October 1984. Ghostbuster costumes were all the rage for Halloween. The movie Gremlins had just been released. We were listening to “Purple Rain” on 92X and “Drive” by the Cars had peaked at 3 on the top 40 countdown. I was 14 and in the 9th grade, my family had recently moved to Westerville from Columbus, Ohio. Not a far geographical move by any means, but for a young teen it may as well have been 1,000 miles.
The neighborhood we moved into had lots of kids and several girls my age lived nearby, 2 lived right next door. These girls had been friends their whole lives and in school together since kindergarten. I was the new kid on the block and had moved in the middle of 7th grade. (As if middle school could get any worse.) These girls were nice enough to me, but I would never fit in with them. I didn’t have the shared history and was an outsider. Sometimes I was invited to their birthday parties, but rarely was invited to hang out after school or do homework together.
My best friend Cathy had moved out of state the year before with her mom and sister. Cathy and I had spent nearly every weekend together since second grade. I missed her terribly.
I was lonely and being shy and quiet, it took me a while to feel comfortable and to make friends. (Unlike my mother who can make friends at Jiffy Lube.) I loved my family even my three younger brothers occasionally. Every Friday night mom would make pizza and we would watch TV. (We didn’t have a VCR until 1986.) Eventually I would get bored so would go up to my room and listen to music. I longed to be just a little bit older so I could drive. At 14, 16 seems light years away. I knew If I just could drive, I could go places. But I was a freshman in high school. None of us drove then, except for that one guy who had repeated 9th grade so many times he looked like someone’s creepy uncle Jim or Joe or Jeff.
If only I could drive, then I could have some fun. Some Friday nights I would go into the garage and sit in my dad’s Toyota Corolla. It was deep red and had a really nice speaker system, something that was lost on him. I would sit in that car and wish I could drive and imagine where I would go and who I would be with. Many times the song “Drive” came on the radio. And that is just what I wanted to do, drive.
Back up in my room I would turn on the radio to a late-night show called “Desperate and Dateless”. It was a call-in show that matched men and women on the air. The host, Alan Browning would ask the callers their height and weight, marital status, and occupation. They would each be interviewed on the air and if both agreed were matched. While wanting a boyfriend was up there along with driving as things I really wanted, I knew I’d never be that desperate.
In retrospect, what I really wanted was connection. A friend or two, or an after-school club. This came soon enough as I started babysitting and then joined the church choir. I ended up not getting my driver’s license until I was 17 ½, but that’s because my boyfriend drove me all around, to dates, parties, and homes of all of my new friends. I had the found connections I had been looking for and never listened to AM radio on Friday night again.