People – Page 4 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

1974: The Year of the Streaker

1974 dawned with no hint of its significance. In January, it was just another year. By December, people running around naked in public had become commonplace enough to become, well, boring.

Streaking had been going on at college campuses before that. Princeton was streaked as early as 1970. Notre Dame had a “streaker’s Olympics” in 1972. But the fad hit the big time in the spring of 1974, when students at colleges in southern California and Florida were shedding all of their clothes (except for sneakers, of course) and running across their campuses.

Soon, naked people were seen on newscasts, sporting events, parades, and in at least one state legislative session. The “Streaker of the House” interrupted a meeting of the Hawaiian body of lawmakers.

As the year wore on, streakers went for style, rather than mere running. There were bicycling streakers, roller skating streakers, horseback-riding streakers, pogo sticking streakers, the list goes on and on. Even streaking skydivers dropped out of the sky, although wearing a parachute could arguably cross the line of what defines nudity.

Ray Stevens saw the opportunity to cash in on the fad, and did so big time with his song “The Streak.” The goofy classic hit #1 that year of 1974.

The University of Georgia was the home of the largest simultaneous streak in history. On March 7 of that year, when it’s still quite chilly in Athens, 1,543 students went for a naked run.

Streaking became the hot new activity for the nation’s youth. My school superintendent felt worried enough that an announcement was made warning any potential streakers of the very dire consequences they would experience if they should choose to shed their clothing and take off across the Pea Ridge High School campus.

David Niven handles an Oscar streaker very well

My all-time favorite streaking moment was when the Oscar streaker did his thing that year. I’ve always been a David Niven fan, but he became my all-time favorite British actor the night the streaker ran in front of him flashing the peace sign on the April 2, 1974 presentations of the 46th Academy Awards. The affable, ever clever Mr. Niven didn’t hesitate for a second before stating “Isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”

By the time the weather turned cold in 1974, streaking as a craze had ended. But occasional streakers continue to show up, mainly at big sporting events. European soccer seems to be a popular arena for naked runners these days, if the proliferation of YouTube videos is any indication. And of course streaking, like practically everything else that was done for the joy of it, has been officially sanctioned by Big Business. Nike has a commercial showing a soccer streaker wearing a certain brand of shoes. Care to guess which?

So here’s to a fad that kept us distracted from things like Watergate woes one year in the 70’s. BTW, if any of you readers ever actually streaked, I’d love to hear about it.

Steve Allen

Growing up Boomers, there were familiar faces on TV that kept showing up time after time that were as comfortable as a well-worn pair of slippers. They would move from series to series, and we sort of took it for granted that we would always have them.

Sadly, that’s not the case. One performer who left us in 2000 is dearly missed by me, and after the memory bump that this site provides, I suspect by you as well.

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was born in 1921 in NYC to a pair of vaudeville performers. Yes, show business was in his blood. His father died when Steve was a toddler, and his mother largely left it up to her family to raise him in the gritty south side of Chicago.

Steve sought a career in radio, and early in the 1940’s, he landed his first gig at station KOY in Phoenix. When WWII started, he enlisted and trained as an infantryman. He never was shipped overseas, though, and returned to radio when the war was over. he became an announcer for LA’s KAFC, then in 1946 began hosting a five-nights-per-week comedy show.

This led into a one-hour late night series that became a smash hit. Audiences were SRO, and one night, guest Doris Day failed to show. Allen tried something risky, moving into the audience with a microphone to do some ad-libbing. He was a natural at it, and it became a regular part of his performances.

The successful local show went national in 1950, and Allen began a 50-year-run of being a very recognizable and well-loved celebrity.

That same year, CBS gave Allen a daily half-hour TV variety show. It really didn’t catch on, and it was canceled in 1952.

Shortly afterwards, he was called upon to guest host Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. He performed a live commercial bizarrely, preparing Lipton tea and Campbell’s soup and pouring both into Godfrey’s ukulele. The audience roared, and Allen had found his niche as a slightly atilt highly intellectual entertainer.

He was a regular face on What’s My Line (it was him who coined the phrase “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”), and in 1954, he was offered a job hosting a new NBC series: The Tonight Show.

He made the show a hit, and continued to host it three nights a week when he was offered a Sunday night primetime variety vehicle that was to compete with Sullivan.

