Thankfully I missed the hippie era by being born in 1971.I was not a fan of the whole peace+love+drugs+not bathing scene,cut your hair and take a shower already.I was very happy growing up in the suburbs riding down the sidewalk on my Fisher Price ATV Explorer,Big Wheel or my favorite pedal car(1970 Plymouth Roadrunner).My love for cars started at a very early age.At the age of three or four,I slipped out of my car booster seat and into the driver's seat.I put the car in gear and nearly ran my mother down in our driveway.She was opening the garage door and left the car running,figuring I was safe and secure in the back seat.She was quite wrong.

I graduated to a bicycle as I entered grade school,I was happy riding around the neighborhood sans helmet and with no fear of being abducted by a stranger.I loved that first taste of freedom I got from riding in my neighborhood in the summer sunshine.I was a happy go lucky innocent kid.
My life was shocked and awed in 1977 as the movie Star Wars premiered,I saw it many times in the theater and Star Wars toys and cards were the things to collect.Even neighborhood games all took on a Star Wars influence.It was at that time epic,everyone of my neighborhood and school friends was into Star Wars,it was huge and defined the decade of the 1970's for me.

Life and school went on,I was always into cars,sports and music,those three themes are still very dominant in my life today as I still passionate about them.I loved the Eagles,Elton John,KISS,Shawn Cassidy and Bruce Springsteen.

The 1970s ended and as my favorite decade of the 1980s began two more epic forces came into my life.The first was the Atari 2600,until Atari I had sporadically played a few games of Space Invaders and Galaxian at local department stores.I loved the games,but when Atari appeared under the Christmas tree a new era began.I was all about playing Atari and loved looking at the games catalog figuring out which one to save my money for next.Winter in Buffalo is long and cold,I would play street hockey with my friends,but there was more than enough time for Atari.My game collection and skills grew,until I was able to acquire a few Activision game patches.You could get a patch if you reached a certain score and took a picture of your t.v. set.Yup,I was a video game addict and nerd.I loved Pitfall and Barnstorming from Activision.

The other force that played a huge role in my life was in 1981.My family got cable and we got MTV.I loved it the moment I saw my first video,which was Van Halen's cover of Pretty Woman.MTV opened doors to so much music that wasn't playing on my local radio stations.It is horrible now and I haven't watched it since the late 1990's,but MTV was once great.VH1 Classic is my new vice as it really takes me back to those early days of MTV with those classic 80's videos,
Bicycles remained huge to me as my mode of transportation,I graduated to a BMX,save my paper route money and bought a Sony Walkman.It was AM/FM and roughly the size of a WWII field phone.With my BMX and Walkman my destination was often meeting up with friends and riding to the arcade.Looking back at it I'm sure we looked like the kids from E.T. or The Goonies.We were 80's kids doing simple 80's stuff.
As I hit 15 my car passions flared up,only one more year until my license.I got a job in a restaurant and started making "real" money to put towards the car.My musical tastes went heavy metal.My favorites bands became Iron Maiden,The Scorpions,Ratt and a little band called Metallica.A year and a half later I bought a 1974 4dr Chevelle and became a licensed teen driver.I thought freedom was riding my little two wheeler around the neighborhood years ago,but driving was a whole new freedom.
I really enjoyed spending my summers with friends at the beach and just driving around our hometown at night.High school ended and many of my friends went away to college,I stayed behind and went to a local college and got a career here in my hometown.More and more of my friends left the area to find employment,I have a very small number of friends that I am still in contact with that have stayed local.I am happy and lucky to have my roots here in the town where I was born.Today I am very happily married,have two beautiful sons and two dogs.I love running marathons and lesser distance races,playing ice hockey,golfing,weight lifting and biking.
I don't have my "toy" car as the kids are too little and the disposable income isn't there either.When I do have it,I will be picking up another 1985 Mustang GT like when I was a high scool senior.My wife is bracing herself for this and knows that my midlife crisis begins when I pull into the driveway with that car.