Comparing Past Julys
Last month, I went back to 1983 and compared past Junes. This month I'm gonna do it with July. Funny how that works out....
July 1983 vs. July 1993 vs. July 2003
Winner: 1983--A lot of the same things that helped June 1983 win this category continued into July, including my growing collection of "Return of the Jedi" and "Smurfs" glasses from Burger King and Hardee's, along with the tail end of my stay at the Albert Lea Child Care Center before I upgraded to a babysitter in Hartland.
July 1984 vs. July 1994 vs. July 2004
Winner: 1984--My youthful bond with Cousin Dusty was formalized with the weeklong mid-July stay this year. I was almost seven years and spent the week at my grandparents' place with Dusty and his older siblings. Dusty and I had enjoyed ourselves during previous visits but it was taken to a new level with this trip, capstoned by a trip to Valleyfair. Shortly after, I found a new babysitter in Hartland, the babysitter who would be my long-term sitter for the next five years, following an unpleasant three-month stay at another babysitter's place. It was a definite upgrade.
July 1985 vs. July 1995 vs. July 2005
Winner: 1985--There was no clearcut winner here, but the tiebreaker tipping in 1985's favor was my fledgling baseball card collection, which had just hit its crescendo moment with the purchase of the 1985 Topps set--my first--in late June. The month of July included daily card talk with the teenage son of my babysitter, who had a pretty impressive collection of his own with cards going back to the late 70s and was a pretty good sport about letting me look through his collection and talk about cards we were mutually pursuing.
July 1986 vs. July 1996 vs. July 2006
Winner: 2006--This was the first summer of my "new life" in central Iowa where I had moved a few months earlier and settled into a new job, and I really began to reap the dividends of that move by July as I was using up some of my vacation time to keep alive my road trip and county fair traditions. I also included a new tradition with the Summerfest celebration that takes place in my adopted hometown, only a few blocks from my apartment. I made the short walk to Summerfest that July and have been attending ever since. It was also the last July 4th for my German shorthair Pokey (his favorite day of the year) and he enjoyed the setting off of fireworks as much as ever even at age 12.
July 1987 vs. July 1997 vs. July 2007
Winner: 1997--The magical escape from my freshman year of college pressed forward with more blissful release as I worked with my old neighbor buddy at the rural electric cooperative, caught up on the TV shows I missed during the regular season, and enjoyed my annual road trip traditions, all in much higher spirits than the two years prior. But late in the month, I added a new level of excitement by hauling the VCR to my grandparents' place during Freeborn County Fair week (they live across the street from the grounds) and recording dozens of hours of 80s action show reruns that I had been licking my lips about for over a year when the FX cable network originally added "The Fall Guy", "The A-Team", "Miami Vice", and "Hart to Hart" to their nightly schedule. In a roundabout way, I managed to get a flesh wound that landed me in the emergency room as a direct result of my excitement over this TV lineup, but it was more than worth it.
July 1988 vs. July 1998 vs. July 2008
Winner: 1988--Tough competition here as July 1998 was my peak month as an Albert Lea mail carrier in the throes of a summer romance with a hot blond co-worker, but even that month can't compete with July 1988 when I took swimming lessons at the Albert Lea pool for two weeks and immersed myself in the peak period of watching the Nickelodeon cable network during the days I stayed at my grandparents' place. Finally being able to swim and jump off the diving board was exciting, but checking out the daytime Nickelodeon schedule on weekdays which had up to that point eluded me made for one of the most exciting and memorable summer months of my childhood.
July 1989 vs. July 1999 vs. July 2009
Winner: 1989--Hard to go wrong with those late 80s and early 90s summers, and July 1989 had a little bit of everything including cable reruns of action show favorites at my babysitter's place and an exciting trip to my cousin's place in northwestern Minnesota in which we ventured north to Winnipeg, Canada, for two days, a particularly exciting adventure that included my first visit to the horse races. There was one bad day in July 1989 though....the late July day when I got braces on my teeth. Thankfully, the installation of the braces didn't disrupt any of my cousin visits or other summertime benchmarks.