A lot of folks were unaware that Allen had this gig, and just how powerful it was. Always overshadowed by the venerable Irishman’s offering, Allen nonetheless showed America a great time, and some amazing acts. For example, he had Elvis on before Sullivan did!

The show did as well as could be expected against CBS’s juggernaut. It help launch the careers of Johnny Carson, Tom Poston, Bill Dana, Don Knotts, and a number of other frequent appearers. He also had an unconventional author on once by the name of Jack Kerouac. Another of his most memorable moments was explaining the lyrics to the song “Be-Bop-a-Lu-La.”

After the Sunday evening show’s cancellation, Allen began hosting a late-night syndicated rehash of The Tonight Show. The show lasted from 1962-64, and featured an appearance by Frank Zappa, who played a tune on a bicycle. He also had Bob Dylan on in 1964. The Generation Gapwas quite in evidence as Allen struggled to get Dylan to communicate in an interview. He made it clear that he was a bit bewildered that the poet had reached America’s youth, but he respected and admired the fact that he did.

Allen went on to host a number of brilliant, short-lived series. In 1967, he had a summer show, The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, which launched the careers of Rob Reiner, John Byner, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ruth Buzzi, who would be on NBC’s Laugh-In later that year.

In the late 60’s, he returned to a syndicated late-night show that featured him doing some Lettermanesque stunts, including becoming a human hood ornament, jumping into huge containers of sticky foods, and once being copiously covered with dog food, and then allowing hungry canines to chow down from himself on camera.

In 1977, he began a series for PBS called Meeting of Minds, in which he put famous historical characters together for discussions of all sorts of matters. It was weird, fascinating stuff, which frequently caused me to tune to the local educational channel.

Allen had that rarest of gifts, a long-lasting Hollywood marriage, to actress Jayne Meadows. She would appear on each episode of the show. One memorable performance was as Catherine the Great, and how she bemoaned the fact that she had such lousy luck in bed. I guess her name might have been a bit too intimidating for her suitors?

Meeting of Minds ran for four seasons, but only a total of eighteen episodes were filmed. If you can find them on DVD, give them a look. They are truly timeless.

This could go on forever, so I must cut things a bit short. Allen was also a prolific songwriter, his most famous tune was “This Could be the Start of Something Big.” He was a gifted musician whose piano playing was legendary. He also wrote over 50 books. One of his specialties was debunking false truths.

On October 30, 2000, he was involved in a minor fender-bender in southern California. He went on to his son’s home, helped his grandchildren carve pumpkins, recorded a radio tribute to his friend, satirist Paul Krassner, and lay down for a nap.

He never woke up. The accident caused bleeding in his chest, and blood filled his pericardium and choked off his heart.

I miss Steverino. He never pretended to understand younger generations, but he respected them, and felt that they should laugh at themselves, just like everyone else ought to. He strongly molded modern-day talk-variety shows with his pioneering use of man-on-the-street interviews, his live bantering and ad-libbing with audience members, and his physical comedy.

Steve Allen’s 1921 birth truly was the start of something big.

Shrinkage

Seinfeld added a large number of terms to the English language. One of these is “shrinkage,” but the shrinkage that is the subject of today’s piece has nothing to do with cold water in swimming pools.

If you’re like most Boomers, you don’t live in the same house in which you grew up. You probably don’t even live in the same town. In my case, I left Miami, Oklahoma at the age of eight. Though we made return trips there more or less regularly until I was sixteen or so, when I revisited the place in 1994, it was for the first time since I was a kid.

My, how the place had shrunk!

When you’re a kid, the world is a big place. You’re used to looking up at mom and dad. You’re used to standing on stools, chairs, and other makeshift ladders in order to reach things that adults can grab with ease. The concept of having things naturally fit your form is a foreign one. One of the few exceptions was the desks we sat in at grade school. They were perfect.

Growing up is a gradual process, to be sure. We don’t notice that we can now reach things we used to have to improvise on-the-fly-solutions in order to accomplish the same thing. The teenaged growth spurts that many of us males experienced might be the exception to that, I knew kids that grew three inches in a single summer. But for the most part, we just don’t notice that the world is, in fact, shrinking.

However, if we take a trip back to our hometown, it hits us. Hard.

I currently live in Bentonville, Arkansas, a town that has been experiencing growth for forty years. I imagine a kid returning here would have a hard time picking out anything he or she would recognize from their youth. The city pool is now a parking lot. The library is gone, replaced by an office building. The apple orchards that were everywhere in the 70’s are now subdivisions.

