irememberjfk_l6fq3c – Page 17 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

What Will You Be When You Grow Up?

Perhaps it’s just me, but I recall being asked that question A LOT when I was a kid. Strangely, my own kids don’t remember being asked so much. But there was no doubt in my mind what I would be one day, far off into the future, when I stopped being a kid and transformed into a full-grown man: a SCIENTIST!

I was obsessed with science as a child. My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Abels, taught me to read in a single day via the magic of phonics. Science books were soon being devoured. And I was fascinated with things like bugs, crawdads, tree leaves, birds, and various things I found living in the dirt while excavating with Tonka equipment.

Ergo, needless to say, someday I would ply my trade by wearing a white coat, being surrounded by loads of laboratory equipment, and making world-changing discoveries.

Well, like with most of us, life took a different turn for me. I spent twenty-three years working as an electrician. It was a decent trade, but hardly what I envisioned as my life’s work when I was seven years old.

Fortunately for me, my love of science somehow translated into an affinity for all things computer. So I was able to make an incredibly rewarding career change at the age of forty to professional web programmer. I don’t wear a white coat to work, I wear khaki slacks and polo shirts. My discoveries don’t change the world, but they do help the profitability of my employer. I’m not surrounded by beakers and test tubes, but do have lots of Dilbert cartoon on the walls.

Above all, I enjoy my job, which was what I DID envision myself doing at the age of seven.

Had we gotten our wishes, the world would now be full of firemen, astronauts, ballet dancers, cowboys, policemen, and perhaps a handful of scientists.

That’s how things turned out for me. But what about you, friends? What did you see yourself doing when you grew up? And how did it turn out for you?

Please share your thoughts with the rest of us. The floor is yours.

Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color

Sunday nights were the must-see-TV of the 60’s. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, Sullivan, Bonanza, and of course, Disney were its residents.

The Disney show started out as Disneyland on ABC in 1954. It was a hit, its biggest coup of that decade being the Davey Crockett series over three nights. Coonskin caps were the immediate rage in the wake of the hugely successful presentation.

In 1961, Disney hopped networks. It had nothing to do with ratings or cancellation. Instead, it jumped to NBC because the network was widely telecast in color. The show was rechristened Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.

I count myself as fortunate to remember Walt Disney himself introducing the night’s episodes in a folksy, downhome manner. No wonder kids loved him. I felt like he was my grandpa.

Walt died in 1966, and the intro scenes were dropped. Good move. Nobody could hold a candle to the man himself.

The show opened to a musical accompaniment that I can still recall, in large part. And it looked so good on our brand new color TV.

The show featured movies (cut into one-hour chunks), nature-based-films, and various shorts in the Disney vault. The ultimate was when they would show cartoons. Man, I would get into a state of ecstasy when Sunday afternoon commercials would announce a toon on Disney that night. They would also announce next week’s show at the end of the episode, so sometimes the anticipation would last an entire week.

Dad would always act like we would have to switch the channel in such a case, but he never did. I think the old Norwegian had a sense of humor buried deep in his psyche.

Sunday nights no longer hold the same mystique over me, or the rest of the world. In fact, the various cable channels continue to make inroads on the Big Three networks (actually four, including Fox) so that the very concept of who’s number one is different now than it used to be.

But in the 60’s, Sunday night was the biggest show on television. And Walt Disney ruled it.

Vanished Toy Companies

We Boomers grew up with the greatest toys ever made. Indeed, the 1950’s-1970’s has been hailed as the Golden Age of toy manufacturing by more than one authority. And those toys were brought to us by a number of manufacturers who, sadly, have disappeared from sight.

I’ve already written about Kenner. Today, we cover three more beloved toy makers who have regrettably slipped below the waves of history and live on only in the memory banks of Boomer children.

The first is Marx. “By Marx!” used to sign off all of their commercials, eagerly absorbed by many a 1960’s-era kid on a Saturday morning, the prime time for TV to show such ads in order to reach their maximum demographic. This Big Rail Work Train ad is one I remember well. It seemed that Marx’s specialty was BIG toys. That meant that it would take a special occasion to talk mom and dad into springing for one.