July 1990 vs. July 2000 vs. July 2010
Winner: 1990--In just about any other pairing throughout my life, July 2000 would have been a slam-dunk winner, and I almost feel guilty for not giving it the writeup it deserves. But July 1990 managed to exceed it, weaving together the weeklong (and most epic) trip to Thief River Falls to visit my cousin (capstoned by my first visit to a water slide park Fun Mountain) with the momentous pivot point of my youth, the late July tour of southern Minnesota with my dad who was doing vinyl repair work at car lots throughout the region. Right at the precipice of my teenage years, I got in touch with a long-festering fascination for the gypsy life and loved the daily travels to southern Minnesota car lots, exploring new towns and meeting some of the people that lived there. Few months in my life were as pivotal--or as exciting--as July 1990.
July 1991 vs. July 2001 vs. July 2011
Winner: 1991--The general aura of the summer of 1991 was very likeable in itself, with my preciously held daily routines taking hold of watching News 12 Midday, listening to Minnesota Twins games on the radio during their historic championship season, and my evening MacGyver Marathon (my first) but there were two specific standout events of July 1991 that easily catapult it above the competition. The first was my family's July 11 trip to the Noah's Ark water park in the Wisconsin Dells, my first and last visit there. The second was the granddaddy of more than two decades of road trips, the July 23 trek to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with my dad. This road trip was mostly an extension of the previous summer's tour of southern Minnesota car lots, but it stands out to this day as the most exciting and enriching road trip of my life.
July 1992 vs. July 2002 vs. July 2012
Winner: 1992--A pretty weak selection here but 1992 is nonetheless the only one that stands out with anything worthwhile. The Twins were at that point still in the pennant run and I was listening (or sometimes watching) games daily that summer until their late summer collapse. Beyond that, I continued to stitch together my collection of MacGyver reruns on VHS, recording episodes whenever I went to my grandparents' house and the USA cable network was airing an episode I didn't already have. And even though it was a depressing affair because of their centrist posture, I watched my first political convention in July 1992 when Bill Clinton and Al Gore accepted their party's nomination.
Be back in a few weeks with August analysis.
July 1983 vs. July 1993 vs. July 2003
Winner: 1983--A lot of the same things that helped June 1983 win this category continued into July, including my growing collection of "Return of the Jedi" and "Smurfs" glasses from Burger King and Hardee's, along with the tail end of my stay at the Albert Lea Child Care Center before I upgraded to a babysitter in Hartland.
July 1984 vs. July 1994 vs. July 2004
Winner: 1984--My youthful bond with Cousin Dusty was formalized with the weeklong mid-July stay this year. I was almost seven years and spent the week at my grandparents' place with Dusty and his older siblings. Dusty and I had enjoyed ourselves during previous visits but it was taken to a new level with this trip, capstoned by a trip to Valleyfair. Shortly after, I found a new babysitter in Hartland, the babysitter who would be my long-term sitter for the next five years, following an unpleasant three-month stay at another babysitter's place. It was a definite upgrade.
July 1985 vs. July 1995 vs. July 2005
Winner: 1985--There was no clearcut winner here, but the tiebreaker tipping in 1985's favor was my fledgling baseball card collection, which had just hit its crescendo moment with the purchase of the 1985 Topps set--my first--in late June. The month of July included daily card talk with the teenage son of my babysitter, who had a pretty impressive collection of his own with cards going back to the late 70s and was a pretty good sport about letting me look through his collection and talk about cards we were mutually pursuing.
July 1986 vs. July 1996 vs. July 2006
Winner: 2006--This was the first summer of my "new life" in central Iowa where I had moved a few months earlier and settled into a new job, and I really began to reap the dividends of that move by July as I was using up some of my vacation time to keep alive my road trip and county fair traditions. I also included a new tradition with the Summerfest celebration that takes place in my adopted hometown, only a few blocks from my apartment. I made the short walk to Summerfest that July and have been attending ever since. It was also the last July 4th for my German shorthair Pokey (his favorite day of the year) and he enjoyed the setting off of fireworks as much as ever even at age 12.