You get used to growth after a while, but the fact is that many places have stagnated, making revisits less alien to the former child.

Such is the case with Miami, Oklahoma.

On my 1994 trip, I began looking for landmarks. The drive-in theatre was gone, not even an abandoned screen left standing. But the Ku-Ku diner was still there, its giant cuckoo clock look still intact. Somehow it seemed a bit smaller, though.

I made a left turn at BJ Tunnell Blvd., which was called something else in the 60’s. I drove down the road to my dad’s old truck garage, housed in a WWII-era Quonset hut. It was tiny. When I was a kid, that place was big enough to park a B-52 in. Now, I fail to see how a semi tractor could ever squeeze in, although I remember there being two at a time in there.

It was time to turn around and seek out the house at 826 K NW. I headed back up the boulevard and turned left on K St. I parked my vehicle and tried to make sense of what I saw.

The lot on which sat my childhood home had somehow been transformed from a vast estate to a postage stamp. How could that happen? That side yard had been long enough to host a 100 yard football field, now it appeared to be perhaps 200 feet in total length.

Then, there was the house itself. It had been added onto, perhaps a third bigger than it used to be. I had a hard time recalling its appearance when LBJ was the President. But eventually, it all came together.

That driveway, once big enough to hold an entire platoon of GI Joe’s troops, was now a tiny patch of cracked concrete barely big enough for my little Toyota pickup. How did dad ever park a spacious Plymouth Fury III there?

The front yard was a tiny patch as well. That thing was once big enough to hold an army of kids playing, well, army. Now, it looked like you could cover it with four bedspreads.

That front porch had shrunken to a piece of concrete barely big enough to stand on. The front door didn’t look big enough to carry an easy chair through.

I’d had enough. I got back in the truck and drove uptown. Yep, just like I thought, Farrier’s IGA (now named something else) had gone from a vast expanse of retail squalor to a market 1/4 the size of a typical Wal-Mart. Riverview Park, formerly at least a thousand acres of vast greenery, was now a modest-sized collection of picnic tables, playground equipment, and parking places.

My stay lasted a few more hours, but I think you get the point. Can someone explain to me the physics behind the entire world of the 1960’s being about twice the size of the one we now inhabit?

Oh, I see I have a Facebook chat request from my fellow fossil-collecting buddy in Spain. Excuse me…

Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop

It’s possible to fall in love when you’re six years old.

I recall being quite enamored with numerous beautiful ladies on television as a child. There was Annette, my first. Jeannie grabbed my attention, as well as that of every other male in the USA. But I had forgotten how much I was in love with Shari Lewis until I found the featured YouTube video of her in the early 60’s.

Sonia Phyllis Hurwitz was born on January 17, 1933. She adopted the stage name Shari Lewis when she broke into show business as a puppeteer and ventriloquist. In 1952, she won first prize on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.

In 1957, New York kids would wake up to a show called Hi Mom. In that year, on that show, Shari, now a fixture in local children’s television, debuted a simple sock puppet named Lamb Chop. The diminutive ewe would accompany Lewis into stardom.

It wasn’t long before Lamb Chop made a national TV appearance on Captain Kangaroo. She (and her beautiful creator) were an instant sensation.

Lamb Chop wasn’t your usual cutesy puppet. TV Acres, a (now long lost) frequent research source for me, describes her thusly:

(Lamb Chop is a) 6-year-old girl, very intuitive and very feisty, a combination of obstinacy and vulnerability….you know how they say fools rush in where wise men fear to go? Well, Lamb Chop would rush in, then scream for help!

Indeed, while looking quite cute, Lamb Chop would frequently let loose with wise cracks that would make stand-up comedians proud. The humor was frequently aimed at adults, making Lamb Chop a hit for all ages.

Shari and friends (including her other puppet creations) got their own show in 1960. The Shari Lewis Show rode high for three years, then was unceremoniously canceled by CBS. Animated kid shows were much cheaper to produce than live-action varieties, thus ended a truly great series.

But Shari and her smart-aleck sheep weren’t done, not by any means. They appeared in video shorts, in dozens of books, as guests on numerous TV shows, and on their own UK series. When we started buying videotapes for our kids in the 80’s, Lamb Chop was a huge seller as Boomer parents recalled how much they loved her. Thus, many too young to be Boomers are fans.