Marx was founded in 1919 in New York City by Louis Marx and his brother David. The brothers looked for innovative toy designs produced by others, bought the rights, and improved upon them. The strategy worked well. By 1922, both had become millionaires. Their business actually thrived during the Depression, and by 1955 Time magazine had declared Louis Marx the Toy King.

In 1972, the now 76-year-old Marx sold the company to Quaker Oats. In 1975, they in turn sold it to Dunbee-Combex-Marx, a British company. In 1978, that company went under, and so did the Marx name.

The Ideal Novelty and Toy Company was founded in New York in 1907 by Morris and Rose Michtom after they had hit it big creating the Teddy bear in 1903. The Teddy bear, of course, was invented to cash in on an incident in which Teddy Roosevelt refused to kill a bear which had been captured for that purpose.

In 1934, Ideal introduced Betsy Wetsy. Other triumphant Ideal toys included Battling Tops, Captain Action, Gaylord the Walking Bassett Hound, Ker-Plunk, the Magic Eight-Ball, Mouse Trap, Tip-It, and their final smash hit: Rubik’s Cube.

In 1982, with Rubik’s Cube riding high, Ideal sold out to the CBS Toy Company, which almost immediately itself disappeared. Thus was the inglorious end of the producer of some treasured Boomer toys. Many of its familiar creations continue to live on, though, particularly the one that started it all, the Teddy bear.

That brings us to our third vanished toy company: Remco.

Remco was a relative latecomer in the Boomer toy manufacturing biz. They showed up sometime in the 40’s.

Among Remco’s contributions to our childhood memories were the official Beatles, Batman, Munsters, Lost in Space, and Monkees toys we played with. Remco managed to sew up the toy rights to these very lucrative franchises.

They also produced the famous Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater play figures of 1964. What, you don’t remember them? That’s okay, neither does anyone else. 😉

Another obscure Remco toy that must have been absolutely amazing to see was their 1959 Movieland Drive-In Theater. According to Wikipedia,

(It) consisted of cars, a drive in board with car spaces, a place to list “Featured Movies” along with blue and white double-bill cards that slid into the marquee; the “movie” was a film strip that projected by a battery operated light bulb onto a 4″ x 6″ screen that attached to the drive in. Titles included Have Gun Will Travel, Mighty Mouse, (and) Farmer Al Falfa.

Can you imagine a 1959 kid setting up that puppy in his/her darkened bedroom? Wow!

Remco was acquired in 1974 by Azrak-Hamway International, Inc. The name held on until the apparent final product was released, 1994’s Swat Kats action figures. Never heard of Swat Kats? Maybe your kids did, they were aimed at their generation.

1994 is the last mention I could find of AHI/Remco, so I assume their demise must have occurred about that time.

Thus are the fates of three toy giants that fed our relentless appetite for playthings in the 50’s through the 70’s. They should stand as a stern reminder to big companies everywhere that no matter how well things are going for you now, you are only time away from becoming the subject of a nostalgia blog’s remembrance of something that disappeared when you weren’t looking.

The Tragic Tale of a Man They Called Stringbean

Life in Anneville, Kentucky, located in the backwoods of the backwoods, was not easy in 1915, the year David Akeman was born. His family were farmers who barely scraped by. Entertainment had to be provided by the local folks themselves. Thus arose bluegrass music, which was prolific in the rural areas of Tennessee and Kentucky.

David took a shine to music. He came by it naturally. His parents were musicians as well. When he was seven, he took an old shoebox and some thread his mom gave him and created his first instrument. Five years later, he traded two of his prize bantam chickens to a friend for his first real banjo.

Akeman loved playing and entertaining, and was soon making the circuit of local honky-tonks and playing at dances and such. He was having a great time, but the Depression was on, and he needed to eat. The pittances he earned at gigs weren’t cutting it.

So he got a government job, building roads for the Civilian Conservation Corps. But he yearned to be a professional musician.

One day, established local musical star Asa Martin held a contest, looking for new talent for his own band. Akeman’s self-taught banjo pickin’ got him a gig with Martin’s band for enough money to live on. Sweet!

