The Reagan Years...

[airbud7]

Thumper started it (he don't know though)..........

What was your life like in the 80's....

[Captain]

Great and 30 some year younger....

[Arty]

I entered the 80's just outta diapers.... And left the 80's with an obsession for lookin at girls breasticles. That's what puberty will do to you. :)

[Chicken Dinner]

Starving college student and under employed drop out for most of it.

[DeputyDog]

Middle school and High school. Had a car and lived on a lake. Life was good.

[LJ3]

Joined the Army, got my first technical job in 84 I think. $18,500 a year and I had more walking around money in those days. No complaints. Not sure it has as much to do with reagan as it did being young and starting out in life. Much of the 80's are a fog to me now but I can assure you I have some pretty damn good stories from the ages of 18-28 :)

[Thumper]

The 80's? That's a 10-year span. You're just begging for a "Thump post"!! ;)

Due to the Iranian Revolution in '79 and the crazy oil prices that resulted, the car business (where I made my living) in the early-80's was in the toilet. Especially big cars ... and since I worked for Cadillac ... well, you figure it out!

Besides the business aspect of it, the 80's started out very, VERY shitty for me. I bought my very first house for (ridiculous L.A. prices) at the end of 1980 and signed the papers with a loan at something like 11% interest. By time escrow closed, it was up to something like 15%. THAT is when I found out (the hard way) that the interest rate doesn't lock in until escrow closes! (it eventually went up to 18 1/2%!!) That house purchase about bankrupted me, but I made it through, somehow!

In '81 my wife busted me when one of her friends spotted me in Vegas with another woman (what are the odds?) and she threatened to cut my balls off!

The first of '82 I turned 30 years old and it was the only birthday that depressed me. I was over-the-hill IMO. I was seriously depressed and wasn't sure exactly where I was headed.

In late '82 I knocked up my secretary even though she was on the pill. Management found out and fired me (first time I'd ever been fired). Wife found out and later filed for divorce. Great, all this RIGHT after I'd bought a house!

In 1983, my son was born and I was going through divorce proceedings with the ex-wife as well as child custody proceedings with the ex-girlfriend. I lost the marriage AND my son after spending a small fortune on attorneys. I was ordered to sell the house and split the proceeds 50/50 with the wife (PLUS 10% of my gross income would now go to child support). HOW THE F..K do you sell a house you've only owned for 1 1/2 years with interest rates through the roof? I told the judge it would cost ME a $20,000-$30,000 loss to sell the house. Does that mean, the ex would OWE ME $10,000-$15,000? Nope, I give her half of what I sell the house for!!! Ouch! (I never have figured that one out!) So, '83 was a bad year. Did I mention I had mild depression starting on my 30th birthday? Multiply that be a bazillion!

But, during that time, I was hired at the biggest limousine manufacturer in the country with 7-8 plants scattered all over the US and had a nice 9th floor window office overlooking Sunset Blvd. in Beverly Hills. Things settled down a bit and I was banging Beverly Hills hotties and fitting in quite nicely with the L.A. singles scene! Then, at a Beverly Hills nightspot one evening everything changed. Lynn walked in the door and my frigging jaw hit the floor! This was early on a Friday evening, June 14th, 1985. I melted on the spot and to this day, can even describe in detail exactly what she was wearing that night ... right down to her earrings. I immediately made my move (a classic, but a long story for another day) and I left within 5 minutes of her arrival (it was my weekend to have my kid and I had to pick him up from his mom's place). Evidently I made a good first impression as on Monday, my secretary called my office and told me I had a "package" at the front desk. I went up there to find a dozen roses with a note attached. The note said, Call Me, followed by a phone number and signed simply, "Lynn". (I later found out she'd asked the bartender who I was and found out where I worked) I called, she asked ME out, picked me up in her brand new (4-month old) BMW and the rest is history. She came home with me and never left! The 80's are finally starting to improve! ;)

Shortly after meeting Lynn, the Hollywood dealership that had fired me, called and begged me to come back. After some soul-searching, I quit my Beverly Hills job and went back to Hollywood. Within months of going back, they hired a new GM who'd left another dealership and within a month, he brought in all his cronies from his previous place of employment ... and one of them was a new Service Manager! That SOB blew out 34 employees before he'd even had time to get to know anyone! Ok, now I'd been fired TWICE ... from the same frigging dealership! WTF?

