Cold Saturdays in the 80s

After a long cold winter would keep me inside instead of outside playing with friends, the first glimpses of warm weather in the spring would bring new hope for days of running around outside. But March could be fickle, and cold rainy days would return to the forecast for Saturdays at times. When that would happen, I would resign myself to another day indoors. But the gloom would be replaced by the joys that could be found on cold Saturdays in 1985 indoors.

On all Saturdays back then, I would be up early as I never wanted to miss a single moment of anything fun. And on those cold and wet Saturdays I would stay in my warm pajamas and hunker down on the couch in the den where it was warmest as I waited on Mom or Dad to get up to stoke the fire in the fireplace in our finished basement. I would be up and in position by 6 AM at the latest so I didn’t miss any cartoons.

Old favorites from the past decades started the day on my local affiliates. I would watch Rocky & Bullwinkle, Tennessee Tuxedo, and Dudley Do-Right to start the day. While watching those classics, I would enjoy some of the best cereals that ever graced a grocery store shelf. Old favorites like Honey Nut Cheerios, Corn Pops, Rice Krispies, and more, depending on what Mom had stocked the pantry with

When the fire in the basement was stoked, I would move there to continue watching those great Saturday morning cartoons on the mid-80s. My favorites of the time were The Gummi Bears, The Smurfs, Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling, Mister T, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. I would watch them all as I sat in the basement floor playing with G.I. Joe figures, Construx, Hot Wheels, and other assorted toys.

When the cartoons ended, my entertainment didn’t though, as I would stay in front of the television to watch Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, and then more old shows that followed it. Settled down with a Superman Peanut Butter sandwich for lunch, I would watch classic westerns, The Guns of Will Sonnet and Branded, that would always follow wrestling on my local channel, and those westerns would help fuel my fun for the afternoon as I would break out my little cowboys and Indians figures and spend the afternoon recreating the exciting gun battles I had just witnessed on television.

During commercials I would run to the nearest window to see if the weather had improved any, and would usually see that it was still cold and wet outside. While part of me was disappointed, another part of me was happy to get to continue enjoying a fun-filled day “stuck” inside.

While the best Saturdays of my childhood were spent outside in the warm sun playing and riding bikes with friends, I still have a very soft spot in my heart for those cold and wet Saturdays that were spent inside enjoying everything my television and my basement had to offer.