One night, Asa stumbled over his name when introducing him. So he just improvised “String Beans.” The name fit the tall, lanky performer perfectly, and he became known as Stringbean from then on.

The name also made it easy for him to showcase his comedic talents. Soon, Stringbean was known as the slightly goofy banjo-picking wonder on Asa’a band.

Stringbean jamming with Grandpa Jones on Hee Haw

Stringbean rode Asa’a coattails as far as they would go, but soon ventured out with other groups, and even played a little semi-pro baseball. He caught the attention of another part-time ball player, one Bill Monroe.

The King of bluegrass soon had Stringbean playing with his prestigious group, and he enjoyed three years of touring and performing with them. Then, Bill decided it was time for a change, and replaced him with another banjo player by the name of Earl Scruggs.

Stringbean married his lifelong bride, Estelle, in 1945, and joined up with another banjo picker with a knack for humor by the name of Louis Jones. You may know him better as Grandpa.

Stringbean found himself a regular performer on the biggest country music stage in the world, the Grand Ole Opry. he would appear alongside Grandpa Jones as well as other gigs with Lew Childre. He had thoroughly adopted the Stringbean identity by then, wearing a long nightshirt with short pants and that goofy hat.

He played the Opry throughout the 50’s and 60’s. Then, in 1969, he and his buddy Grandpa were approached about appearing as regulars for a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The show’s Canadian producers were looking for a rural answer to Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. They were fans of the Opry, and had signed several of its long-time stars.

Hee Haw garnered decent ratings, but CBS was in the middle of its infamous “rural purge,” dumping shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Mayberry R.F.D. in an effort to go after a younger demographic. But the show’s producers put a syndication deal together, and it was soon appearing in rural areas like New York, Los Angeles, and, of course, small southern communities.

The money was flowing rapidly into the Akeman household by now. Stringbean, like many Depression survivors, didn’t trust banks. He also didn’t like to appear affluent. So he and Estelle lived in a modest little cabin in the Kentucky woods (though he did spring for a Cadillac).

On the Saturday night of November 10, 1973, Stringbean and Estelle returned from an evening out. They were accosted by two 23-year-olds in their home, cousins John A. Brown and Marvin Douglas Brown. The burglars shot them dead. The next morning, neighbor Grandpa Jones found the bodies.

The murderers figured Stringbean had money hidden on site. They left with a chain saw and some guns, but no cash. 23 years later, $20,000 in decomposed cash was found behind a brick above the fireplace.

Stringbean was one of my favorite Hee Haw performers. Here’s to his memory.

The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour

In the late 1950’s, a duo of brothers were making the scene in bohemian clubs and coffee houses in New York with a funny musical act. Eventually, they attracted the attention of TV talent scouts. Appearances on Hootenanny, as well as variety shows presented by Sullivan, Bing Crosby, Steve Allen, and Andy Williams made them household names.

Dick was the “serious” one, and Tom was the dork. That was their act, one that played the same through a sitcom (Tom was a dorky angel) and a series of variety shows.

In 1967, CBS launched The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It wasn’t long before they wished they hadn’t.

What was lacking in their sitcom was any political views. These two folk musicians had plenty to say once they were thrust into a comedy-variety show format. And say it they did. And a half.

The Vietnam War was starting to get very unpopular with the nation’s youth. And Tom and Dick, to CBS’s chagrin, became the voice of that dissatisfied youth.

Guest stars included fellow folk singers like Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, rock acts like Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, and The Who. Interestingly, guests showed up who would prove pleasing to an older generation, as well. Jimmy Durante and Kate Smith come to mind.

Pat Paulsen would throw a diatribe at LBJ that was so whacked out that it should have never been taken seriously, but it was. Not by Johnson, who would write a nice letter to the duo after the show’s cancellation saying he was never offended by the banter. But the rumors run rampant that Richard Nixon would later pressure CBS to get the show off the air so he wouldn’t have to put up with the criticism.

Years before SNL, humorous references were made to smoking pot. They also poked fun at The Establishment, the military, and the police. This certainly rankled the CBS execs. Eventually, they demanded a tape of each episode be presented to them in time for their “editing.” Tommy later claimed that they censored 75% of their episodes.

