Everytime I get fed up with America I have to listen to people like Jim Glaser or Jimmy Webb and I'm reminded that the heartland of America was once magnificent and can be again.
The American experiment was glorious for ordinary people living not-so-ordinary lives.
To me America in the 60's was like a fantasy. I would rush home from school to watch, 'Lost in Space', or Time Tunnel' I remember seeing Nancy Sinatra dancing to ' These Boots were made for walking' and feeling really strange! The idea of living on the beach like The Monkees. The huge cars with Sofas for seats and chrome tailfins, that if you hit a Nissan you could scrape it off the front and carry on. It was a bit like the list in Billy Joels 'We didnt start the fire' but a good list. The houses, the food it felt like you were living in colour and we were living in black and white. We had 2 flavours of yoghurt then and about 4 of ice cream. For some reason your Politicians are trying to piss it all away.
I think what kind of sums it up for me. I bought some leather Cowboy boots in 'Way out West' (great store in Florida) with the American flag design on them, when I got home I found they were made in China. Probably something to do with Bill Clinton? But how Bizarre.
When I was seven years old my friends and I were all given bicycles by our parents.
Everyday after school ended at 3:30 we got on our bikes and ranges miles away from our homes, hung out at the houses of other kids, met and caroused with other kids.....
We had total freedom from the age of seven onward.
Our moms stayed home and cooked and went to the grocery stores in their Oldsmobiles and Chevy Impalas...
Our houses weren't as large as new homes today; they were about 1,900 sq feet, but they were on lots four times as large as houses today....with huge lawns and trees.
We'd listen to AM radio and there would be anything from Vikki Carr and Dionne Warwick which are parents listened to or other kids listening to The Zombies or Glenn Campbell or The Brooklyn Bridge or maybe Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
Our parents all grew up in the 1930s depression and they expected us to be free and self-reliant. There were few fears.
It was common for kids to break bones in those days. I don't know why but most of the kids I grew up with at one time or another had a cast on their arm from having broken it from a fall or something. A couple of kids had broken legs and spent months with a giant leg cast....
Everyone at one time or another had the mumps and the measles and chicken pox...
Your right I remember the bike bit, used to disappear for hours explore and bizarrely tried to find evidence of UFO'S in the woods! I do remember kids with broken limbs but you never see that now. I think the 60's made kids more self-reliant because of the freedom. I know friends now who micro manage their kids in their 20's paying their phone bills and sorting out insurance for them in a kind of perpetual childhood. When I was ten I had a job working a furnace behind a shop. When I got bored everything would go in. Once the store were throwing away different boxes of snuff, so I had a go with one and nothing happened so I mixed up the dregs snorted a pile, then there was a strange rumbling in my head then I sneezed and nearly blew my head off! Happy days.
Dr P thanks for sending the book. Oh and Jim Glaser appears to have stolen your moustache!
ReplyDeleteI had to fill out a customs paper work to send it so let me know when it arrives???
ReplyDeleteWill do, they like their papers all in ze order! Oh and happy Birthday from Olde England, may we drink to many more!
ReplyDeleteEverytime I get fed up with America I have to listen to people like Jim Glaser or Jimmy Webb and I'm reminded that the heartland of America was once magnificent and can be again.
ReplyDeleteThe American experiment was glorious for ordinary people living not-so-ordinary lives.
To me America in the 60's was like a fantasy. I would rush home from school to watch, 'Lost in Space', or Time Tunnel' I remember seeing Nancy Sinatra dancing to ' These Boots were made for walking' and feeling really strange! The idea of living on the beach like The Monkees. The huge cars with Sofas for seats and chrome tailfins, that if you hit a Nissan you could scrape it off the front and carry on. It was a bit like the list in Billy Joels 'We didnt start the fire' but a good list. The houses, the food it felt like you were living in colour and we were living in black and white. We had 2 flavours of yoghurt then and about 4 of ice cream. For some reason your Politicians are trying to piss it all away.
ReplyDeleteI think what kind of sums it up for me. I bought some leather Cowboy boots in 'Way out West' (great store in Florida) with the American flag design on them, when I got home I found they were made in China. Probably something to do with Bill Clinton? But how Bizarre.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was seven years old my friends and I were all given bicycles by our parents.
DeleteEveryday after school ended at 3:30 we got on our bikes and ranges miles away from our homes, hung out at the houses of other kids, met and caroused with other kids.....
We had total freedom from the age of seven onward.
Our moms stayed home and cooked and went to the grocery stores in their Oldsmobiles and Chevy Impalas...
Our houses weren't as large as new homes today; they were about 1,900 sq feet, but they were on lots four times as large as houses today....with huge lawns and trees.
We'd listen to AM radio and there would be anything from Vikki Carr and Dionne Warwick which are parents listened to or other kids listening to The Zombies or Glenn Campbell or The Brooklyn Bridge or maybe Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.
Our parents all grew up in the 1930s depression and they expected us to be free and self-reliant. There were few fears.
Correction...
DeleteElementary school ended at 3.15pm.
It was common for kids to break bones in those days. I don't know why but most of the kids I grew up with at one time or another had a cast on their arm from having broken it from a fall or something. A couple of kids had broken legs and spent months with a giant leg cast....
DeleteEveryone at one time or another had the mumps and the measles and chicken pox...
That was a given.
Your right I remember the bike bit, used to disappear for hours explore and bizarrely tried to find evidence of UFO'S in the woods! I do remember kids with broken limbs but you never see that now. I think the 60's made kids more self-reliant because of the freedom. I know friends now who micro manage their kids in their 20's paying their phone bills and sorting out insurance for them in a kind of perpetual childhood. When I was ten I had a job working a furnace behind a shop. When I got bored everything would go in. Once the store were throwing away different boxes of snuff, so I had a go with one and nothing happened so I mixed up the dregs snorted a pile, then there was a strange rumbling in my head then I sneezed and nearly blew my head off! Happy days.
ReplyDelete