Here's how I remember it:
On Friday nights I would set it up to record both sides of a C-120 tape, and I got pretty adept at hitting record just as I was about to pass out after making it as far into Ready Steady Go on KBEM as I could. My best friend and fellow New Wave enthusiast would then spend the next 6 days pouring over every second of those cassettes. That show, hosted by Mike Wassenaar and Mike McLellan really opened my ears to so many bands that became lifelong favorites.
By Spring of 1984, about 6 months later, said best friend and I made plans to walk home from school on the last day of the year. We went to North Community High School but lived in deep south Mpls. It was about 7.5 miles, and we planned on taking our time and had allotted 4 hours for a typical 2.75 hour walk. We spent weeks making comp. tapes timed for our walk. Everything we were into; our shared love of New Wave, his burgeoning interest in the early industrial music and my budding forray down the Punk Rock path. Cabaret Voltaire and Killing Joke segued into The Lewd and (Canadian) Subhumans, along with a LOT of Classix Nouveaux and Gary Numan.
The last day of 10th grade (for me, last day of high school period for my friend)... I was hanging out in the TV studio for the first few hours of the school day, when I realized that all my friends were hanging out in the park across from the school, and soon enough me and my boom box joined them for an hour. We were partying as much as broke high school kids could in a public park across from our school, and my trusty Toshiba provided the soundtrack.
Then I had to excuse myself and attend my history class because...
In early April I had (cough cough) been ill and skipped my history class, really to hang out with my girlfriend An(gie). I was never one to really skip class much but on that day I just felt my time would be better spent with her than learning about Roosevelt's New Deal and the Tennessee Valley Authority. An(gie) had a dance performance that night back at the school, and I had been asked by the school to videotape it. After the performance, as I was packing up the camera, my history teacher came sauntering up to me and said very loudly "MISSSSTTTEEEEERRRRRR BEVING!!! TOO SICK TO ATTEND MY CLASS, BUT WELL ENOUGH TO VIDEOTAPE YOUR GIRLFRIEND I SEE!!!" I sheepishly kicked non-existent dirt on the auditorium floor while averting eye contact with the teacher. He then said that he would forget my little indiscretion *IF* I attended every class of his for the rest of the year. I heartily agreed and we parted amicably.
So on the last day of school, while everyone else was Whooping it up I was planted firmly in my assigned seat in an empty classroom. My teacher wasn't even there. I sat with my hands folded on top of my desk and waited. After about 10 minutes the teacher came in and asked me what the Hell I was doing in his classroom. I explained that we had a deal that I had to attend EVERY class of his until the end of the year, and that I was holding up my end of our deal. He said that that was commendable, but that if I wasn't there he could lock up and be done for the summer. I again explained the conditions of our deal, the teacher laughed and then kicked me out. He told me to go back to my friends in the park.
He was an amazing teacher.
I went back to the minor shindig in the park. My friend with whom I was going to walk home with, was on the air in the KBEM radio studio, but there were still a handful of us enjoying the sunshine and the tapes we had all brought. And then "they" showed up.
Gangs were something brand new in Minneapolis at that time, at least gangs in the 80's sense. There had been greaser gangs in the 50s and 60s, but this was the first wave of "urban gangs" as they were called in the local media outlets of the time. There were about 30 of them. There were about 8 of us, and only three of us were male. Without warning they swarmed us, fists flying and feet kicking. I took several punches to the face. I took a few kicks to the upper thigh (my guess is they were trying to go for my crotch). I got knocked down and kicked in the ribs. And my precious Toshiba boombox was ripped from my hands. And then it was over. Since I was the one holding the radio I took the brunt of the assault, but everyone else in the group was set upon in one way or another. I had a bloody nose and swollen face, but all in all I came through it all fairly unscathed. What hurt the most was the loss of my beloved boombox.
The group slowly disbanded. My friend, having finished his on-air radio shift, came out an I broke the news to him. We thought it best that we scrap the plans to walk home. I went looking for An(gie) to tell her what happened. She was rightly concerned about me, and we decided to hop a city bus and go back to my house.
When my parents heard about what had happened they gave me the option to drop out of high school, get my GED, and figure out what to do next.
I spent the summer mulling over my options, and came to the conclusion that I enjoyed the Television Production classes I was taking too much to quit. I already knew then that that was the career path I wanted to follow and so, in the fall of 1984, returned to high school as a Junior. By my Senior year I was spending 5 of the 7 hours of the school day in the TV studio, and was effectively teaching the beginning class of incoming Freshmen (the actual assigned teacher, Mr. Kennedy, was an English teacher and knew nothing about video production, so he had me assigned as his "teacher's aid, and had me teaching the class).
In July of 1984 a detective from the Minneapolis Police Dept. Gang Squad came to my house and had me look through a few binders of mug shots in an attempt to identify my assailants, but no one looked familiar enough for the police to pursue.
I somehow ended up with another boombox a year or so later, but it didn't have near the sentimental value as my Toshiba.
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