26 photos that show what life looked like in 1983

A kid's bedroom that doubles as a personal museum. Superman curtains, pennants from every road trip the family ever took, a Mickey Mouse lamp, and enough books stacked on the floor to suggest someone who reads but not necessarily tidies. Every inch of that room is accounted for.

A Las Vegas shopper plays a slot machine with her baby on her hip in 1983, right beside a sign warning that children, including babies being carried, aren't allowed near the machines. In Nevada, slots in grocery stores were common enough by then to be run like any other vending route.

Three kids disappear into a sea of red, yellow, green, and blue balls at a ball pit in Hayward, California, in 1983, back when nearly every arcade, fun center, and fast-food PlayPlace had one. They're mostly gone now.

A 2019 University of North Georgia study found 31 species of bacteria and a strain of yeast living in ball pits at children's clinics, including germs linked to bloodstream infections and meningitis, and that hygiene problem, combined with injury lawsuits and kids increasingly choosing screens over play structures, has made the classic ball pit a rare sight.

Two boys share a laugh in a field outside Cambria, Kansas, next to a chopper-style 'muscle bike' with an extended springer fork and long banana seat, the same look Schwinn popularized with its Krate line back in 1968. The style stuck around for over a decade, and by 1983 it was still the bike every farm kid wanted parked in the grass.

A group of kids on 14th Street with a boombox the size of a small suitcase, all three of them wearing matching white-stripe shades. The music was portable now, and they were taking it everywhere.

Four friends at the Coral Springs Festival, crop tops and high-waisted shorts, and a serious Rush. Summer 1983 had a very specific look, and this is it.

Alice Samaniego taught sophomore English in Los Angeles with her guide dog Kora at her feet and a poster on the wall that says the most powerful force for good in any nation is education. She was 24 years old.

A small boy on a backyard swing, holding the chains, grinning like he just won something. The He-Man shirt was non-negotiable.

What I wouldn't give to go back and try that 79-cent chili.

A crew of kids moving through midtown Manhattan with a sheet of cardboard, on their way to find a patch of concrete worth dancing on. The floor was wherever they put it down.

Five construction workers on a Madison Avenue stoop on their lunch break, beers and coffees in hand, completely unbothered by the city moving around them. The address got fancier, but the break didn't.

Jaime Escalante at the board in Room 233 at Garfield High, pointing at a calculus problem like it owes him something.

He'd go on to become one of the most celebrated teachers in American history, proving that kids in East LA could pass the AP Calculus exam at rates that embarrassed schools twice as wealthy. This is before anyone outside that room knew his name.

A Wawa in North Wildwood doing triple duty: gas at $1.14 a gallon, sandwiches, and coffee. The Jersey Shore ran on all three.

A backyard spread laid out on a folding table in the summer heat, condiments lined up, buns out of the bag, everyone moving around each other the way families do without thinking about it. The grandmother in the background has seen this exact afternoon a hundred times.

Curry Row on East 6th Street at dusk, signs stacked on top of each other all the way up the block. Sonali, Tandoor, Good Karma Cuisine, garden in the back. This was where downtown Manhattan went when it wanted to eat well and spend nothing.

The dome car of the California Zephyr cutting through the mountains, every seat turned toward the glass. Before screens made the journey disappear, this was the whole point of getting there.

A crew of handlers in matching orange jumpsuits trying to wrangle a five-story Garfield on the streets of Manhattan before the Thanksgiving day parade. He looks exactly as cooperative as you'd expect.

A line stretches around the block outside San Francisco's Coronet Theatre for the May 25, 1983 premiere of Return of the Jedi. The Coronet had been the Bay Area's unofficial Star Wars theater since 1977, known for a curved screen and sound system good enough that George Lucas reportedly liked seeing his own films there.

LeVar Burton on a stoop in 1983, holding a copy of "Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport," about to introduce an entire generation to the idea that books could take you anywhere.

Two guys in a suburban driveway dressed for the occasion. Tank top, headband, aviators on the left. Gold chain, pink sweatshirt, arms crossed on the right. Somewhere across town, Sting was about to start.

Arnold Schwarzenegger in a flag tank top, Uncle Sam hat, and an arm spread wide enough to hold the whole country. He became an American citizen that September and clearly had thoughts about it.

A row of payphones gets a full workout in this March 1983 Los Angeles park photo, three booths occupied at once. It's a small reminder of how much public infrastructure existed just to let people make a phone call, back before payphones like these all but disappeared over the following two decades.

Hair flying, sunglasses on, tank top, coming up a dusty trail on a dirt bike with the throttle open.

By the time this photo was taken at a Stringtown, Oklahoma diner on March 10, 1983, Reba McEntire had already scored her first #1 country hit two months earlier, though you'd never guess it from a counter full of flannel and trucker caps. Somewhere out there, these customers are still telling the story of the day Reba walked in.

Nine guys and four girls posed in front of a homemade tinfoil galaxy for this 1983 prom, and the fashion hadn't quite caught up to the decade yet. The big hair, bold makeup, and neon most people associate with '80s prom photos were still a few years out; this is peak '70s carryover, right down to the woman in blue who clearly didn't get the memo.

"E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" came out in June 1982 and surpassed Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film ever made. It held that title until "Jurassic Park" in 1993. A year after the premiere, kids still wanted to be the lost alien. Most store-bought costumes of the era were a plastic mask and a vinyl smock. This one is all brown plush, with stitched toes, wide blue eyes, a red felt heart, and a glowing red fingertip raised in greeting. The rest of the kitchen is pure early '80s: floral wallpaper, wood paneling, a rolling pin hung on the wall, and a spider plant on the counter. The cat seems unimpressed.

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