The censor’s axe got, among many others, these incidences: A 1968 Mother’s day message that ended with the words “Please talk peace.” Harry Belafonte singing before a backdrop of footage from the 1968 Democratic National Convention unrest. Joan Baez’s spoken introduction to a song where she mentions her draft-evading husband David’s being in prison. And of course, the most notorious: Pete Seeger’s protest song Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.

In 1969, the BIG axe fell. CBS claimed that they didn’t receive a tape of the season’s final show for their “approval” and prevented it from being shown. They also canceled the well-ranked show shortly afterward.

What’s hilarious is what slipped PAST the censors. Goldie O’Keefe’s weekly “Share a Little Tea with Goldie” was never assumed to be referring to a slang term for marijuana. Not even her opening “Hi! and glad of it!” rang a bell.

The Smothers filed a lawsuit against CBS over censorship that they lost. Needless to say, they never worked for them again. Here’s hoping someday those few episodes of one wild and crazy show will be released on DVD.

The Race to Defeat Polio

My older brothers grew up with the presence of a horrible, random terror that caused near-hysteria. It could strike absolutely anyone, but seemed particularly fond of children. Perfectly healthy, active kids could be transformed in a matter of days into paralyzed individuals who might require confinement in an “iron lung” just to take their next breath.

The scourge was poliomyelitis, commonly known as polio.

A series of outbreaks took place in 1921. Among those infected was a young adult named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His strong legs were turned into paralyzed vestiges of what they once were.

Roosevelt was determined to press on despite his malady, and tried to always arrange to be photographed away from his ever-nearby wheelchair. But the American public knew that the man who would come to be their most beloved President was a victim of polio, and FDR spearheaded a drive to find a cure, or at least a prevention, for the disease.

In the early 20th century, the polio virus was transferred mainly by poor hygiene among babies and children. 90% of those exposed would develop antibodies and a lifelong immunity. However, the remaining 10% would be affected by symptoms ranging from minor affecting of muscle movement to complete paralysis.

As personal hygiene improved, exposure to the virus became less commonplace among children. But this worked two ways. The virus still survived, and would eventually come into contact with individuals who might have developed the needed antibodies at a very young age, but now had to cope with an unencumbered virus at a later age. I am good friends with a man who developed polio in the early 50’s at the age of fourteen.

Among the pioneers who fought polio were Sister Kinney, an Australian nurse who used physical therapy rather than immobilization to restore much muscle movement among the disease’s victims. The medical community resisted this outspoken Aussie’s techniques, but eventually she had persuaded many to come to the institute she founded in Minnesota. Among the patients who received care and regained muscle tone was Alan Alda.

At the prevention end, a vaccine was being feverishly sought. In the late 1940’s, Albert Sabin was working on an oral vaccine. Jonas Salk was concentrating on an injected model. They both received government grants for their work, as did other polio researchers.

In the meantime, numbers of cases of polio began to surge. The average had remained at 20,000 new cases per year throughout the 40’s, but in 1952, the most-ever cases were reported in the USA: 58,000.

That year, Salk began testing a vaccine prototype at Watson Home for Crippled Children and the Polk State School, a Pennsylvania facility for the mentally retarded. The results were encouraging. By 1954, the vaccine’s test group included thousands of school children. The vaccine was effective, but not perfect. It provided immunity in 60-70% of individuals against against PV1 (poliovirus type 1), and over 90% of the subjects against the other forms of the disease.

In 1955, immunizations began to be given to the general population. The March of Dimes assisted in promoting and organizing vaccinations, and by 1957, the number of new US cases was down to 5600.

Meanwhile, Sabin and his team continued to work on their oral virus, and in 1958, it was tested and found effective. In fact, the immunity it provided lasted longer than that provided by the Salk vaccine. It replaced Salk injections in 1962 in American schools and hospitals.

By 1964, when I was five years old, a mere 121 cases of polio were reported in this country.