July 1987 vs. July 1997 vs. July 2007
Winner: 1997--The magical escape from my freshman year of college pressed forward with more blissful release as I worked with my old neighbor buddy at the rural electric cooperative, caught up on the TV shows I missed during the regular season, and enjoyed my annual road trip traditions, all in much higher spirits than the two years prior. But late in the month, I added a new level of excitement by hauling the VCR to my grandparents' place during Freeborn County Fair week (they live across the street from the grounds) and recording dozens of hours of 80s action show reruns that I had been licking my lips about for over a year when the FX cable network originally added "The Fall Guy", "The A-Team", "Miami Vice", and "Hart to Hart" to their nightly schedule. In a roundabout way, I managed to get a flesh wound that landed me in the emergency room as a direct result of my excitement over this TV lineup, but it was more than worth it.
July 1988 vs. July 1998 vs. July 2008
Winner: 1988--Tough competition here as July 1998 was my peak month as an Albert Lea mail carrier in the throes of a summer romance with a hot blond co-worker, but even that month can't compete with July 1988 when I took swimming lessons at the Albert Lea pool for two weeks and immersed myself in the peak period of watching the Nickelodeon cable network during the days I stayed at my grandparents' place. Finally being able to swim and jump off the diving board was exciting, but checking out the daytime Nickelodeon schedule on weekdays which had up to that point eluded me made for one of the most exciting and memorable summer months of my childhood.
July 1989 vs. July 1999 vs. July 2009
Winner: 1989--Hard to go wrong with those late 80s and early 90s summers, and July 1989 had a little bit of everything including cable reruns of action show favorites at my babysitter's place and an exciting trip to my cousin's place in northwestern Minnesota in which we ventured north to Winnipeg, Canada, for two days, a particularly exciting adventure that included my first visit to the horse races. There was one bad day in July 1989 though....the late July day when I got braces on my teeth. Thankfully, the installation of the braces didn't disrupt any of my cousin visits or other summertime benchmarks.
July 1990 vs. July 2000 vs. July 2010
Winner: 1990--In just about any other pairing throughout my life, July 2000 would have been a slam-dunk winner, and I almost feel guilty for not giving it the writeup it deserves. But July 1990 managed to exceed it, weaving together the weeklong (and most epic) trip to Thief River Falls to visit my cousin (capstoned by my first visit to a water slide park Fun Mountain) with the momentous pivot point of my youth, the late July tour of southern Minnesota with my dad who was doing vinyl repair work at car lots throughout the region. Right at the precipice of my teenage years, I got in touch with a long-festering fascination for the gypsy life and loved the daily travels to southern Minnesota car lots, exploring new towns and meeting some of the people that lived there. Few months in my life were as pivotal--or as exciting--as July 1990.
July 1991 vs. July 2001 vs. July 2011
Winner: 1991--The general aura of the summer of 1991 was very likeable in itself, with my preciously held daily routines taking hold of watching News 12 Midday, listening to Minnesota Twins games on the radio during their historic championship season, and my evening MacGyver Marathon (my first) but there were two specific standout events of July 1991 that easily catapult it above the competition. The first was my family's July 11 trip to the Noah's Ark water park in the Wisconsin Dells, my first and last visit there. The second was the granddaddy of more than two decades of road trips, the July 23 trek to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with my dad. This road trip was mostly an extension of the previous summer's tour of southern Minnesota car lots, but it stands out to this day as the most exciting and enriching road trip of my life.
July 1992 vs. July 2002 vs. July 2012
Winner: 1992--A pretty weak selection here but 1992 is nonetheless the only one that stands out with anything worthwhile. The Twins were at that point still in the pennant run and I was listening (or sometimes watching) games daily that summer until their late summer collapse. Beyond that, I continued to stitch together my collection of MacGyver reruns on VHS, recording episodes whenever I went to my grandparents' house and the USA cable network was airing an episode I didn't already have. And even though it was a depressing affair because of their centrist posture, I watched my first political convention in July 1992 when Bill Clinton and Al Gore accepted their party's nomination.
Be back in a few weeks with August analysis.
posted by Mark at 7:26 AM
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