Dear John Hughes, thank you.

I had another blog ready to be posted, wrote all nice and neat, sitting in a Microsoft word document on my desktop, but in light of recent news, I decided to change the nature of this post.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/3980s-teen-flick-director-john-hughes-dies-nyc-ap

Above is the link to an article talking about the death of director John Hughes’.

I wasn’t raised in the 80′s, didn’t experience that particular decade in time, but I was born in 1988. And I was definitely an admirer. All my favorite movies, except for one were made in the 80′s.

And all of them Hughes not only directed, but also wrote.

Movies like “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Sixteen Candles,” and “Weird Science.”

And a little 1990 favorite known as “Home Alone,” (and it’s counterparts Home Alone 2, 3 and 4).

That’s just a little piece of his resume, but in short, I loved his work.

Hughes captured the spirit of what was the American teen in the 1980s. He saw inside what was a young generation at that essential time.

Growing up on his movies, I felt like what I was watching was real life, capturing what life felt like for all of us stuck in high school.

Our awkward bodies and embarrassing adventure of crushes (“Sixteen Candles”), the segregation and classification of our selves, formally known as “cliques” (“The Breakfast Club”), the ability to believe in oneself and overcome bullies (“Pretty in Pink”)… the list goes on.

His movies touched the heart, and brought good humor to the soul. For all of us who had to live through high school and the embarrassment of having been an awkward individual, Hughes’ movies was our therapy and our hope.

So thank you John Hughes, may you rest in peace.

Ashley Wioskowski, the Western Herald editor in chief, is a junior majoring in journalism and can be reached at herald-editor@wmich.edu.