era that are indefensible in any way other than to say they're fun.

Which is just fine. Not every song has to be deep and philosophical to be enjoyable.

You might argue that the only reason I'm so attached to 80s music is because that was the decade when I came of age, as they say. I was in high school from 1984 to 1988, and even before that as a middle schooler I bought more than my share of 45s and cassettes from the popular bands of the day.

But I think it goes beyond that. If there wasn't some intrinsic value to the music, it wouldn't be in such heavy rotation on my phone, nor would it populate my playlists like it does.

My favorites are Sting and The Police. My first concert was Sting at Cleveland's Public Hall in February 1988. I attach a lot of sentimental value and core memories to his songs. I think they still hold up very well.

Then there are Men at Work (the first band I really, really got into), Duran Duran, The Fixx, Howard Jones, Billy Joel, Iron Maiden (my favorite metal group), Huey Lewis, and a host of others I'm forgetting. They made music that was full of melody, musicianship and meaning, if you'll pardon the unintentional alliteration.

As I type this post, I'm sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Buffalo waiting to attend a work-related meeting. "Talking In Your Sleep" by the Romantics is playing over the PA system, taking me back in time to 1984. I'm the only one nodding my head and singing along.

And I guarantee I'll still be doing that when I'm 90 years old and an MTV-era song comes on.

Viva los 1980s.

Sometimes the kids come home when they're sick and it's just like the old days

It should be noted that my sick daughter looked far better than this virtual woman cooked up by the AI Blog Post Image Generator.

Last month my daughter Melanie woke up with a 103-degree fever, chills and a generally rotten sick feeling. She texted Terry, who went and picked her up and took her to the urgent care.

After being diagnosed with an unknown virus, Mel came to our house and spent the rest of the day (and night, and much of the next two days) on our couch.

Terry waited on her and made her feel as comfortable as possible. I felt so bad for Mel, but I'll admit it was nice having her around.

I was working from home, and at one point in the afternoon I came downstairs from my office to find both Melanie and Terry fast asleep on the couch. The last time that happened was probably 2001 when Mel was a baby and an exhausted Terry would nurse her there.

It was a very sweet and nostalgic scene.

You want your kids to grow up and move out and be independent, but you inevitably miss them when they do.

So these little visits – even if they result from less-than-ideal circumstances – are kind of nice.

And the best part? Mel got better, and the only person who caught whatever she had was me. (Well, Terry eventually got sick and blamed me, so maybe this wasn't "the best part" for her.)

A win-win for Jack, at least.

The old band uniforms in our living room are full of meaning

As recently as mid-November, these old band uniforms and hats were still sitting on a table in our living room.

Just before our local high school was torn down a year and a half ago, my wife heroically rescued a wealth of Wickliffe Swing Band artifacts that otherwise would have been destined for the dumpster.

Like someone pulling valuables out of a city about to be overrun by an invading army, Terry loaded up her car with old band photos, trophies, uniforms, recordings and other memorabilia.

The fact that the school didn't appear interested in making the effort to save most of it was somewhat despairing, but that's a different conversation for a different time.

The result was that, for many months, our basement and garage have been filled with band stuff. This has only been an inconvenience when I've had to haul around boxes of heavy old trophies and plaques from as far back as the 1950s. Those were the only times I complained.

Otherwise, I'm glad our house could serve as an impromptu storage facility for what I consider to be vital artifacts from our city's history.

Because all of these items mean something. They are reminders of generations of Wickliffe musicians and their directors, and of the hard work that went into countless halftime performances, Christmas concerts and jazz band performances.

They are not nuisance items to be swept aside in support of some vague notion of "progress." They are tangible remnants of an institution that has, for decades, been important to our community. They should be preserved. They should be with the people who care about them and about the band itself.

As I type this in mid-November, we still have most of these items in various places around our house. Terry was able to give away some of the uniforms to various alumni, and her plan is to give away as many of the other items as possible at some point soon (with an encouragement to make a donation to the band if you take something).

In the meantime, it's all still here. The trophy the band received for its participation in the 1981 Nordonia Festival of Bands, the plaque it was given for marching in the 1977 Fairview International Band Festival, the composite photo of band members from the 2001-02 school year, and countless other bits of nostalgia are strewn about our living room, our basement storage room, and our garage.

