I’m back — did you miss me? At some point I was shaken out of daydreaming about youthful escapades and romps of yesteryear and told to leave my cubicle and go find “news,” whatever that is. Well, after an exhaustive and utterly fruitless search, here I am — mildly caffeinated and ready for another dream sequence.

I was watching a movie with ’80s references throughout and was really disturbed by what I saw — could this have been what it was really like? No, I think I actually said out loud to which the dogs responded, “Why yes, we would love to go out,” and made a bee line for the back door.

Every scene contained hideous, fluorescent clothes, Michael Jackson red leather jackets and big hair. Okay, the girl’s Aquanet nightmares could get a bit out of hand, but maybe being insulated in Midcoast Maine at the time I just didn’t see the prevalence of master-level tackiness.

I opened up a couple old yearbooks to be sure — were we the most poorly dressed and coiffed generation since the great depression? Sure, we had the mullet but you must forgive us, there was nothing but hippies before us and we weren’t going back — you couldn’t make us!

Now, take it with a grain of salt when I say these things. I was not, and the truth be told, am still not fashion minded in the least. To this day, I still cannot match my clothes. In fact, I’ve been searching for the right people to contact with my idea about relaunching the Granimals collection, but this time for adults. You remember Granimals, don’t you? It was a line of children’s clothing with various animals on the tags and all of one kind of animal matched.

I can see myself now, rolling out of bed, putting on my lion pants and lion shirt, snatching up my notepad with a quick “Rawwr” and flashy finger-pistol to the mirror and I’m off to report the news with confidence! You see, I KNOW a lion shirt and lion pants won’t let me down.

Most of the time my wife lays out my clothes for me. It’s certainly not out of some sense of wifely duty. She’s simply tired of seeing my feeble attempts, saying “um, no” and watching me walk dejectedly back into the bedroom.

But I digress.

No, my fashion ensemble in the ’80s consisted of one drawer full of Levis and a collection of more or less white tee shirts — graphics optional. I guess I was never encouraged or challenged by my wardrobe to match things.

My hair — well, it was on my head. It was at once not long enough to be making the statement that I was growing my hair out to be cool, nor short enough to be styled in any sort of way that would look intentional. I hung around a few friends who had the same look going on and when we loitered in front of LaVerdier’s we looked like a puberty-ravaged Ramones tribute band.

I’m not going to say there wasn’t a florescent clothing presence, or that legs weren’t kept warm with their very own sweaters or that hair wasn’t particularly poofy at Rollerworld on a Saturday night. I guess what I’m saying is you were just as likely to find a kid with an Iron Maiden jean jacket on or a skater kid with the side of his head shaved. I knew one kid with a two-foot spiked, multi-colored mohawk — can’t remember his name but a great guy. We had theatre kids and kids who would not buy a shirt without the little Izod alligator on it.

It was the ’80s and kids really haven’t changed as much as we want to say they have. I’m sure grown ups were shaking their head at my generation as much as I cringe when I see a guy in skinny jeans or any variant of hipster getup.

Then again, take it for what you will. This is coming from the guy who has four pairs of pants he refers to as in the “brown” range and as many shirt in the “blue” range. Despite their obvious similarities (to me) there’s still only one combination of said clothing articles that will not elicit a stern “no” from my wife. By the way, she was asleep when I left this morning, so I took whatever was on top of the laundry pile — wish me luck — finger pistols to the mirror and I’m off !

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Douglas McIntire is a staff writer at The Times Record and is easily identified in public by variations of brown and blue clothing that somehow do not match. He can be reached at [email protected].