In 1992, Lamb Chop’s Play-Along began a successful five-year run on PBS. Shari hosted the show, of course. Even more children began loving Lamb Chop.

But in 1998, this beautiful, sprightly, talented entertainer was tragically taken from us at the too-young age of 65 by uterine cancer.

Watching films of Shari performing with her simple puppets fills you with astonishment at her talent. She eagerly follows along with the conversation between the critters, looking as fascinated by the goings-on as we are. You soon forget that they aren’t real.

No wonder we Boomer kids went nuts over Shari, Lamb Chop and her friends.

Selling Grit

In the vast closet of my memory banks, I recall a kid in the neighborhood who was always asking if our parents would be interested in reading Grit. It was a dime, as I recall, and my folks weren’t interested. But many other parents were, and the kid had nice stuff that he had obtained for himself as a result of his entrepreneurship.

He plied his trade hard. While the rest of us were of playing, this kid might be parked outside of Moonwink Grocery with his cloth bag full of Grits, patiently racking up the occasional sale.

Grit prospered for many years with the aid of its preteen sales force. Founded as a local Williamsport, PA newspaper in 1882, it slowly but surely increased its readership until, by the late 1950’s, it was close to a million with a local, a Pennsylvania, and a national edition.

Grit’s mission statement was simple: report the news, but keep things upbeat. People could read the nasty realistic side of the news any time, but Grit readers would come to appreciate its overall optimistic tone.

And most of its readers bought the papers one at a time from youthful salespeople. Kids sold grit up until the mid 1970’s, and at its peak years of the 1950’s, over 30,000 kids were distributing more than 700,000 copies.

Grit had something for everyone. There were the daily news headlines, the women’s section (Grit had a large female audience), the family section, the comics for the kids, and serialized novels. It would frequently take a nostalgic look at things, something I can relate to. 😉

As I said before, my parents weren’t Grit readers. But I was introduced to the newspaper when my father brought home a few boxes of stuff he had obtained at an estate auction, one of his favorite places to get cheap stuff. One box had a stack of Grits in it, and I spent many pleasant afternoons reading them in the storage shed where they were stored. It was fascinating stuff.

Indeed, there has always been a market for tasteful, conservative journalism. Readers Digest has long thrived dishing up such stuff. So has Capper’s Weekly, which reached much the same readership as Grit. And Grit continues to survive today, even though kids no longer sell it.

Now sold as a glossy magazine on the shelves of stores with rural clientele (e.g. Tractor Supply), Grit has a respectable circulation of 150,000. Its focus nowadays is on issues affecting farmers. The nostalgic articles are largely gone, replaced by more pressing issues like burning wood at the maximum efficiency, properly shearing alpacas, and which SUV is the best value.

But think way back, and I’ll bet you can remember a fresh-faced kid with a cloth bag slung over his shoulder parked at a busy location, selling “America’s Greatest Family Newspaper.”

Saying “It’s Good” in Many Generational Languages

An interesting thing about the generations that come and go is the way each one adopts a word that means “good.” That word positively identifies the user of said adjective as a member of a certain social and/or historical group. Either that, or it makes them look foolish. You see, the descriptive terms sound right coming from the appropriate societal member, silly coming from anyone else.

Case in point: “groovy.” The qualifier, which is appropriate for anyone who protested anything during the 60’s, takes on a ridiculous connotation when used in, say, advertising.

Of course, the same could be said for practically ANYTHING used in advertising.

But the fact is that generations have long had the habit of defining their own language, especially when it comes to adjectives with a positive meaning. It’s part of what identifies them as unique.

A particularly eye-opening episode of Leave it to Beaver drove this point home to me at an early age. The Beav was talking to his mom about how the word “swell” fit many situations, most of them positive. June revealed that the word she used for the same purpose was “keen.”

I was probably twelve years old when I saw that, but it made an impression. I’ve been keeping track of generational synonyms for “good” ever since.

The word that was used when I was a seven-year-old in Miami, Oklahoma was “stud.” If something was REALLY good, it might be referred to as “studdo.” The word was just racy enough that I had to be careful about using it in front of my mom. She didn’t like it at all.

Oh well, it was better than a ubiquitous adjective of the late 50’s-early 60’s, as documented by American Graffiti: “bitchin’.” That one, had I dared to use it, would have probably warranted a washing out of my mouth with soap.

