1983 was not a good year.

I turned 12 in the spring of 1983. My dad was teaching 7th grade Texas history and was moved to an outdoor portable at the start of the school year, August 1982. I noticed a change right away. He came home in a pissy mood, was irritable over the weekends, and we were all walking on eggshells. Previously he had always been happy at his job, came home with funny stories, and we'd all go out to eat dinner on Friday and Saturday nights and watch TV shows together, laughing. On Sundays, he'd play his Beatles, Sinatra, Edith Piaf, and traditional Hebrew folk records, wash his truck, and by evening we'd all be eating hotdogs and watching The Wonderful World of Disney, then off to bed. But none of that was going on anymore. My dad was grumpy and he and my mother argued louder and louder. We weren't going out to eat as often, the TV would be off when it was usually on.

To this day I hate what Ronald Reagan did to my family. Because of his education budget cuts, my dad was walking on eggshells at his job. Why pay a Texas history teacher when a coach could teach history, two-for-one. My dad took the lack of a raise that year and being placed in a hot shed to teach as a demotion, the move before a layoff. That summer we didn't travel anywhere. My dad got a summer job instead and remained grumpy. One day the mail arrived and addressed to my mother was a letter from  Publishers Clearing House notifying her that she could possibly win one million dollars. She truly believed she had a chance of winning and told us if we all prayed together as a family, we could win this money and my dad wouldn't have to work and be happier. While skeptical I imagined a higher allowance and Barbies I never received for Christmas or birthdays, a new house, and a bigger room. So my mother got my sibs and me to pray a Novena to win the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. For nine days we were called away from our summer TV line-up to go kneel around my parent's bed and pray. My mother would say we had to believe we'd win, we would win, it was an opportunity given by God and all we had to do was get through these nine days of long prayer. This was done while my dad was working. She told us not to talk about too much with him. I thought we should so he could stop working now and enjoy the summer knowing he wouldn't have to return to his dreaded job in the portable. 

I don't remember when the prize was to be awarded, only asking when and praying these Novenas all summer. It was the end of August and we were all back in school, my dad back in the portable building to teach. Finally, my mother told us we didn't win and I remember crying and feeling cheated by God, my mother, and Ronald Reagan, all involved in messing up the good thing we had only the year before. I was most angry with my mother who told us we were going to win because we had faith. This was years before The Secret and words like manifesting. I remember thinking whoever won couldn't have needed it more than us. We couldn't even go out to eat anymore, I wasn't taking piano lessons and no longer attended ballet.

This was also the year I was told there wasn't a Santa Claus. I have a very clear memory of where I was standing in the kitchen, on December 23, 1983. I walked over to the cassette player and pushed play. It was The Carpenters Christmas Portrait and it was in the middle of Carol of the Bells. That was the year I discovered depression. My family wasn't working out, my wishes weren't working out, and now childhood was nothing but a sham. Things at school weren't going so great either, I was not in step with my peers who were already dating each other and sipping beer. On New Year's Eve, I recorded my family in the living room, grandparents, parents, and our close friend Randy, all talking and laughing, waiting for midnight. I would escape to my bedroom and record my thoughts and impressions. I was a sad little thing. I still have that tape and I listened to it recently. It was painful for me to walk out of childhood and into tweendom. I was having an existential crisis and the tape is basically me asking what is life all about, and why are we waiting on a new year so happily when it's putting us all closer to unwanted changes, aging, and death. A lot of still unanswered questions fill that 90-minute tape.