IT WAS 40 YEARS AGO AND I REMEMBER IT LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY.
Back In the late spring of 1983 most of my close friends graduated from college. Thanks to switch-ups of my declared major, I was due to graduate from Elmhurst College, (Now called Elmhurst University) a year later in May of 1984. This meant June, July, August and the beginning of September of 1983 was to be my last totally carefree summer. And it was a great one.
In 1983, Ronald Reagan was in the third year of his first term as President, gasoline cost 95 cents a gallon and concert tickets to any show were well below 20 bucks a pop.
This was my third summer working maintenance on the 7 am til 3:30 p.m. shift for the Elmhurst Park District. After one summer on the lawn crew then a summer of prepping baseball diamonds, in 1983 I was sent to work garbage crew. My partner was former high school classmate Dave Flasch and before venturing out in our mini-garbage truck we were given a ten-minute tutorial on how to drive a stick shift in the Builders Square parking lot. Something new for both of us but we took to the shifting of gears and not stalling out quickly.
The summer of 1983 was a blazing hot and humid one. Almost every day was a sweat inducing challenge, so much so that I’d freeze a plastic gallon jug of water and lug that ice mass to work each day. Then as the day went on, I’d drain all that cold water down my throat. I hardly peed because I just sweated out the water.
The daily trip to the quarry/dump in neighboring Hillside was a wild one as we unloaded all the trash pulled from the parks’ garbage cans. I can still smell the methane burners at that dump and I felt bad for the men who worked there moving mounds of junk in bulldozers.
Dave and I also had to work a four-hour shift on Sunday mornings to clear trash barrels from several parks’ picnic areas. We were armed with cans of bug spray to shoo away the bees that buzzed around loads of discarded chicken, corn cobs and empty cans of beer and soda pop.
Weekdays, we often took our lunch breaks at East End Pool. After downing a quick sandwich and snacks we’d peel off our jeans down to our gym shorts and take a dip in the pool’s deep end during their adult swim hour. That cool and chlorinated water was a huge refresher.
MY 3RD SUMMER WORKING FOR THE ELMHURST PARK DISTRICT WAS A HOT AND SMELLY ONE.
But my summer was full of more than just sweaty garbage work. Movies I saw in those months included: “Return of the Jedi”, “Risky Business”, “War Games”, “National Lampoon’s Vacation”, “Blue Thunder” and the hilarious “Trading Places.”
Music wise, there were plenty of new sounds to check out such as: The Police’s “Synchronicity”, Talking Heads “Speaking in Tongues.” Elton John’s “Too Low for Zero” and David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” album to name a few.
Concerts I made it to in the Summer of ‘83 were good ones. At Park West I saw Dave Edmunds for the first time. Ditto for R.E.M. Fresh from releasing their “Murmur” album, they played a WXRT 4 dollar budget show with Let’s Active as the opening act. In July, me and my pal Dave Ross saw The Police, The Fixx, A Flock of Seagulls, Joan Jett & Ministry at Comiskey Park. Late in the summer my Park District co-worker Bernie Bushue and I checked out Men at Work and INXS at Poplar Creek. And I can’t forget seeing David Bowie two nights in a row at the Rosemont Horizon during his “Serious Moonlight Tour” which was a highwater mark for sure!
SEEING DAVID BOWIE IN CONCERT TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW WAS A HIGHWATER MARK FOR MY SUMMER.
I didn’t have any summer classes to take but was on the air at Elmhurst college radio station WRSE Sundays from 6 pm til 9 pm. At my invitation, Jim Turano joined me to put together a monthly radio station music newsletter “Mick and Jim’s Hucklebuck Update.” That newsletter would eventually lead to my big break in Chicago radio less than two years later.
Many summer nights were spent checking out local rock bands at the A.W. Shucks rock club with my mentor Lee Swanson. That included a wild evening when Lee drank way too many Long Island Ice Teas and I had to lug his drunk for one of the first times ever ass to his car where he slept it off in his back seat.
God bless Lee. He was the one who literally snuck Jim Turano and me into Elmhurst’s 4th of July parade. I knew we didn’t belong in the official procession when my ’73 Plymouth Duster chugged by the reviewing stand and the announcers had no idea what to say as we rolled by.
ME & JIM TURANO CRASHED ELMHURST’S 4TH OF JULY PARADE. AT THE WHEEL OF MY ’73 DUSTER WAS LEE SWANSON, THE MASTERMIND OF OUR BREAK-IN.
I was also in the second year of writing “Rock Scene”, my weekly local music column for Press Publications. It was a busy summer and I was having the time of my life.
There was also an infamous middle of the night drunken swim with several of my friends at York Commons Pool. We made our covert entrance thanks to my Park District pass key that could get us through any park district gate anywhere. After that swim, I took off in Phil W’s Dodge Scamp, leaving him in the parking lot in just his underpants. Don’t worry, I came back and got him and the others who laughed their asses off at this romp.
This fun all went down in the summer of ‘83. Sadly, my Park District co-worker and good friend Bernie passed away a few years ago. Also, my garbage partner Dave Flasch lost his brother older Mark this year. I worked with Mark Flasch at the Park District back in 1981 and he was a great guy just like Dave.
Still, that carefree summer of 1983 was such a fun one. It happened forty years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.
NOTE: Unless something major comes up, this will be my last posted blog for the next month and a half. My summer vacation starts later this week and I’m looking forward to some down time. No writings, no work, just do what I want when I want. Cheers!
