The Forgotten 90's

Today we are going to take a test. Everyone please pull out a sheet of paper from your crazy Trapper Keeper with 3D shapes if you are a boy, or your Lisa Frank unicorn folder if you are a girl. Also, please only use a number 2 sharpened Yikes! pencil. Now, let's begin...

Trick question! The test is already over. If you read the above paragraph and had no idea what I was talking about, you were not a child of the 90's, and you have failed. But that's okay. Not everyone was meant to be raised in history's most glorious era.

Glory.

I read an article a while back that got me thinking about all the pop culture from the 90's that often gets looked over or forgotten today. Some things have staying power, and some things just don't. My perception of 90's pop culture is admittedly skewed, since I was but a wee lad during most of the decade. For instance, I was bewildered when I learned as an adult that the 1994 movie Little Big League was a box office bomb, because when 8-year-old-me went to see it in theaters with my dad it felt like a big deal. It could have been Star Wars for all I knew, because I didn't have the full cognizance to understand it's impact outside of my small group of baseball-loving 3^rd grade friends. So here are a few things I think back on from the 90's and go “Hey, remember that?” to which the collective seems to reply, “No, not really.”

Crossfire

I wanted this board game so badly as a kid, thanks in large part to this commercial which played between every early 90's Nickelodeon show. I dare you to watch it without weeping at the realization that your life will never be as cool as the kid's in the leather jacket. (I am prepared to triple dog dare you, but I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that.)

If you were too scared or unable (scared) to watch the commercial, it features two kids gliding on hoverboards into a futuristic arena filled with cheering crowds and lightning for a deathmatch while Kenny Freakin' Loggins or a Kenny Freakin' Loggins impersonator wails “Crossfiiiyyyaaaaaaahh!” The actual board game consists of shooting ball bearings at a cog to move it into your opponent's goal, but really the game could have been anything. It could have been a brick you smash your own face with and I still would've begged my parents for it. “Mom, can we please go to the store and get the game where I smash my own face with a brick? Have you even seeeeeen the commercial?”

I have never stumbled upon this game at any thrift store, which means they either didn't sell many copies of it originally (but really, go watch that commercial again) or, the more probable answer, all the ball bearings were immediately lost the same day the game was purchased by begrudging parents and given to their hyper-active and careless kids. Because, looking back with all the acuity of an adult, that's exactly what I would have done.

Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute

Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute (not to be confused with Zandar, Master of That Thing Where You Thump Your Cheeks While You Open Your Mouth) sold his inspirational rendition of classic melodies on vinyl, cassette, or compact disc through commercials which ran at all hours of the day on every channel broadcast in America for what felt like twenty years during the 90's. There was no escaping these commercials. Even as a kid I was sick of them, and I had an incredibly high tolerance for crap back then. The US has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, but I imagine President Clinton finally gave Zamfir a few million dollars and told him to move to Canada and never return, because I have not heard a single note from Zamfir's pan flute in many years. But wherever Zamfir is today, probably in some small, icy town like Sasquatchatoon or Moose Butt, he can take solace in knowing that at least one man bought his albums – my father.

Wish Kid/ProStars

Saturday Morning Cartoons reached their Golden Age in the 90's. Everybody remembers the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tiny Toon Adventures, and Garfield (my personal favorite), but for the longest time I had slight recollections of a cartoon where Macaulay Culkin would slap his baseball mitt three times to make Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, and Bo Jackson magically appear and save the day with their athletic skill and ingenuity. I brought this cartoon up a few times to people in my general age group, and all I ever got was blank faces and the usual questions as to who I was, how I got into their office building, and why I had interrupted their meeting with trivial nonsense.

“But before security gets here, seriously no one remembers? Culkin? Jordan?...”

It turns out I had remembered it incorrectly. I finally did the internet research, and in my head I had combined two cartoons into one. Wish Kid was the cartoon that starred Culkin as a kid that got wishes from his magical glove, and ProStars was the cartoon that had Jordan, Gretzky, and Jackson battling crime with comically inefficient sports equipment. Both series began in 1991, and both only lasted 13 episodes. I think now is the right timing for gritty live-action reboots starring Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Brett Favre, and Haggard Macaulay Culkin to be aired on HBO long after your children have gone to sleep.

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So what do you remember from the 90's that others have largely forgotten? What didn't quite stick in America's nostalgic mind the way you thought it should have?  These things must be documented. We can't afford to forget the things that subtly shaped us or we risk losing sight of who we were and who we wanted to become.

