(Above: Some of the management team of WLRA/Lewis University, April 1988, just before summer vacation. The author is on the left in clashing Hawaiian shirt and shorts. We all went back to work that fall, and that was it.)

I got a chance to see some family members that I haven’t seen in a while yesterday. Some of them asked “So, are you enjoying your summer off?” I had to explain that I really don’t get the summer off; I have a number of administrative duties between terms that largely amount to having a full-time job. “In fact,” I added, “I really haven’t had a full summer off in about 35 years.”

That got me thinking. Do we really know when our last true summer vacation is? For many at the end of their college careers, their internship or their part-time jobs take up a lot of that “time off” that they came to treasure in grade school and high school. For some of us, whose college career ended rather abruptly, we didn’t have the warning that this was it, that life would be different until retirement. And so it was for me in the summer of 1988. Aside from the brief bad idea that I had to transfer to Augustana College in the Quad Cities (which I touched on here), and working a couple hours a week for gas and beer money at the Kroch’s and Brentano’s bookstore in Orland Square Mall, I had no real responsibilities or much to think about from May to the end of August, 1988. My time was filled with driving around, having parties with my friends, dating (or what passed for dating) the “flavor of the week,” and listening to a lot of music/posturing as “budding radio star.” By the next summer I’d be kicked out of college, working full-time hours on the radio in Joliet, figuring out how to pay the rent, and keeping my eyes open for the Next Big Thing in a budding career. No, 1988 was the last summer vacation in my life, and I had no idea while it was happening.

So, what were we listening to, anyway? The Billboard chart from May 28, 1988 gives us a few clues.

100. Weird Al Yankovic – “Fat” (#99 last week). This actually charted. Yo, Ding Dong, man. Ding Dong, yo.

97. Michael Jackson – “Man In the Mirror” (71). This one is on the way down the charts, having already peaked.

95. Eurythmics – “You Have Placed a Chill In My Heart” (debut). Now we have a solid “oh, wow.” I’ve been sneaking this one into the rotation at WLSX, my student laboratory station. It sounds fantastic, and it’s not terribly burnt after 35 years.

94. The Smithereens – “Only a Memory” (100). A fantastic record that I am sure we were playing at WLRA, but I don’t have a clear memory, so to speak.

93. Scarlett and Black, “You Don’t Know” (91). On the way down the charts. I’d be playing it a bunch in a few months at WJTW/Joliet, my first real radio job. It’s another one that I have in rotation on WLSX these days because it still sounds fun.

92. Wet Wet Wet – “Wishing I Was Lucky” (debut). No recollection of this one. When I got to 89FM/New Zealand, “Love is All Around” was on the radio about every twenty minutes, and that was the first I recall of hearing the band. Clearly they were out there before that.

91. Rick Astley – “Never Gonna Give You Up” (72). This post has officially been rolled.

86. Bruce Springsteen – “One Step Up” (63). I remember how disappointed I was in the Tunnel of Love LP. Sure, “Brilliant Disguise” was fun, but the rest of it just felt – different. As I had a habit of concocting alternate lyrics to everything while on the air, I remember a set to this one about “my wife left me, and she’s a bitch” or something like that, since that’s what was going on at the time. But it still got airplay.

85. Henry Lee Summer – “Darlin’ Danielle Don’t” (debut). See – I didn’t imagine this. I wrote more about HLS here; these records were part of the soundtrack of that summer. See also #71, “I Wish I Had a Girl” (51).

77. New Order – “Blue Monday 1988” (68). This is the top selling 12″ single of all-time. Well, most of the copies were the original version, but this re-do helped to boost it all again. We played New Order on WLRA so often that it became a full-on cliche.

75. 10,000 Maniacs – “Like the Weather” (82). We had hot and dry weather throughout the summer of 1988 in Chicago. In fact, it didn’t rain the whole time WLUP had this on their playlist. You can look it up.

74. INXS – “Devil Inside” (46). Everything from Kick is still so burnt you can smell the toast from here.

72. Terence Trent D’Arby – “Sign Your Name” (debut). Ah, yes, 1988 was the summer of Terence, who – until he proclaimed his debut LP better than Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – seemed to have everything going his way. After a couple of singles, he quickly became an important answer to have ready on 80s Trivia Night at your local pub. You also find him at #24 this week with “Wishing Well.”

70. Climie Fisher – “Love Changes Everything” (81). See, if I had been paying better attention that summer, I would have been much more prepared for that first job at WJTW, since we played a lot of this stuff. I had no idea on May 28th that less than six months later I’d be getting paid to play this stuff.

