This week, I saw three names flash across my feed, Malcolm-Jamal Warner (54), Ozzy Osbourne (76), and Hulk Hogan (71). And just like that, I was sent spiraling into a wave of Gen X nostalgia. I could almost smell the musty vinyl seats of my dad’s VW Bug, where Black Sabbath 8-tracks cluttered the floorboards except for the one jamming and skipping in the player, fighting to spit out one last riff of "Iron Man." My childhood wasn't complete without the Saturday night glow of WWF wrestling lighting up the room, Hulk Hogan dropping leg slams and preaching vitamins and prayers like a bleach-blond preacher in spandex. And in my teens, I wanted nothing more than to be a Cosby kid hanging out in a Brooklyn brownstone, solving life with humor, sweaters, and soft-spoken wisdom instead of switches from a backyard tree in rural Alabama.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner: The Brother We All Wanted
Malcolm-Jamal Warner wasn’t just Theo Huxtable he was the big brother we all wished we had. Cool, flawed, funny, and always just a little bit misunderstood, Theo gave a generation of latchkey kids hope that maybe our parents would come around with a teachable moment instead of a lecture. I remember sitting on that 70's style couch (orange, brown and itchy, you all know the one), watching The Cosby Show reruns on a wood-paneled Zenith TV, mesmerized by how problems in that house ended with hugs and saxophone music instead of raised voices. Malcolm’s presence taught us that being a teen on TV could mean more than just surviving it could mean thriving with style, humor, and heart.
Ozzy Osbourne: The Prince of Darkness in My Dad’s Car
Ozzy was my introduction to chaos in audio form. To a four year-old in a VW Bug, he was a voice from another world, equal parts terrifying and electrifying. My dad didn’t say much, but when he turned the volume up on Paranoid, that said enough. Ozzy’s voice crackling through an 8-track with more hiss than fidelity was the soundtrack of long drives through hot Southern afternoons, the windows rolled down, the wind whipping in, and me not knowing what a “War Pig” was but shouting along anyway. Ozzy was rebellion before I even knew what rules were. And decades later, hearing the first few notes of “Crazy Train” still takes me back to that floorboard of magnetic tape and cigarette ash.
Hulk Hogan: Our Golden Boy in Red and Yellow
Then there was Hogan part superhero, part carnival act, and 100% the center of every childhood Saturday morning. Hulkamania wasn’t just a gimmick, it was a lifestyle. The way he’d rip his shirt, cup his ear to the crowd, and preach about “training, prayers, and vitamins” felt like gospel for kids whose real world role models were either absent or too tired to play catch. I remember mimicking his moves on worn out couch cushions, delivering elbow drops to my younger brother while “Real American” blasted from the TV. Hogan made you believe that no matter how big the challenge, if you believed hard enough, you could overcome it preferably after hulking up and wagging a finger at your enemy.
So as I watched the years tick by next to those familiar names, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan, I couldn’t help but feel the weight and the beauty of time. These icons remind us not just of who they were, but of who we were when we first met them. Life moves fast, and the memories pile up like old 8-tracks in a dusty car scratched, imperfect, but still playing the soundtrack of our lives. Don’t wait for a headline or a birthday to remember the good stuff. Live loud, love hard, and be present. Every day we wake up is a blessing. Make it count like it’s Saturday morning in 1985 and Hulk Hogan’s about to walk into the ring.