The aforementioned “groovy” was quite rebellious. Its origins can be traced to (gasp!) black jazz musicians of the 1930’s. It bounced around society here and there until it was adopted by the subversive hippy culture of the 60’s.

How appropriate, that those who would have the audacity to listen to music by Negroes like that Elvis guy would one day use their racially-unique lingo as well.

A word which sprung up shortly after groovy, and which has actually weathered better, is “cool.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it also has an origin within black culture:

[Its original] slang use for “fashionable” is 1933, originally Black English, said to have been popularized in jazz circles by tenor saxophonist Lester Young.

What would grandma think?

As the 70’s took over from the 60’s, and the 80’s snuck up soon afterwards, California surfers began influencing popular slang, for better or worse. Terms like “tubular,” “gnarly,” rad,” and, God help us, “awesome” soon decorated the speech of the Gen-X’ers that followed us.

Trust me, Boomers, those terms belong to THEM. Remember what I said about how ridiculous it sounds when someone uses adjectives inappropriate to their generational membership? That describes a fifty-something describing anything other than a spectacular ocean sunset as “awesome.”

As your grandchildren come of age, just try to keep up with the newest ways they say things are good.

Just don’t try to use the terms yourself. “Cool” belongs to you. And it still sounds, well, pretty cool.

Sad-Eyed Kid Paintings

Today’s I Remember JFK is the result of an anonymous idea from one of our readers. Please keep them coming!

One of the familiar sights that we Boomer kids grew up was an image of a sad-eyed child. The child might be accompanied by an equally sad-eyed kitten or puppy.

The paintings had a haunting quality to them. They were simple, almost primitive, but great detail was given those huge, sad eyes.

The paintings were hated by some, loved by many more, and eventually became the largest selling artwork of the 1960’s. That meant that we grew up with them all over the place. Art prints, of course, but also greeting cards, magazine covers, advertisements, and probably even lunch boxes, though I’m only speculating on that last one.

The artist, Margaret Keane, was born in 1927. She describes herself as a sickly, withdrawn child who took comfort in drawing. Eventually, she met and married another artist, Walter Keane, and they ended up in Paris after WWII was over to study the subject.

A sight they frequently encountered was that of homeless, destitute children, orphaned by the war.

The sad sight made an impression on Keane, and she began producing paintings of similar sad children. She made the eyes huge, expressive, and often with a single tear.

The art world pooh-poohed them as crass, obvious, and in bad taste. However, the public was intrigued. The paintings began appearing on walls in U.S. art galleries and homes in the 50’s.

Early in the game, Keane made a decision she would later regret. She allowed her husband full control over the management of the business end of things, and even allowed him to take credit for the works.

She would sign a simple “Keane” on each work, making things easy for all concerned.

During the 60’s, her husband succeeded in making her artwork a familiar sight. It was hugely popular, much loved (and reviled. Margaret Keane herself said “you either hate it or love it.”), and very lucrative. In 1965, the couple decided to get divorced. That’s when things got ugly.

Margaret wanted control over her art, of course. But Walter claimed that he had painted the sad-eyed children himself. The heavily-publicized lawsuit that followed ended up in Federal Court. It came down to a paint-off before a judge.

Margaret painted a sad-eyed child on command. Walter had a sore shoulder, and declined to try (insert eye roll here). The case was decided in Margaret’s favor.

Back in control of her works, she continued to prolifically crank out the now-more-popular-than-ever paintings. Joan Crawford and Jerry Lewis even commissioned her to paint them in sad-eyed format. But Walter Keane continued to claim that he created all of those pre-divorce paintings. At this point, I’ll let Margaret speak for herself:

One turning point came in 1970 when a newspaper reporter arranged a televised paint-out between me and my former husband, to be held in San Francisco’s Union Square to establish the authorship of the paintings. I was the only one to show up and accept the challenge. Life magazine covered this event in an article that corrected a previous erroneous story that attributed the paintings to my former husband.

That pretty well shut Walter up.

Margaret Keane is still around, but no longer producing sad-eyed paintings. The reason is a happy one. She became a Jehovah’s Witness in 1972, and it had a positive effect on her depression. She still produces paintings, but the sad eyes are now happy.

So here’s to those kitschy sad-eyed kids we saw everywhere in the 60’s and 70’s. Love ’em or hate ’em, you have to admit that they were a memorable part of the world that we grew up in.

Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In

On September 9, 1967, a one-time special was aired. It received great ratings, so NBC decided to make it a regular series. It debuted on January 22, 1968, and was a Monday night staple for five years.

It was a perfect example of the right thing at the right time. There was a tremendous amount of tension during those days, with more to come. 1968 would prove to be a year marked by assassination. Vietnam was requiring the lives of more and more young men. The Civil Rights movement was still being met with violent resistance. Mandatory busing of students to force integration was as welcome as a fart in an elevator.

America needed to laugh! And Laugh-In proved to be the ideal solution. It was #1 on the Nielsens for its first two years.

The fact is that the show was brilliance in writing and performance. Behind the scenes, Lorne Michaels and a host of other eventual contributors to Saturday Night Live put together material that was biting, timely, and below the censors’ radar screens.

Gladys Ormphby and the man about to get pummeled with a purse

But the performers were what the public saw, and they saw one of the most talented groups of comedians and comediennes ever gathered in one TV show.

Routines included Arte Johnson’s German soldier peering out from behind the foliage (“Verrrry interesting . . . but shtupid!”); the same performer riding his tricycle in a yellow raincoat, hitting obstacles, and falling down; and playing dirty old man Tyrone, who would be inevitably beaten into submission by Ruth Buzzi’s Gladys Ormphby each time they met.

Henry Gibson would recite a silly poem while holding a huge artificial flower. He also played a coffee-sipping preacher at the cocktail party that aired each episode.

Judy Carne played the sock it to me girl who would be drenched with a bucket of water whenever she was tricked into uttering the famous line. She also played the Judy doll who would clobber any guy who touched her.

Lily Tomlin played snorting Ernestine the operator; Edith Ann, a little girl who sat in a huge chair and signed off with “and that’s the truth” (followed by a rude farting sound from her mouth); and Mrs. Earbore, who would lecture the world on being tasteful, then spread her legs wide apart as she stood up.

The show featured many others, but I’m, getting tired of writing ;-).

Judy Carne was the first to move on, and as others followed, the show’s popularity began to slip. By 1973, it was finished.

The stars went on to bigger things, in many cases. Goldie Hawn, who acted like a vacuum-head on the show, proved herself to be a savvy, Oscar winning actress who even accomplished that rarest of Hollywood feats: a long-lasting marriage to fellow actor Kurt Russell. Lily Tomlin likewise had a successful film career. Others found success in TV.

The show had repeated skits that were eagerly anticipated by audiences. The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate would be given for some dubious achievement in the news. It was later replaced by the Whoopie Award. It’s a mod, mod world, with Goldie dancing in a bikini with wisecrack statements written all over her, aired each episode. Each show would close with cast members popping open doors in a brightly colored wall and spouting bad jokes while the credits rolled.

We also have several additions to our lingo thanks to Laugh-In. You bet your sweet bippy, sock it to me (Nixon may well have won the 1968 election by spouting the line on Laugh-In. Hubert Humphrey refused to go on the show), look THAT up in your Funk and Wagnall’s, etc.

I could probably write a book about the show. This has barely given it justice, especially in light of those first two incredible seasons, when the original cast was still together.

Okay, I’m done. Say goodnight, Dick.

Rosie Ruiz “Wins” the Boston Marathon

Rosie Ruiz wearing (temporarily) the laurel wreath of the Boston Marathon winner

The term “d’oh!” originated with Homer Simpson about 1990. But odds are that when Rosie Ruiz rounded that last corner at the 1980 Boston Marathon and saw a pristine tape across the finish line, she probably uttered the Spanish equivalent.

Ruiz, born in Havana in 1954, wanted to gain a little fame. Unfortunately, she miscalculated a bit, and instead gained a tremendous amount of fame’s dark cousin, infamy.

There are a variety of theories as to why this rookie runner, who had just taken up the sport a year and a half earlier, would take such a ridiculous chance and try to convince the world that she had broken the Boston Marathon record by three minutes. I’m going with the conjecture that she only meant to cheat a LITTLE bit.

A cable TV network assembled a panel of running experts and marathon officials to discuss what happened and why. Their mutually-agreed-upon theory holds a lot of water, IMHO, but first, what happened.

