Summer 1985

The Goonies met the summer after my seventh grade year. Renee, Susie, Dwayne, and I had claimed an old, knotted up, crazy looking tree out in Reservoir Park's field as the Goonie Tree, and we met under it every weekday afternoon. We were all a little older than the other kids at the park sponsored day camp, but had siblings we were supposed to help keep an eye on. We quickly discovered that we were outsiders at our separate schools, but we found each other and banded together lightening fast. Most of the time you could find us playing box hockey together, battling it out at foursquare together, or hanging out by the swings, taking turns and singing.

Singing? On the swingset?

Of course! If you were with me when I was a kid, it was one of my favorite things to do. Spontaneously bursting out into song, uninhibited. The Goonies all loved music. We had also all recently discovered the opposite gender. There were many animated conversations that summer about crushes, and love, about physical attractiveness, and early exploration of telling those crushes what we thought. We started talking honestly about our feelings with each other, and for all of us, it was the first time we had trusted peers or friends with anything important.

For whatever reason, the song "The Search Is Over" by Survivor was a song we all gravitated to that summer, and it will always make me think of the beginning of the end of my childhood. All the talk about boys and girls and love, singing about broken hearts, about loss and longing, knowing you had taken advantage of someone, and trying to prove yourself to them. Some heavy subject matter. But this song was sung with such depth of emotion, and I think that was what we all identified with. And we sang it that way too. Like we meant it.

Author's Note: I listened to this song for the first time in a long time last year while putting together an epic playlist for my 20 year high school reunion roadtrip, and I still knew all the words. I continued my friendship with Dwayne and Renee, and still keep in touch with both of them. For those wondering, The Search Is Over was released June 5, 1985. The Goonies movie came out June 7, 1985. I think it's a funny coincidence that I am writing about this particular song and movie on June 6, many years later!

Writing prompt: We want to know what, from your childhood, do you still know by heart?