80’s

The 80’s era holds a lot of memories for me because it was my high-school era as well as when I left home and started my life.

I left the nest in July of 1986 via joining the Navy and immediately moving from Longmont Colorado to Groton / New London Connecticut.

I had gotten my driver’s license in August of 1985 – as early as I could take the test: sixteen and a half – so while I’d spent a lot of Friday nights cruising Colfax in my beater Toyota Corona, my days were spent at school, my evenings at home, and my weekends at work. This means my first real recreational / for the hell of it driving happened in and around New London.

Accordingly a lot of my memories of the 80’s are filled with the super-green densely tree-lined twisty goat-path back roads of Connecticut.

For example, this is a 2025 Google Street View of “Gungywamp Rd” – the back way from the sub base near Groton to the Gold Star Highway / CT184 – which is the main road through Groton (that isn’t I-95):

Pretty much every road looks like this in that part of Connecticut – all that changes are the number of lanes… Like, here’s I-395 that goes around New London:

This was a pretty stark contrast to Colorado’s flat, straight, scrub-lined roads. Sure, Colorado has mountains – which are very cool – but you have to go there to get away from the generally featureless aspects of the eastern half of the state.

But, back to Connecticut in the 80’s – the first mall I ever really hung out at was the Crystal Mall just north of New London – which is still there with its original sign still up:

Browsing around in Google’s street view is really interesting as the area I ‘came of age’ in there in Connecticut hasn’t really changed from the late 80’s – which both makes it easy to navigate and really brings back the memories.

The “Pizzarama” across the street from the cemetery, where my ex and I used to go get pizza, is still there – as of 2024 at least:

Speaking of restaurants, it looks like the Steak Loft is still there in Mystic:

This was my special occasion restaurant back in the 80’s – birthdays, holidays, and the ‘welcome back from patrol’ dinner spot. This is right next to the Olde Mystick Village:

Olde Mystick Village was / is a kitschy outdoor mall where I used to buy my new age CDs and any book series I was following.

All in all it was a great place, in a great era, to achieve adulthood in – and I miss it. Though I have a deep longing for anything / anywhere before about 2005… It seems that 2005 was the beginning of a long downhill slide – not for me personally, but more for the world in general.

I’d really like to get back to the Groton / New London area just to visit – maybe next year if things at work slow down.

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