Canadian Jacqueline Gareau was acknowledged as the race’s female frontrunner by the crowds, who cheered her loudly as she would pass by. But when she got to the finish line, there was no tape to break. It had already been severed by one Rosie Ruiz, who looked as fresh as a daisy as she crossed the line barely damp with sweat and breathing like she had just strolled across her front lawn.

Gareau was a bit surprised to learn that she had finished second. So was the crowd that had cheered her on. So were the media, who had tons of images of the race showing clearly that the Canadian had passed all other female runners.

As officials delved into an investigation, the facts made it obvious that Rosie had entered the race less than a mile from the finish.

Ruiz had finished a respectable 23rd in the New York City Marathon to qualify for the Boston contest. Or did she? Eyewitnesses saw her riding a subway during the race. I don’t think that’s allowed.

So why did she do it? A sympathetic Wikipedia entry suggests that her finish in the New York Marathon was the result of a goof on the part of the race organizers. Her boss, elated with her performance, insisted she go to Boston. Rosie intended to finish respectably, but instead mistimed her re-entry into the race, and ended up crossing the line first.

D’oh!

Well, she certainly did become famous. Her name is one of the most familiar of female runners, along with Joan Benoit, Flo Joyner, and Mary Decker.

The trouble is, Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and Barry Bonds are famous too. But why?

Playing All Day Long

My daughter and son were born in 1986 and 1988. We lived in a small northwest Arkansas town with a population of about 12,000 back then. Yet, times had changed such from the 60’s of my youth that they were supervised when they were outside. They either played in the fenced back yard or on the concrete driveway in the front. Leaving our property was not allowed.

What a contrast to the simpler days of our childhoods.

It was not uncommon for me to get out of bed in the morning, get dressed, and head out the door, not to return until dinnertime. And mom didn’t have a problem with it, as long as I stayed out of trouble. The thought of keeping me home out of fear of being abducted or the like was unthinkable. After all, that sort of thing only took place in big cities, not little towns like Miami, Oklahoma.

The movie Stand By Me portrayed such a day in the life of the Boomer child. A group of kids traveled unsupervised several miles to see the body of a kid who had been hit by a train. While I never saw any dead bodies while growing up, I was free to go anywhere I wanted, as long as I was back before dark. In the summer, this might mean not returning until 8:30 at night.

There was plenty to do to keep a kid occupied. For instance, just a block away was an abandoned house. What a great place for kids to gather! We would use it as an army fort, rob it like a bank, or fight an imaginary fire as it burned to the ground. Writing on its walls was great guilty fun, as well.

Next to it was a big drainage ditch that had a small culvert that ran under the street to the other side. It was just big enough for a kid to walk through. Again, it was perfect for playing army, the game of choice for kids who watched lots of Rat Patrol.

Small town Boomer kids out wandering in the middle of nowhere, no problem!

A mile or so from the house was a small wooded area. I spent many summer hours there, getting bitten and stung by loads of little blood sucking parasites and not caring a whit. It was a blast playing in real trees like were available out in the country. Many an adventure involving Daniel Boone, the Cartwrights, and Indians was had there.

Another favorite gathering spot for us kids was the wading pool. The city had a small circular pool about two feet deep that was free and open to the public. I was free to go there any time I wanted. The city even paid a lifeguard to keep an eye on things, running on the sidewalk being the commonest violation to be pointed out with a sharp whistle.

I recall a beautiful blonde teenaged girl who worked lifeguard one summer. I think she might have been the first one I ever fell in love with, at the age of six. Her name was Cassie Gaines, and she was destined for tragic immortality. She became a vocalist with Lynyrd Skynyrd, and on October 20, 1977, was killed in the infamous plane crash.

The various moms of the neighborhood took it upon themselves to feed whatever kids happened to be at their home at lunchtime. We bounced around enough from home to home that it all evened out for them. Today, might require eight bologna sandwiches, tomorrow everyone would be eating at three houses down the street.

And our parents were never worried. They all knew the neighbors, and everyone trusted everyone else. Occasionally, I would be told to not go to a certain home. Later, I would find that would mean the mother or father was an alcoholic or the like. And I would never question the restriction. I had a lot of freedom, and kept it by behaving myself.

Alas, changing times removed that blissful freedom to go anywhere from my own kids. Nowadays, I imagine parents watch their children like hawks. But think back to your own childhood and you can likely remember a time when it was common to take off and play all day in various locations all over your town.