The ’80s live!
At least in Selinsgrove, PA, according to this music video. And who does it star? Thirteen-year-old Isabel Lysiak, sister of our favorite pint-sized publishing magnate, Hilde Lysiak, the girl condemned as too cute to cover a murder in her town.
Here’s the video and below is Hilde’s exclusive story about it.
This comes straight from the Orange Street News:
EXCLUSIVE: Music Video “Dream of the 80’s is Alive in Selinsgrove” Debuts
By Hilde Kate Lysiak
A new music video claims that the town of Selinsgrove is stuck in the 80’s — in a good way!
Thirteen year old singer/songwriter Isabel Lysiak told the OSN she was inspired to write “The Dream of the 80’s is Alive in Selinsgrove,” after watching her six-year old sister Georgie playing in the neighborhood.
“I grew up hearing about how kids had more freedom in the 80’s. My little sister just turned six and she is out running around the neighborhood all day. It is like she is living in an eighties movie. It’s great. Growing up in Brooklyn I wasn’t allowed to do that,” Lysiak told the OSN.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: THE SINGER/SONG WRITER IS OSN PHOTOGRAPHER, VIDEO EDITOR, AND SISTER OF PUBLISHER)
Lysiak says the song is a parody of a video called “Dream of the 90’s is Alive in Portand” that she saw on the comedy show Portlandia.
Read the rest here. And do the ’80s live where you live, too? Let us know!
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11 Comments
When our local high school won the state championship in baseball last June, a newspaper editorial (approvingly) said our community was still like 1962:
http://www.altoonamirror.com/sports/local-sports/2017/06/community-deserves-to-celebrate/
I wish it was as idyllic as they make it sound. That community swimming pool mentioned in the story, as just one example, gets very little use any more. Instead of going to the pool on hot days, people stay home and run air conditioners now. And returning to baseball, there’s plenty of organized baseball, but true sandlot baseball that I can see – use of fields requires prior permission from the school or rec association.
But it’s still better than a lot of places.
Correction:
>but NO true sandlot baseball
(I should proofread to see if I any words out …)
This is really cute! I really wish more kids could experience this kind of childhood. Did this young girl move though, because if she did why doesn’t she just try to go out and about and do these things now? Is she not allowed to? She’s only 13 it’s not like she’s 16 or 17.
Amy, she’s not saying she’s not allowed to now. She’s saying that having lived in a less safe environment, when she was her younger sister’s current age, she wasn’t allowed to do what her sister can do now.
I think she’s just being a little over-mature in the way 13 year olds can be, by referring to “growing up” as in the past.
Ok gotcha Pentamom, I was a little confused. I was thinking well, if you can do that stuff now do it while you can.
I live in Bayonne, and while the streets aren’t swarming with kids, there are plenty playing in the streets, biking, and having unsupervised fun. Bayonne isn’t a bedroom community, it’s a little city, and yet kids are pretty safe here and free to do things on their own. Why is this suck an anomaly?
“That community swimming pool mentioned in the story, as just one example, gets very little use any more. Instead of going to the pool on hot days, people stay home and run air conditioners now.”
@BL:
Interesting story. The community swimming pool was a huge part of my childhood growing up in the 1960s. The pool was only 40 yards long ranging in depth from 3 feet in the shallow end to 10 feet in the deep end. There was a low dive (1 meter) and a high dive (3 meters) at the deep end. On hot summer days, that pool was packed! In fact, when I was in my late high school years and college years, I was a lifeguard up at that pool for 9 summers. But as a young kid, I always remember the thrill of diving off the high dive at the beginning of summer. Eventually I was able to do a one and a half somersault off that board! It was such a thrilling thing and did so much for my self-confidence! Then in 1986, they removed the high dive and replace it with another 1 meter board. New safety regulations now deemed ten feet as being too shallow for a 3 meter board (There NEVER was an accident in the 25 years of that pool’s existence). Eventually they replaced the whole swimming pool with a 0 to 5 feet depth pool and got rid of both diving boards altogether and replaced them with a water slide. The purpose was to make the pool safer and more family friendly. They also wanted to phase out teenagers from enjoying the pool (fear of bullying).
Nowadays hardly anybody swims in that pool no matter how hot the weather is. I just don’t understand how they can keep it open anymore but they somehow do.
This was really a very cold and heart touching song. I have heard this many times. I and my mom always try to make quality time for us in our busy lives. My mom is being old but i hear from her about old days. He has gifted me a lot. Is there any mother? Then collect the doll for your child and give her a surprise gift it will make them speical There are lot of jchoice http://amzn.to/2xTQM18
@BL-I grew up in PA going to the community pool all summer long. We have a community swim club on 10 acres 2 blocks from our house and it was one of the reasons we bought our house.
The kids bike to swim practice every day in the summers with other swim kids. There is definitely not as many kids as when I was there (lots of kids are in all day camps or sports camps) but the sandlot baseball kids are still alive as gangs of what we affectionately call *pool losers* who always have friends on hot days with little adult supervision. My oldest got his lifeguard job there. Kids in the neighborhood of all different ages just….playing.
Thanks for the Ear Worm. Been singing this in my head all morning.
Kathryn Zeman – took the words right out of my mouth! I have had this song on repeat in my head all day.
I have been really promoting “free range” to all the parents in my circle. It does my heart good to see my kids and their friends riding down the streets on their bikes and walking into the village to get ice cream. This is what childhood should be about.