69. John Mellencamp – “Rooty Toot Toot” (86). Holy crap. I have a record to go and find. I think I forgot this one.

68. Richard Marx – “Endless Summer Nights” (60). Narrator: They were not endless. You also couldn’t avoid R. Marx that summer as he was also at #52 with “Hold On To the Nights.”

62. Kylie Minogue – “I Should Be So Lucky” (64). I think this record was bigger everywhere outside the US, and I am sure that I played it on my morning show on WLRA that fall. I tended to give extra consideration to singers that I thought were cute (I skipped over Tiffany at #78, but the same rule applied), and I am sure that’s how this one got on the show. Shameless.

59. DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince – “Parents Just Don’t Understand” (75). I was much bigger on “Girls Ain’t Nothin’ But Trouble” on my shows. The videos were always worth watching.

58. Van Halen – “Black and Blue” (66). Every white guy in the suburbs had Van Halen on cassette in his car in 1988. It was the law.

56. Toto – “Pamela” (45). I can assure you that I was NOT listening to this record in the summer of 1988. In the summer of 2023 it gets the volume turned up when it airs.

54. Eric Carmen – “Make Me Lose Control” (78). There was no avoiding anything connected to Dirty Dancing that summer. When I went back to work at the bookstore, I was confronted with the fact that the girl I dumped the summer before becoming a big-time college DJ still worked there. Of course, her name was Jennifer, and this song has that line about “Jennifer is singing ‘Stand by Me'” in it. That fall, I’d always play it back-to-back with “Train in Vain (Didn’t Stand By Me).” Some jokes were just for me.

51. Jane Wiedlin – “Rush Hour” (57). For some reason WLRA was late to the party on this one, and it got played a ton that following fall.

50. Breathe – “Hands to Heaven” (55). The “back to school/moving away” song that I wrote about here a long time ago was on the charts already. It wasn’t getting played in private/made out to until August.

46. Robert Plant – “Tall Cool One” (50). If there is one song that I associate with this particular summer, it’s this one. It opened a car mixtape that I played a whole lot. When I launched WLSX it was one of the first songs I looked for because I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I had heard it. (Note to Chicagoans: I’m still looking for the custom mix that Bill Cochrane at WXRT did with the extra Zep hooks in it. Anyone happen to tape it?)

45. Rod Stewart – “Lost In You” (52). I wouldn’t have been digging this then, but it sounds kind of fun now.

42. Paul Carrack – “One Good Reason” (28). This is the title track from the LP that gave us “Don’t Shed a Tear,” which still sounds fantastic coming out of small speakers flying down the highway.

We have made it into the Top 40. The music has been pretty decent so far – are we in for a letdown? Let’s see.

38. INXS – “New Sensation” (47). See above, “burnt.”

37. The Church – “Under the Milky Way” (43). I feel like this one gets played about twice a day on any outlet that touts itself as “alternative.” I’ll admit to not being a devotee of MTV’s 120 Minutes like some people were, but I don’t recall this being as universal as it seems to be now. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

36. Midnight Oil – “Beds are Burning” (38). If you think we played this a lot on WLRA, just wait until “The Dead Heart” comes out, which I still prefer.

35. E.U. – “Da Butt” (35). Remember earlier, when I said that often while on the air I would come up with alternate lyrics? The ones for this one never, ever aired.

34. Pebbles – “Mercedes Boy” (44). Last summer I test drove – and did not buy – a Mercedes. In part I feared having this stuck in my head every time I drove it.

32. Def Leppard – “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (39). I dropped the needle on this one on WLRA the previous fall. One of those days I will go through all of those airchecks and see just how ahead of the curve I was. It’s important to know, since that’s something that rarely happens in this man’s life.

30. Poison – “Nothing But a Good Time” (37). My friend Chuck got us tickets to see Poison open up for David Lee Roth that summer. We sat in the 2nd row. Poison was ear-splittingly loud, and then DLR came out and turned it up. I couldn’t hear anything clearly for two or three days.

29. Cheap Trick – “The Flame” (33). This goes on to #1 and becomes one of the anthems of the summer.

27. Aerosmith – “Angel” (15). This one’s pretty anthemic as well, and will continue to get airplay on my morning show into the fall.

26. Lita Ford – “Kiss Me Deadly” (30). There was a giant poster of this album cover in our office at WLRA, and I called dibs on it at the time. I did not receive it, so whoever has it should kindly mail it to my office at Grand Valley. It would look great in my new station, I think.