We Boomer kids grew up with lots of worries. But those of us who were among the last of the post WWII-population explosion were very fortunate that polio was something we talked about in the past tense, thanks to an army of researchers who had long before declared war on the crippling disease.

The Night Hank Hit #715

Major League Baseball home run champion Hank Aaron

At presstime, a longstanding major league baseball record stands poised to be broken. It is surrounded by dark clouds of controversy, as a player with direct ties to the abuse of steroids and other banned substances (whose name I refuse to mention), revered by some, despised by a majority, will soon be loudly celebrated by his ESPN shills and apologists (as well as a limited number of fans in the San Francisco area) for becoming the all-time home run champion.

But the man who hit 755 has gained new respect and reverence by a public who appreciates sportsmanship and simply being a gentleman over boorish behavior by physically talented but morally bankrupt egomaniacs who unfortunately are prominent in modern-day athletics.

We Baby Boomers who were baseball fans will never forget the night Hank hit number 715 in Atlanta. Most of the rest of us remember it, too, as the event transcended sport. Nobody ever thought Babe Ruth’s record would be broken, particularly by a humble, unassuming man who hit line drives that would frequently barely clear the wall, and whose highest single year home run total was a mere 47.

Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron was born on February 5, 1934 in Mobile, Alabama. Being a denizen of the Deep South would prove advantageous to a man who entered major league baseball in 1954, only seven years after Jackie Robinson had integrated the sport. Racial epithets and threats hounded him for much of his career, with death threats regularly coming as he threatened to break Babe Ruth’s mark.

Aaron hit the first of 755 dingers against Cardinal Vic Raschi on April 23, 1954. Aaron was a natural with a sweet line drive swing who seemed bound for hitting greatness. He hit home runs, but not towering Mantelesque shots. In 1954, it would have seemed a long stretch of the imagination to picture him someday being baseball’s all-time home run champion.

Hank circles the bases with a fan in tow after breaking the home run record

Instead, such a swing might have produced 3,000 hits, or perhaps have led in the all-time extra base record, too. His athletic stride might have netted him an all-time 76% stolen base percentage, as well. And, as a matter of fact, all the previous predictions would come true. But all-time home run champion? Fuggedaboutit.

Well, the home runs kept steadily piling up. In 1970, Hank hit #600, joining an elite club whose members comprised the Babe, Willie Mays, and now, Mr. Aaron. Hank’s steady home run numbers (up to that point, excluding his short rookie season, he had had no fewer than 24 home runs in a season) could well lead him to breaking baseball’s biggest record.

In 1971, he hit his high of 47. The next year, he passed Willie Mays to become #2. The buzz began in earnest, as a solid majority of the nation got behind Hank in his quest. Sadly and ironically, his home crowd in Atlanta didn’t seem to care too much. Apathy was shown with mediocre crowds, a few stupid racists always being among the meager numbers.

The aforementioned cowardly idiots tried to intimidate him with their racially-inspired threats. Hank grew up with that crap. He handled it.

As the 1973 season drew to a close, Hank was tantalizingly close. But when the season was over, he was one behind Ruth.

The Braves began the season on the road in 1974, and Hank tied Babe’s record in Cincinnati. When he got back home for Atlanta’s first series against the Dodgers, Al Downing tossed him a high fastball in the fourth inning, and suddenly, baseball had a new home run king. Appropriately enough, the line drive barely cleared the fence.

Hank’s non-loony detractors pointed out that Ruth had shorter seasons in which to set his record. But his supporters pointed out that Ruth had never seen pitching like Hank did. That bit of controversy pales into instant insignificance when the next home run champ passes 755. Just wait and see what history has to say about him.

Very shortly, ESPN announcer Chris Berman will burst into tears of intense pleasure as his beloved object of affection passes Hank’s well-earned mark. Baseball, perhaps the most impotent sport of all when it comes to dealing with its cheaters, and the one most in fear of its players’ union, has done nothing to prevent steroid- and HGH-inflated home runs from being counted as legit. But true baseball fans know that there is only one true all-time home run champion, and the Boomers and older among them will never forget the night a true gentleman earned that title.

The Mickey Mouse Club

Most everyone, Boomer or not, can recall the first time they fell in love. I certainly do.

