Firday 5/ Micheal Jackson Memories

1. First Grade. Ryan Hartman (2nd Grade) brought a boom box to school. During recess, the entire 1st through 3rd grade gathered around him as he hit "play" on his tape recorder. The voice coming from the speakers was, I thought, pretty cool. "Who is she", I asked my friend. "That's not a she," he said. "It's Michael Jackson... You know, Thriller?"
2. Friday Night. I'm not sure what year it was, but I was spending the night at Chad Metzger's house. None of us had cable. We stayed up late to watch "Friday Night Videos". We watched the "Bad" Video that night. I think it was my first music video.
3. Hard Rocker. I really got into collecting music in High School. My tape collection started off with Rap, but quickly became uninteresting. Soon, my collection was marked by the rockers of the late 80s and early 90s... Aerosmith, Scorpions, Firehouse, Def Leppard, John Mellencamp, Nelson, Extreme (getting the picture?) Michael Jackson's Dangerous made it through on this collection somehow, and spent much of my Sophomore year in the car stereo.
4. Oprah. Oprah's 1993 interview with Michael was when I realized there was something really "off" about the Pop icon. Unfortunately, the majority of my memories of Michael are marked by these oddities.
5. Text Message. On the way home from Detroit yesterday, I got a text message from Janelle with 4 simple words that made me stop and think of the previously mentioned memories... "Michael Jackson is dead."