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Teacher jokingly challenges 10-year-old to 'find Duran Duran' while in England. She does.

Lo and behold, lead singer Simon LeBon appeared in the doorway.

Wikicommons, lakehighlandsadvocate IG

A teacher challenged her student to find Duran Duran. She never expected the student to actually pull it off.

Imagine this: you're a fourth grade language arts teacher in Dallas, and like many Gen X-ers, your obsession with Duran Duran never waned. So much so that you still have dolls of each member of the band in the classroom and, according to Austin Wood's article for the Lake Highlands Advocate. Even an old telephone in case (lead singer) Simon LeBon calls.

This describes Miriam Osborne, a fourth grade teacher at White Rock Elementary in the Lake Highlands district of Dallas, Texas. Wood shares in "White Rock E.S. student, inspired by teacher, meets Simon LeBon" that one of Osborne's students, 10-year-old Ava Meyers, was getting an early pickup for Christmas break, since her family was heading to the U.K. for a holiday wedding. As they were saying their goodbyes in the hallway, Osborne kiddingly said to Meyers, "Find Duran Duran."

Cut to: Ava and her family, including her mom Zahara, fly across the pond to find themselves in the Putney neighborhood of London. After a day of sightseeing, Zahara shares, "I was just Googling things to do in Putney, and the first thing that popped up was 'Simon Le Bon lives in Putney from Duran Duran.'”

Duran Duran, Simon LeBon, 80s, 80s music, 1980s, Gen X, 80s nostalgia Barney from 'How I Met Your Mother' media1.giphy.com

Zahara did a little sleuthing and found Simon's house, thinking perhaps a Christmas stroll by the home would be exciting. But, according to the article, Ava felt they could do better. She and "an 83-year-old relative named Nick, who apparently has courage in droves, went to the door and tried a knock. Zahara was initially hesitant but assumed Le Bon would be away on vacation, so she figured it was harmless. Le Bon’s son-in-law answered, his wife came to the door next, and following a few moments of getting pitched the idea by Nick, agreed to get her husband 'because it was Christmas.'"

And just like that, Simon LeBon appeared in the doorway. He warmly greeted Ava and her family and even took pictures. "It was just crazy," Ava exclaimed.

But possibly more excited was Miriam Osborne, back in the States. She proudly shared the photo (which had been texted to her) with many of her friends and even encouraged Ava to recount the story to her classmates when they returned from the break. Wood shares, "Osborne’s connection to the band goes back to her childhood in El Paso in the ’80s. As the daughter of a Syrian immigrant, she says she had trouble fitting in and finding an identity. Some days, she and her brothers would travel across town to get records from a British record store."

Miriam explains she used her babysitting money to buy her first Duran Duran record. "And so I had been a fan, literally, for 43 years—my entire lifetime."

Osborne's love of Duran Duran, and many '80s bands in general, nostalgically connects her to a throughline for her life that she tries to impart onto the students as well. "Music is a connector, and it connected me to a world that I didn’t always fit in as a child. It helped me find people who I still love to this day, and it’s a big part of this classroom with me and the students I teach, because everybody has a story, and there’s something really incredible about hearing something and it taking you to a happy moment."

Duran Duran, Simon LeBon, 80s, 80s music, 1980s, Gen X, 80s nostalgia "Music is a connector." media0.giphy.com

As for Ava? She's now taking guitar lessons. And perhaps one day, she can become so famous and inspirational, a teacher sends a student off to find her on a Christmas vacation in the future.

This article originally appeared in March.

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Gen X woman describes what Halloween was like in the 80s with perfect accuracy

"Every single member of Gen X can smell this photo."

Photo credit: ~ tOkKa/Flickr, Canva

Halloween costumes in the 80s were terrifyingly terrible.

Halloween has come a long way since the 70s and 80s, when Gen X kids donned the worst mass-produced costumes known to man to go out and ask strangers for candy that we were sure was laced with poison or razor blades. Those sure were good times, though, weren't they? Social media creator Kelly Manno shared a video describing what Halloween was like for kids who grew up in "the forgotten generation," and holy moly is it accurate.

First, Manno showed a photo of someone dressed in an "80s costume" for Halloween, with neon colors and legwarmers and big hair, and said, "Absolutely nobody looked like that in the 80s, especially on Halloween. We looked like this."

