06/02/2026
Raised on Pac-Man, Convenience Store Burritos, and 20 ft Phone Cords
By Jose G Landa
A trip down memory lane
Back in the late 80s, the closest thing we had to a cellphone was that beige house phone hanging on the kitchen wall with a 20-foot extension cord stretched halfway across the house like a lifeline.
If you positioned that cord just right, you could sneak outside, sit on the porch steps, and talk for hours in “privacy” while the cord barely hung on for dear life through the screen door.
Everybody in the house knew not to touch that cord or your conversation was over instantly. One wrong move and somebody yelled, “Hang up the phone, I’m expecting a call!”
Those were the days when having the high score on Pac-Man at the local pizza place or convenience store made you a neighborhood legend. Seeing your three initials glowing on the screen felt like winning a championship. You guarded that score with your life until some random kid from another block came in during the weekend and knocked you off the leaderboard. Then it became personal.
Summer nights lasted forever. You and the homies would leave the house after lunch and disappear into the neighborhood on bikes or on foot with absolutely no GPS, no texting, and no way for anybody to track you down except word of mouth. The only rule was simple: “Be home before the streetlights come on.” And when those pole lights finally flickered on one by one, everybody knew it was time to race home before mom started yelling your full government name across the neighborhood.
The neighborhood convenience store was its own adventure. Walking in with a dollar or two in your pocket felt like having serious money. The holy grail was the two burritos for a dollar special. Add fifty cents extra for cheese and suddenly you were eating like royalty. Grab a cold Coke, some Hot Fries, maybe a pickle in a bag, and you had yourself a five-star feast sitting on the curb outside the store talking nonsense with your friends for hours.
Saturday mornings meant cartoons, cereal loaded with enough sugar to power a small city, and waiting for your favorite music video to finally come on MTV. Rewinding cassette tapes with a pencil was a survival skill. Everybody had at least one friend whose bike sounded like a motorcycle because of the baseball card clipped to the spokes. And if somebody’s mom had air conditioning blasting during the summer, that house became neighborhood headquarters instantly.
Life was slower, louder, funnier, and somehow simpler. No notifications. No social media. Just friends, bikes, arcade games, cassette tapes, and a phone cord stretched to its absolute limit trying to reach the front porch.