19. Prince – “Alphabet Street” (27). I was just reminded what a great record this is.

18. Bruce Hornsby and the Range – “The Valley Road” (25). See, here’s where some career counseling would have been useful. I loved this record at 19. I get hired at an adult contemporary station, where they tell me I sound right for the format. I refuse to believe this and instead try to pose as a rock jock, where I sounded absolutely ridiculous. I should have stayed in soft rock and made a killing, since it’s the stuff I still find I like. Y’know, maybe it wasn’t a lack of career counseling so much as me being too stubborn for my own good.

17. Michael Jackson – “Dirty Diana” (29). In the fall of 1988 I took the instrumental version of this and re-recorded the legal sign-on for WLRA over it. I don’t know how long they used it, but if they want to run it again, I am sure I have it. (There’s another reunion in November; perhaps I should dub it.)

16. Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark – “Dreaming” (16). If you haven’t heard this one in a while, may I suggest doing so at an excess volume? It’s still a lot of fun.

15. Debbie Gibson – “Foolish Beat” (22). I am still waiting for Debbie’s call. I don’t think it’s coming.

14. Belinda Carlisle – “Circle In the Sand” (18). This seems like the sort of thing that would have made it onto a beach mix, but it didn’t. That’s the concept mixtape I never made: it was to be called “The Beach Album” and chronicle a trip to West Beach in Lake Station, Indiana and back to the ‘burbs. It was going to open with Chris Rea’s “On the Beach.” I am sure this would have been in there somewhere. Maybe this needs to get made.

12. Icehouse – “Electric Blue” (7). This one is an immediate time-and-place for me, and that time and place is right here, driving around in my Fiero late at night headed for White Castle. That car always did smell a bit like onions and farts, now that I think about it.

9. White Lion – “Wait” (8). In 1988 we had season passes to Great America, the theme park northwest of Chicago that is now part of the Six Flags family. We weren’t wealthy; there was a deal where if you brought the requisite number of pop cans to a Jewel grocery store, you could get the season pass for the cost of going there twice. So, we did – and went a lot. Indelible memory: this song blasting out of one of those rides where you spin around in a circle a lot for five minutes and see who vomits.

8. Rick Astley – “Together Forever” (14). I forgot to mention earlier when Rick came up that we tried coming up with slogans for WLRA making the call letters stand for something. We wanted to go with “Women Love Radio Announcers,” but a) we were talked out of it and b) it turned out to be false. I recall us using “Who Likes Rick Astley?” for a while? This was around the day that Andy Gibb died, and we answered the phone announcing that every time it rang. Maybe this is why the first slogan was false.

7. Daryl Hall and John Oates – “Everything Your Heart Desires” (9). We’re getting up into that part of the chart where I think “I should hear local radio play these more often, or at all.” This is one of those you just don’t find anywhere.

6. Pet Shop Boys – “Always On My Mind” (4). This is one of those you find everywhere.

5. Foreigner – “I Don’t Want to Live Without You” (6). I just re-thought my argument. I don’t hear this one anywhere, and that’s about right, I think.

4. Samantha Fox – “Naughty Girls Need Love Too” (5). I couldn’t even call dibs on this poster, and it never made it to the radio station wall. This one went right to someone’s dorm room, and it should not be sent to me for any reason at this stage. I doubt it survived to the following Thanksgiving.

3. Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine – “Anything For You” (1). See, I was wondering if this was going to end up being a soft Top 10, and it turns out it is. This was not played at any sort of volume in the car that summer.

2. Johnny Hates Jazz – “Shattered Dreams” (3). Yeah, I didn’t like it then, I didn’t like it when I played it a lot in AC radio, and now? OK, maybe a little.

And, moving up to #1 this week – George Michael – “One More Try.” This was on the aforementioned mixtape from that summer. You know, in case a girl actually got into the car and you had to mellow it out a bit. Weird phenomenon: as I was writing this post tonight I was listening to Sirius XM’s “Big 80s on 8 Deep Tracks” channel. Spoiler alert: they’re not deep tracks at all. So shallow, in fact, that THIS SONG played on the channel. A #1 record. On the channel where Smarmy Voice says “No MTV number ones here! they played… an MTV number one. Radio 101: your imaging should, you know, not be flat-out wrong. Anyway – is no one really playing this anymore, because in the summer of ’88 I felt like I heard it every five minutes or so. (Maybe that was just my car.)

Solid songs and great memories. It made for a great soundtrack to what turned out to be the last “summer off” that I ever really had.