This kid is the only reason I want to be successful in life.

.....

I'll show him.

Tubular (Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals)

I've decided that I'm going to be an Olympian.

“But Nathan,” you're probably saying to yourself under your breath, “there isn't an Olympic sport that suits your failing joints and outright contempt for practice or dedication.”

“Shut your face!” I am definitely yelling to a random, confused person who happens to be standing nearest me as you read this. “I know that, and I'm petitioning the International Olympic Committee for the inclusion of a new sport more tailored to my unique lack-of-talents and apathy!”

I, of course, am yelling about the “sport” of tubing, or sitting on an inflatable device and letting the current take you wherever the current wants. It combines two of my favorite things – being abhorrently lazy and floating while being abhorrently lazy. I'm not really sure how a winner would be chosen, since making it into a race would defeat the essence of the sport, so maybe there will be style judges like in ice skating.

"Just look at those slouched shoulders, slack jaw, and vacant stare. The judges have deliberated. Tens across the board!"

I went for a tubing test run last weekend. Meredith and I had been looking for a new place to try, and I had heard about Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals near Montevallo. A quick internet search revealed that they did not have a website, which should have tipped us off. After a drive deep into the boonies of Bibb County, we found that Limestone Park is not a state or city funded leisure refuge as I had assumed, but some guy's land with several dozen freight truck tire tubes. The office looks like an outhouse, and the man in charge seemed less than thrilled to be dealing with city slickers. Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals is a decidedly small and amusingly Southern operation, and it is my hope that by typing Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals enough in this blog that I will be the first search engine result so that I can demand the owners give me a kickback in exchange for a favorable review. BWAHAHAHAHA! (Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals)

We met up with Janna and Canella, picked our tubes, and hopped in the back of the "shuttle" to head upriver.

"Don't worry. We've wrecked the shuttle twice, but only one of those resulted in any customer deaths."

After a short ride through some pastures, we climbed out of the shuttle and down the river embankment. We cast our tubes into the cool water, but I was literally confused as to which direction was downriver. There was no current to speak of, and if we had not started paddling we would still be at the launch site having Deliverance nightmares.

Despite having to paddle, it was a fun trip. It was over 100 degrees that day, so the water was relaxing as we floated and talked. The smooth stretch of river was broken up by five sets of rapids that were actually drops just big enough to hurl you butt-first into rocks. I found that the best way to tackle these rapids was to straighten out perfectly flat, what I like to call the "Emery Board Sitting on a Donut Method". Every true Olympian has their signature technique I suppose.

The river led us past scenic Alabama backwoods, beautiful rising bluffs, and 1,000 Coors Light cans. There are signs all over the place about not bringing alcohol on the trip, but clearly many people have disregarded these signs, and in a show of defiance have discarded their empty cans onto low hanging limbs so that a couple of trees look like it naturally bears blissful alcoholic fruit that shines in the sun. The river also led us through some cow farms, the stench of which hits our nostrils like a methane orchestra. The animals all seemed indifferent to our presence, though.

"You realize you're floating in my toilet right now, don't you?"

It took almost three hours to reach our cars. It would've taken an Ivy League rowing team to complete the trip in the operator's estimated two hours, but maybe the river was just unusually slow that day. Wanting to cap off our Southern adventure with a delicious Southern meal, I suggested we have lunch at a random dive restaurant in a nearby town. We turned to Yelp, found some place called Tin Top, and decided that with a name like that it would probably not be fine dining.

We were not disappointed.

The cashier at Tin Top was kind of surly. She was also the cook, and there was a line, so I can see where her frustrations would come from. After taking an order, she would grab a hunk of meat and hack at it wildly with a cleaver, like an angry Swedish Chef or a normal Jeffrey Dahmer. The food, unfortunately, was not delicious. The chopped pork I ordered was all connected by a system of fat, so that when I picked up one small piece of meat the entire sandwich followed in a glob.

Basically I had a rat king sandwich.

We made the hour drive home, and I immediately took a shower to wash the Cahaba River off of me and then fell asleep. It may seem like I've been complaining in this post, but really I had a great day. I enjoy Alabama's nuances, and it was nice to get out into nature and spend time with friends. Also, it was good experience for my new goal in life. After all, the Chinese aren't going to beat themselves.

 The US Olympic Tubing Team - Rio de Jeneiro 2016

(Limestone Park Canoe and Tube Rentals)