And I couldn't be more proud.

Any community or organization is the product of its own history. That history shapes us all. We really shouldn't be so quick to throw it away.

The smell of dinner cooking in the late afternoon takes me back 40 years

Several weeks ago, my beloved Wickliffe Swing Band performed in the front yard of one of its drum majors. The drum major's mom had bought the winning ticket for Band on Demand, an annual fundraiser in which the winner gets to have the band play outside their home.

The kids did their usual bang-up job, after which I walked down Wickliffe's Maple Street and Elm Avenue on the way back to my car. Just as I took the left turn from Maple onto Elm, it hit me.

It was the unmistakable smell of someone cooking dinner. I don't know exactly what they were making, but it was that combination of savory aromas familiar to anyone who has ever walked a suburban American street at 5:30 in the afternoon.

I hadn't experienced that smell in years, and it immediately took me back to Harding Drive in the late 1970s and early 80s.

Most of the kids with whom I grew up ate dinner with their families. You would play together all afternoon, and at some point you each had to go home for dinner with parents and siblings. Then you could meet up again afterward to continue doing whatever you were doing before soup was on.

Those dinners were almost invariably prepared by moms. More than once I remember heading home for my own dinner and along the way smelling the entrees and side dishes the mothers of Harding were preparing that particular day.

It was a different time. I don't know that it was ultimately any better or worse than now, but it was most certainly its own unique time.

People still cook dinner, but they don't eat together as often as they used to. And far more frequently than was once the case, it's often a dad doing the cooking.

Like most people, I infuse my childhood with a degree of romanticism it probably doesn't deserve. But smelling that dinner cooking somewhere near Maple and Elm reminded me how blessed I was to grow up when and where I did.

I know nothing of 90s pop culture because it was a blur of a decade for me

This picture was actually taken in September 2000 when Melanie was born. She turns 23 tomorrow. Happy early birthday, Mel!

Lately I've been seeing a lot of my younger friends writing nostalgically about the 1990s, and I laugh for two reasons:

(1) I remember 10-15 years ago posting fondly about my memories of the 80s and having people who graduated in the 60s and 70s chuckle because to them I was just a young'un and the 80s weren't that long ago. These 90s kids are pretty much right on schedule with their walks down Memory Lane.

(2) I retain very little of the period from, say, 1994 to 2000 because Terry and I spent those years having babies.

Well, to be accurate, Terry was the one having the babies. I was largely the one paying for them and spending my evenings and weekends changing diapers, setting up and taking down playpens, trying to get various infants to sleep, etc.

There's so much about the 90s that is simply a faint memory, and in many cases not even that.

For me, it was the decade when I got married, bought a house and started cranking out offspring.

For many others my age and somewhat younger, it was a decade of clubbing, ripped jeans and music I either don't remember or never liked in the first place.

Our experiences were, to put it mildly, a little different.

Now we're to the point that the 90s are three decades in the past and the subject of trivia questions I can't necessarily answer. I remember trying to pay attention to current events and popular culture of the time, but the only things that stick with me are the music of Raffi, the smell of baby spit-up, and Terry's frequent visits to the OB-GYN.

For a guy who graduated in 1988, I feel about 100 years old.

The kids are grown, the swing set remains

I'm trying to remember when we bought our backyard playset from the good folks at Playground World. It was probably 15 years ago, and the set is showing its age.

The plastic slide is disconnected, the canvas awning is worn, the climbing rope is frayed, and everywhere there is stripped paint and general wear and tear.

You can count on one hand the number of times each year the playset gets used, which is only when someone with little kids visits and we happen to be outside. At this point, it's serves more as an annoying obstacle for our lawn mowing guy than anything else.

For a while we figured we should keep it for when grandkids come along, but (a) I don't know that that's happening any time soon, and (b) Even when it does, there's no guarantee they'll live near us or that the swing set itself will survive that long.

There is of course also an emotional component to tearing it down. It would be an admission that the years when it was the focal point of our backyard and was used several times a week are gone.

The playset is in some ways the last vestige of a time when ours was a home to multiple small children, all of whom are now grown up and most of whom have flown the coop.

There's a practical part of me that wants to get rid of it, and another part of me that still enjoys looking out the back window and seeing it standing there.

Maybe we'll keep it just a while longer.