We were all Samantha and Ferris

There's a generation of grown-up teens feeling sad today.

They call us Gen X now, but for a while, we were the ignored generation, in terms of media. We were not the boomers, and we were before the current wave that heeded Nirvana's call, "Here we are now, entertain us." Beverly Hills, 90210 hit while we were in college. "Kids today, getting a tv show all about them," we sniffed. We could not have imagined the smorgasbord of tv shows, movies, music acts and entire television channels devoted to youth that you see now.

But someone didn't ignore us. He paid attention to us, he understood us. He made movies that empathized with our little teenage anxieties. We were all Samantha, from Sixteen Candles, and could only dream of being Ferris Bueller.

We knew the characters because we saw them every day. Everyone knew a Duckie, a Geek and every girl had been in love with a Jake Ryan.

Hat tip to Cuumbaya for finding this remembrance from a teen who actually became John Hughes' pen pal. Sounds like he was just the person we thought he was.

I know I'm not the only one who was hoping John Hughes would return for a second act, to address in his inimitable style what was happening in our lives, as he had done earlier.

Alas.

Edited -- I'm watching Better Off Dead with my kids and realized -- oops -- it wasn't a John Hughes movie. Though lots of people think it was, if you google the movie. The mark of greatness, when people attribute things to you that you didn't even do.