I was five years old, and watching the Mickey Mouse Show when Annette (I didn’t know her last name) appeared on our black-and-white television. What a beautiful young lady.

The Mickey Mouse Show is a strong memory in the minds of a wide range of Boomers. That’s because it was rerun after its initial life, so youngsters like myself who missed its original 1955-59 run could enjoy it after school like their older brothers and sisters did.

Walt Disney, who had already scored big in movies and amusement parks (well, just one amusement park in those days), proved to be a television genius as well. His Sunday night show, whose name kept changing, was a strong, long-lived hit. His second shot at a series was this one. And its immortality is its legacy, even though the show itself ran a mere three years. A fourth season was produced by re-airing earlier episodes.

Walt Disney insisted the Mouseketeers be regular kids, not actors. And they were, when they were discovered by scouts who combed schools looking for kids who had magnetism and talent. Of course, many of the Mouseketeers went on to bigger and better things afterwards. But when they first appeared on TV, they were unknowns.

The show was classic low-budget genius. Host Jimmie Dodd was asked to write a theme song. He penned the immortal “M-i-c! k-e-y! m-o-u-s-e!” Roy Williams, promoted from staff artist to costar, was asked to come up with clever headwear. He recalled an old Mickey Mouse cartoon where Mickey doffed his ears and hair like a fedora. The effect was recreated into one of the most purchased novelty hats in history.

And like many low budget efforts, it was absolutely brilliant. The show was an excellent mix of personalities. The writing was above par. And so many of its routines were burned indelibly into our young minds!

Who can forget the roll call? Talent Round-Up? Circus Day? The serials?

The show was canceled after four short years. One account has Walt Disney protesting ABC’s wanting to cut show time to add commercial slots. Another has the show’s high costs simply making it unprofitable. High costs? The castmembers did creative work too, ferpetesake!

Anyhow, an unfriendly parting of ways took place. Disney sued ABC and won, but also lost the rights to shop the show around to other networks.

Many years later, Disney and ABC are both fabulously wealthy. The Mickey Mouse Club was recreated multiple times. For better or worse, new Mouseketeer stars emerged, notably Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christine Aguilera.

But we Boomers remember the original show. And we all know it was the best one. After all, it was the one that featured (sigh) Annette. And one last memory: Jiminy Cricket taught me how to spell encyclopedia and thereby blow away my first grade teacher. Priceless.

Boomer Entrepreneurism: The Lemonade Stand

I’ve spent my entire adult life working for The Man, but always having something going on the side.

Go back to fresh out of high school, I started out as an electrician. Within six months, I had people paying me to do wiring jobs on weekends. They avoided contractor rates, I made great hourly money. Win-win, as Steve Covey would say.

When I got my first computer in 1993, I engaged in a long-suppressed passion: writing. I discovered that a word processor program would do some seriously cool stuff, like catch typos, check your grammar, and allow multiple versions of the same document. When I joined AOL the next year, I was astounded and delighted to discover that there was an actual (modest) paying market for my scribblings!

Nowadays, I lease a dedicated server and host/develop websites. I also spend an hour or two per week blogging. All the while, Little Debbie pays most of the bills. I’m just busy enough, and get some great tax breaks, thanks to my S corporation.

In my case, and, I suspect, in the case of many of you, my willingness to work evenings and weekends on my own ventures was spawned by selling Kool-Aid in my neighborhood from a stand constructed out of cardboard boxes scrounged from behind Moonwink Grocery.

The startup costs were quite reasonable. A packet of Kool-Aid cost a nickel. The sugar was free, as far as I was concerned. So were the boxes. A childishly scrawled sign advertising drinks for a dime, and I was a businessman.

The stand was generally a summer venture. When you heard the cicadas sing, that meant that it was a hot day, perfect for picking up a few dimes in exchange for refreshing the neighborhood.

According to the disconnected voice in Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. This was certainly the case with a lemonade stand. I set one up several times during my childhood, and always made money. Sometimes, it would be a stranger passing by in a car who would stop and utilize my services, receiving a Dixie cup full of ice-cold goodness for their trouble. Other times, neighborhood kids would finagle a dime from their parents and pay me for something that they likely had in their own refrigerator.

