1987: A Very Good Year!

Get the Point!

So, I figured I would take a break from analyzing the Biden-Harris presidential race vs. Donald Trump, and all of the attendant domestic and foreign affairs issues that flow from the same, to wax nostalgic about what remains one of the BEST years of my life:

1987!

While I didn't realize it at the time, '87, the year that I turned 15, was the time in which most of the lessons that had been stressed to me through my parents, teachers, and mentors, via words and the occasional belt, switch, or paddle across the backside, all started to "click" and make complete sense as I stood on the verge of morphing from "Chuckie" Hobbs the boy—to Chuck Hobbs the man. 

'87 was the year that another Chuck, my pediatrician Dr. Charles "Chuck" Long, measured me at 6'1 and 185 pounds and told my mother during the appointment that "this boy isn't done growing" and "could end up 6'3 or 6'4 before all is said and done." Well, Doc was partially right 😂; I never grew an inch taller, but I did grow heavier and stronger and by the time I graduated high school, was a solid 215 pounds.

May of ‘87 with my classmates (from left) Bill Pittman, Terry Calloway, Fred Higgs, me (orange shirt and Kappa League hat) and Ken Riley II

It was in '87 that my grandmother, Arilla Hobbs, calling to speak to her son Charles, mistook me for my father as my voice had dropped multiple octaves to the baritone which still remains! That, coupled with the fact that I was no longer using that putrid smelling magic shave once every several weeks to remove slight facial hair, but was lathering up with Gillette and shaving every other day to remove a 1970’s era Black G.I. Joe looking full beard, made me realize that my journey to manhood was almost complete!

Perhaps that's why in May of '87, right after I got my restricted driver's license from the Florida Department of Motor Vehicles, that my dad chose to have his version of "The Talk" one morning as we read the newspaper and ate breakfast. Our "Talk" was nothing really of the sort, as he declared in his "Colonel's" voice—totally unprompted—"Chuckie, I don't have to tell you that if you get some girl pregnant, that there won't be no Morehouse or Howard in your future, but the Army, Air Force, Navy, or Marines." The bite of Rice Chex sweetened with honey that was in my mouth turned bitter as I embarrassedly could only muster a weak "yes sir" in response 😆. 

Now, at that juncture there was nothing for Dad to worry about because I hadn't fully begun "acting grown," but as most teenagers from time immemorial have experienced, I surely had my share of crushes that, while the "who" will remain nameless because far too many of my readers are real life friends who "were" the who—or very likely remember  who was "who"  😂—even now certain songs from ‘87, like Janet Jackson's "The Pleasure Principle," Gerald Levert's "Casanova," and Stephanie Mills' classic "I Feel Good," remind me of my first loves—and the innocence of youth.

Billboard’s Top 20 the week of July 11, 1987 had some certified 🔥 hits, including “Songbird” by Kenny G, “Don't Disturb this Groove” by The System, “Always” by Atlantic Starr, and “Alone” by Heart…

In fact, when I think back on '87, particularly that long, hot summer, I realize that many of the playlists that I currently ride out to were major hits on the airwaves back then. That April, as 9th grade drew to a close, our band director, Dr. Arnett Moore, named me and my friend Raymond Patterson as drum majors for the upcoming year. When summer band camp began that June, every single day, my classmate Terry Calloway, the Tuba section leader, scooped me and our boy Chris Henry (RIP) up in his momma's Monte Carlo to head up to campus while blasting LL Cool J's "Bigger and Deffer" or Janet Jackson's "Control" albums in the tape deck. 

November ‘87: The FAMU High “Orange and Green Marching Machine” during FAMU’s Homecoming Parade in the historic Frenchtown section of Tallahassee led by Drum Majors Chuck Hobbs (left) and Ray Patterson

As the year progressed, any time we were riding in the Monte Carlo, the tunes would be Keith Sweat's "Make it Last Forever" album one moment, or Prince's classic "Sign O' The Times" the next, with us never quite comprehending that the day would come that when those songs are cued up, that it would take us back to a time when the most daunting decision of the week was which Coca Cola, Polo, or Nautica shirt matched best with which pair of Guess Jeans to be worn to the dance after the Friday night football game.

Indeed, life was good!

In 1987, North Florida high school quiz bowl teams participated in a weekly televised show called “Mindquest;” I finished the year as one of the show's top five scorers in points per game…

But what I also didn't realize in ‘87 was that while the essence of time, itself, seemed to move at a glacier slow pace up to those moments, that not long thereafter, time soon sped up so rapidly that I, and most of my childhood friends to this very day, often wonder aloud "where did it all go?" One minute, we were 50 or 60 deep on a band bus all cuddled up with our girlfriends while listening to "Adore" by Prince, "Helplessly in Love" by New Edition, or “Love You Down” by Ready for the World, while the next minute, we were off to college or the military; off to work or wars; entering marriages or enduring divorces; celebrating births or mourning deaths; sporting jet black high top fades or shaving silvery gray beards and oiling our bald heads! Indeed, as the Romans used to explain, "Tempus Fugit" or "Time Flies," particularly when "you're having fun" as Janet Jackson also whispered through our speaker boxes back in '87, too!

Alas, I'm grateful for the memories—and the fact that I, and so many of my friends who were a key part of those memories—are still here to reflect and reminisce!

Lest we forget…