Cadillac caught wind of it and suggested to another dealer that they hire me to turn their store around (at least I was good at SOMETHING). I accepted the challenge. Problem is, I walked into an armpit. It was the oldest dealership in Los Angeles ... had started out as a factory store (back in the day, car dealerships were owned by the factory) and when they switched to private ownership, this was one of the first to convert. The place was a mess. CSI in the toilet. Waaaay outdated equipment. The good 'ol boys and prima donnas were running the place and whenever I tried to fire some worthless MF'er, the owner would call me in and say I can't fire an employee who's been with him for 30 years! WTF? Why do you think the place was in the toilet! I told him to let me do my job or I was out and he was a blonde cunt hair from losing his Cadillac franchise! I ended up cleaning house, blew 90% of the employees out, bought new equipment, then hired a group of employees who had worked for me at the Hollywood dealership and were blown out along with me. To fill out the shop, I hired a bunch of young-gun graduates from the GM training center, spit-shined the place and within 3-years, had one of the top stores in the city! Then the dealer retired and turned the place over to his (adopted) son. This guy was nothing but a Porche driving playboy and could care less about running the business. Everytime I had a meeting scheduled with him, he'd be late ... by HOURS! I once asked him why he didn't wear a watch (I figured he wore a Rolex) and he responded, "I don't give a fuck what time it is!" (in the 90's, that store finally went out of business)

By '89 I was sick of the car business. I quit my job, sold everything I owned in California, moved back "home" to Florida, bought a house and in November of '89, I started a new business that I knew NOTHING about. All I cared about was it was NOT the car business. I made $125,000 in my first year from a business I started from the ground up and knew nothing about ... AND I did that in a little podunk town where the average per capita income in '89 was $12,392 (literally)!

The 80's you ask? Pretty sucky overall ... but it was sure a roller-coaster decade for me! I guess the high point was meeting Lynn that evening 30+ years ago. Oh, and I love my son to death! It was a weird decade for me. :D

[No-till Boss]

Love your stories Thump, by the way, you're only 63 ???

[Thumper]

Love you stories Thump, by the way, you're only 63 ???

Yessir. 1/18/52

[Buckrub]

No, NTB, that's his IQ!!! He's actally 204 to do all he has done.

Reagan did a lot, but to answer Posty's question of yesterday, he probably did more philosophically than he did actually. Carter was a big government man (Dept. Of Energy) and a goober, and Reagan just said outloud what folks wanted to hear, that Government Is The Problem, Not The Solution! It's a mantra that's kept on to today.........for half of us. Taxes were high, interest rates were high but that's not the President's doing, but so were salaries and job openings. If you didn't like your job, there were 1,000 openings in a 500 mile radius. Life was just good........overall. I keep hearing guys say it was bad then, but I didn't know y'all then, cause I didn't know anyone then that had it bad.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Thanks for answering in the wrong thread turd butt.

BKB

[Buckrub]

I'm sorry, Your Highness and Oh Exalted Ruler of All Things Logical At This Site (NOT)! :)

I thought of it then. Trust me, if I don't write what I think when I think it, you don't get to read it. No one does!

[quercus alba]

Wow, Lynn has been visually handicapped for at least 32 years

[No-till Boss]

Thanks for answering in the wrong thread turd butt.

BKB

He's distraught from murdering fish yesterday...... lol

[Hombre]

I entered the 80's as a 5 year old and at the end I was mostly hoping to be ungrounded....The good old days

[Thumper]

Wow, Lynn has been visually handicapped for at least 32 years

What'chu talkin' 'bout Willis? I'm a handsome devil! In fact, I can't wait for tomorrow, 'cause I get better lookin' every day! ;)

5490

[Nandy]

If i could relive the 80's over and over and over I would be the happiest man on the world... High school/college/young entrepreneur during those years, had everything I needed and some that I did not need. I was 22 when the 80s' ended.

[Nandy]

With all due respect sir, you did "married" wayy, way above your head...

[quercus alba]

I was giving way too much of my life to international paper.

No leases, you could hunt or fish just about anywhere, game abounded.

I wouldn't go back, I'm pretty well content with my life as it is

[airbud7]

Was it called federal paper board back then?

tidbit> 2010 augusta news article...http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2010-11-13/international-paper-mill-celebrates-50-year-anniversary


International Paper's Augusta Mill started in 1960 as Continental Can Co.'s forest products division. They developed the 3,000-acre site on Mike Padgett Highway. Additional production capacity was installed in 1965 and 1977.
The plant was acquired in 1985 by Federal Paper Board Co. The facility underwent a $1 billion expansion between 1986 and 1992.
In 1996, Federal was acquired by International Paper for $3.5 billion.

[quercus alba]

nope, good old International Paper. 26 years later sold out to Georgia Pacific and shut us down in less than a year

[FooBang]

Was in the Navy in the late '80s. I wrote a letter to Reagan while in bootcamp, since I had written to everybody else I could think of. Well, it turns out, I got a letter back from the Whitehouse...

Imagine our drill sergeant (company commander in the navy) standing on a table calling out sailors to collect their mail, one by one. He get's to my letter and turns white as a ghost, with his jaw dropping.

"Foobang, you.. you.. got a letter from the White House!"