Then she showed a grainy photo of kids in the plastic masks and poorly printed costumes that were the hallmark of the age.

"Every single member of Gen X can smell this photo," she said. "It's like a vinyl, like plasticky paint smell."

Manno explained that our parents only took a few photos of us per year, and Halloween was always one of them.

"You knew, before you went out trick-or-treating, that you had to line up with your cousins in front of the fireplace, in your highly flammable costumes, with your mom chain-smoking Virginia Slims.'"

Oh, those masks were the worst inventions ever. The eyeholes never lined up properly, so you were constantly trying to adjust them to be able to see even a little bit.

media4.giphy.com

"We would push our tongue through the slit in the mask. It would cut our tongue, but then we'd keep doing it again because we were eaten up with OCD and ADD and nobody cared."

Then Manno described the "garbage bag costumes" we had, which were basically trash bags printed with whatever character it was supposed to be. So janky. So sweaty. So crinkly when we walked. But somehow still socially preferable to your mom making your costume from scratch.

"Look at us, we were terrifying," Manno concludes. "No wonder people tried to poison us."

media1.giphy.com

Her descriptions of what it felt like to trick-or-treat in those costumes and haul our own bodyweight in candy are spot on, and people who lived it are feeling the nostalgia.

"So much truth in one video! 😂 I just saw, heard, and smelled my childhood."

"You are literally making me laugh so damn hard, cause you described it exactly as it was, but my mom smoked Winston's!"

"It was always freezing on Halloween that the vinyl/plastic suit would crack and tear halfway through the night."

"Or the rubber band breaking at the second house and you had to hold it up on your face at the door the rest of the night. 😂 Good times."

"The tongue thing is on point. I can still feel it. 😂"

"I can totally smell that picture lol. I remember the steam from inside the mask would have your lashes and eyebrows covered in dew then after a couple streets of running house to house the crotch would tear out. We would stay out until everybody turned their lights off and the pillow case was full."

"Yes!!!! And we used a pillow case for our candy. And no adult supervision."

"My mom made me really nice homemade costumes, but I remember begging for the plastic Strawberry Shortcake garbage bag one. So, she bought it for me one year. That was a terrible, sweaty experience. 😂"

"Let’s not forget having to inspect every piece of candy for razor blades. I swear I lost half my haul to my father in that clean up. 🍬 🍫 😢"

Kids these days have no idea, with their official city trick-or-treat hours and their parents walking around with them and their costumes that actually look like the thing they're trying to be. The 70s and 80s were a wild time, and as funny as it is to reminisce about those Halloweens of old, most of us would agree that the experience has been much improved for our own kids.

media.giphy.com

Pillowcases still make the best trick-or-treat bags, though. Some things do not change.

This article originally appeared last year.

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16 of the Gen X time capsules that make zero sense to any other generation

Who remembers Columbia House collect notices?

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The car DJ is a sacred job.

Let’s hear it for the lost generation—the slackers and middle children who brought us apathy personified and grunge music. Sure, Gen Xers might not be as loud as the boomers, millennials, or even the Gen Zers of this world, but that’s only because, if we’re honest, they’re too busy taking care of things themselves to have time to complain.

And you know, for being the forgotten generation, the world can’t seem to stop talking about it. From Gen X pop culture classics re-emerging into the mainstream, to making headline-worthy spikes in wealth over the past couple of years, this group is (finally) in the spotlight.

Recently u/Ruffffian asked the Reddit community to share what they consider to be “THE most Gen X” thing. As a certified millennial, I have absolutely no idea what half of them are (seriously, what is a “Garbage Pail Kid” and why are they terrifying?). But I guess that’s why only you latchkey kids can proudly claim them.

Much of what people shared harkens back to an experience, rather than an actual object, but one thing’s for sure—only Gen Xers can fully understand, let alone appreciate, this list. Dare I say, no other generation has this flavor combination of edgy and wholesome.

1. “Columbia House collect notices.”

– @additional-Olive-405

Not gonna lie, I had to look up what this meant. Fellow millennials, think old Netflix, but for music. There, translated.

2. "Never getting mentioned in the news. It always goes from gen z to millennials to boomers.”

