“Why the eighties?” we hear you ask. Why not the sixties—have the Riccolis be flower children? Why not the twenty-first century—where Jennie can actually have the internet for her research rather than going to the library? “Hannie deserves a cell phone!” we hear you shout.
But we do not agree. We specifically chose the era in which the Riccolis mainly live because of several reasons.
1.) The ‘80s are OUR era. We were born and spent much of our childhood in this decade.
2.) We feel it is the last of the times where life wasn’t as ‘fast-paced’ and disconnected as it seems to be now. We didn’t want the Riccoli children obsessed with texting or arguing over computer time. We wanted a more classic approach.
We went with the ‘80s because not only are we most familiar with it, the decade reminds us of the simple pleasures of childhood. Biking to the corner store without fear of being kidnapped. Expressing our feelings without being diagnosed and prescribed. Snail mailing our birthday party invitations and, wait for it, waiting for them to call us on our land lines to RSVP.
We are the generation that waited months for movies to come out on videocassette, taped songs from the radio onto audio cassettes, owned Walkmans, knew how to amuse ourselves in our backyards. It is important to us to keep those moments and feelings stirred by them intact.
We are keenly aware of how fast the world is changing. Future generations aren’t going to have a clue what a VCR is. A lot of the magic of the ‘80s will slowly disappear. This is why we attempt to savor just a bit of the memory – in stories that will hopefully hold dear to many hearts for years to come. So our nieces and nephews and their children will still understand and love what the ‘80s were all about.
E & E Writers Enterprise 