Everybody stares in silence as I collect my letter. You see, I joined the Navy as a spook and they all knew that. They thought I got some secret spy directives from the president! Too funny.. Never did let on that it was just a form response. The CC didn't bother me at all after that.

[No-till Boss]

Thump, did you ever know a Don Donati that owned General Trucks Sales in Memphis Tenn. ? Sorry if I asked you this before .

[Thumper]

Thump, did you ever know a Don Donati that owned General Trucks Sales in Memphis Tenn. ? Sorry if I asked you this before .

I sure did NTB. Not well, but through the business. Actually, I think his real name was Joe (not positive about that), but he went by "Don" which was actually short for his last name "Donati".

[No-till Boss]

I sure did NTB. Not well, but through the business. Actually, I think his real name was Joe (not positive about that), but he went by "Don" which was actually short for his last name "Donati".

I remembered after I posted that, that he ended up owning Leader Chevrolet on Airways . The General Truck was on Brooks road.

[Thumper]

Our Caddie dealership was right next door to Hoehn Chevrolet on Union Ave. and we used to buy tons of cars/trucks from them. For the life of me I can't remember how/why I knew Don ... and had forgotten all about him until you mentioned his name. I may have known him from some sort of dealer functions ... I just don't remember. It sucks getting old. :(

[No-till Boss]

Back in the 70's and 80's we had a fleet discount with them. Brooks road was home to all brands of truck services . Back then if we needed a part, we had to drive to Memphis , it was about a hour drive.

[Thumper]

We bought all our loaner cars and parts trucks etc. from Hoehn. I bought my (ex) wife's first new car there, so to my knowledge, we never dealt directly with DTS, but I knew who you were talking about as soon as I read the name. The owner of the Caddie dealer even shipped a brand new flatbed 1-ton Chevy up to his Alaska outfitter as a TIP after a polar bear hunt! But we also purchased that from Hoehn. For the life of me I can't remember what kind of dealings I had with Don, but it must have been through various automotive dealer functions. It seems I remember some sort of conversation we had one time ... I believe he was a "Jr." and I am a "III" (my dad's a Jr.). Odd how silly things like that stick in your head, but you can't remember the important stuff.

[Thumper]

Well heck, out of curiosity, I just Googled him. Seems he passed away on the day before my birthday, 2001. :(

Birth: Aug. 14, 1938
Death: Jan. 17, 2001

DANTE JOSEPH DONATI JR., 62, of Memphis, sales manager for General Truck & Volvo, died of heart failure Wednesday at Methodist Healthcare-Germantown. Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church with burial in Memory Hill Gardens. Memphis Funeral Home Germantown Parkway Chapel has charge. He was a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Memphis National Golf Course. He leaves a daughter, Tina Donati Yates Phelan of Collierville; four sons, Tony Donati of Bartlett, Mario Donati of Olive Branch and Damian Donati and Ricci Donati, both of Germantown; his mother, Pauline Cianciola Donati of Memphis; a sister, Lilly Kingsley of Olive Branch; a brother, Ernie Donati of Cordova, and 12 grandchildren.

[BarryBobPosthole]

"He was a member of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Memphis National Golf Course. "

If those two things don't go together I don't know what does.

bKB

[No-till Boss]

Thanks for posting that Thump. With your references to Memphis, I thought we might have a link. He seemed like a big deal back in the day, but heck I was young too. I had forgot about his daughter, she was hot hot hot !

[Thumper]

I never knew his name was actually Dante Donati! Dang! I can't believe I didn't know his daughter, but she may have been quite a bit older than me back in those days. I lived in Memphis through h/s and into college until I went into the military. I went back for a year or two in the late 70's and I think I was something like 27 yrs. old when I left and headed for L.A.

[Thumper]

I think he usually went by Don, but the reason I remember his name was because I also knew Joe Lunati. ;)

Joe L. was a Memphis drag racer and had a cam shop. He ground a cam for me for my little street racer, but Crane Cams sent me an experimental model they wanted me to try and it was KILLER. I was running that Crane cam/solid lifters, sodium filled Manley valves and a set of heads that my dad blue printed ... on the street! I have no clue whatever happened to that cam Lunati ground for me.

Anyway, that's how I remember "Don's" name was Joe .... I knew Joe Donati & Joe Lunati. :D

[No-till Boss]

I think he usually went by Don, but the reason I remember his name was because I also knew Joe Lunati. ;)

Joe L. was a Memphis drag racer and had a cam shop. He ground a cam for me for my little street racer, but Crane Cams sent me an experimental model they wanted my to try and it was KILLER. I was running that Crane cam/solid lifters, sodium filled Manley valves and a set of heads that my dad blue printed ... on the street! I have no clue whatever happened to that cam Lunati ground for me.

Anyway, that's how I remember "Don's" name was Joe .... I knew Joe Donati & Joe Lunati. :D

His shop foreman at Leader was a big time drag racer, he was a black guy if that helps, but I don't remember his name.