– @My_eternals

3. “Video arcade. Before Gen-X, graphics weren’t good enough, and after Gen-X, you’d play the games on your own home console. No other generation claimed them like we did.”

via GIPHY

– @Masonsknob

4. “Parachute pants..the noise was deafening in the halls between classes!!”

– @GboyFlex

5. “Claiming shotgun in the car so you had access to the binder and could play DJ for the night.”

via GIPHY

– @TikTokTinMan

So like…no Spotify playlist? Such dark times.

6. "Sun-In for hair. Feathered bangs. Blue eyeliner. Love's Baby Soft. Jellies."

– @star-67

7. “Hair crimper, riding bikes with no helmets, buying smokes for my dad at the shop. Putting baby oil on and sunbaking (cause we were literally baking ourselves haha) doing whatever I wanted for one to two hours after school by myself cause parents were still working. Being allowed to roam the streets until almost dark.”

via GIPHY

– @Master-Cricket9906

8. “I said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie To the hip hip hop-a you don't stop the rock it to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat…”

– @labretirementhome

9. “Being the last unreachable generation. There were hours where no one knew where we were and our parents had zero way to contact us.”

– @Nakedreader_ga

10. “Calling your out-of-town friend collect from a payphone to another payphone to avoid long distance charges.“

via GIPHY

– @Advancedbullshit (who "successfully did this with a boyfriend too")

11. "Always having a pencil in the car for cassettes."

– @sillyputtygizmo

12. "Being the last generation to have to walk across the room to change the TV channel. Being able to fix the TV by pounding on it the right way. Getting the brown box for the TV and there only being three stations."

– @ok_micologist_5569

13. "Watching MTV's Headbangers Ball on Saturday morning, ready to record on the VHS when my favorite bands came on."

via GIPHY

– @hyenaatemyface

14. "What defined Gen X growing up was living under the constant threat of nuclear war. If you wonder why Gen X is defined as 'whatever,' it's because we believed that at some point in our future, we'd end up living, or dying, in a nuclear winter."

– @ruatrollorruserious

15. "Beepers. It felt so important to have one, even cooler if you paid extra for the voicemail service."

– @nousername56789

And finally...

16. "Being old enough to remember (and appreciate) life before the internet and cellphones but being young enough to transition into that world without a hitch."

– @TikTokTinMan


This article originally appeared three years ago.

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People are sharing all the random things they 'haven't thought about since grade school'

"The flavor of the wooden spoon haunts me to this day."

via X (formerly Twitter)

Did you do any of these?

Everyone's childhood is different. But there are common objects, sights, sounds, smells, and memories from elementary school that most Gen Xers and Millennials share.

Personally, when i think back to being in elementary school in the '80s, I remember the taste of the chocolate chip cookie we got on Fridays (with the pizza), the humiliation of getting nailed in the back during nation ball, and the grumbling, grinding sound that happened when you slipped a disk into the drive on an Apple IIe computer.

Nowadays, in a world where most kids would have no idea how to even turn on an Apple IIe or have never felt the sting of a rubber nation ball hitting them square between the shoulders, I get a bittersweet feeling when I think back to my elementary school days.

Mel Madara stirred the nostalgia pot on X (formerly Twitter) one week in 2020 when she posted a series of photos of things she remembers from elementary school that anyone from age 55 down to age 30 probably recollect, too.

Apple lle ComputerAh, the good old days. via Daniel Bagel / Flickr


She started up with a series of objects and experiences you may have forgotten that were a daily part of elementary school life.


She inspired countless followers to share the things they remember from elementary school in the '80s and '90s.

Remember Heads-up 7-up? Can Remember the anxiety as someone walked slowly though the room and you hoped and prayed they touched your thumb?


That clock you can wind up from behind.



Do you remember dying on Oregon trail repeatedly?



M.A.S.H.! Did you wind up in a mansion, apartment, shack, or a house? What kind of job did you get? Who did you marry? What kind of car do you drive?



Before Michelle Obama it was acceptable to feed a kid a taquito filled with pizza.



The stool that helped you grab that Judy Blume book just out of reach. It was also a great place to sit and read if the tables were filled up or you just wanted some privacy.



My skin is peeling off!



Ah, childhood! So weird, so wonderful.


This article originally appeared five years ago.
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