Oh well. They already knew that there was a special pleasure in paying someone to pamper you. Humbly being served a cold drink by the same kid who threw paper wads at you in school, that was pretty profound.

And the parents always seemed willing to give their kids the funds to help you succeed in your business venture. Perhaps they had their own sweet memories of selling cold drinks on a hot summer day. Or maybe they knew that rewarding drive and initiative would keep a kid from someday holding up a “Will work for food” sign at a highway off-ramp, effectively spitting in the face of those who actually dare to turn in a day’s work in exchange for a day’s pay.

All of these decades later, I always try to stop and patronize lemonade stands. Sometimes, it’s the cute little girls next door who have set up their own. Other times, it will be an enterprising kid at his mom’s garage sale.

Regardless, learning that you can make honest money with a little drive and initiative is a sweet lesson that should be learned by all. And if you’re a Boomer kid like me, that lesson was first learned selling Kool-Aid in front of your house.

The Generation Gap

Generation gaps have always existed. The kids who grew up in the 1870’s would always consider those newfangled horseless carriages to be a noisy waste of money. The generation who grew up with the first automobiles further stunned and alienated their parents by partying hard to jazz in the 1920’s. But one of the greatest generation gaps in history was the one between Boomers and their parents and grandparents.

My father was born in 1919. He spent his teenaged years in the Great Depression. Pleasures and pastimes were few for him, as he weathered harsh economic times on a Minnesota farm. Poor dental hygiene cost him his teeth by the age of thirty. So entertainment and having fun were rather low on his list of priorities. In addition, he was put off by loud rock and roll music, and saw little rhyme or reason in the student protests of the 60’s.

He was a great father, but you can see how his thinking and the thinking of his offspring would be so different.

The parents who worked so hard to provide great lives (including healthy teeth) for the post WWII-born children would one day find themselves on the opposite side of the fence, so to speak, with the cultural, musical, and political preferences of their children. For instance, to refuse to go to war in 1942 would have stigmatized an individual as yellow, or cowardly, or as a draft dodger. Some did seek conscientious objector status, but they bore the wrath of society for doing so.

However, many Boomers had enough chutzpah to question the very morality of the war in Vietnam, and to thereby burn draft cards and loudly protest and refuse to go, fleeing to Canada or going to jail, if necessary.

Our parents just couldn’t relate or understand.

Indeed, it was our comfortable middle-class households that allowed us to be so rebellious. Many of us grew up in Spock-inspired upbringings, where children were allowed to have a voice in how they were raised. This certainly encouraged expression of opinions and beliefs. But even if our parents were disciplinarians (mine certainly were), we still had easy childhoods compared to them. We weren’t working in the fields for fourteen hours a day like they might have. No, we were at home watching the Mickey Mouse Club.

It wasn’t just being willing to defy authority that made Boomers different. Our parents grew up listening to much of the same music our grandparents did. The Jazz Age was an urban phenomenon, and the large rural-raised percentage of the WWII generation grew up unexposed to its excesses. As a result, the whole family would gather around the radio and enjoy the same music.

That all changed with the birth of Rock and Roll.

Suddenly, teenager’s radios were blaring out music that sounded debased to our conservative parents. It sounded like it was being played by . . . Negroes! Who would listen to such noise?

Indeed, many were shocked to see Elvis on Ed Sullivan for the first time and to discover that he was WHITE!

Of course, we kids love it. We liked it to be played loudly, as well. Our poor parents, used to the soothing music of the Ink Spots, Eddie Fisher, and Sinatra were repelled by this new musical phenomenon.

Another thing that they found shocking was the fact that drug use was becoming commonplace. This must have been more shocking than the other two differences put together.

But not all of us protested the war or dropped acid, though it’s hard to imagine a Boomer not being into Rock and Roll. But even if we lived more straight-laced lives than the hippies on the nightly news, there’s no doubt that our thinking was a whole lot different from that of our parents. And that constituted a massive generation gap that has not been repeated since.