I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

We learned early to appreciate the weekends when we were kids. Even before we were old enough to be subjected to the drudgery of going to school five days a week, we lived for Saturday morning cartoons.

I think it's probably safe to say that every US household with kids and a television set was tuned into cartoons every Saturday morning. You would wake up, turn the set on, and go make yourself a bowl of cereal. Then, for the next four hours, you were planted in front of that screen, accompanied by the likes of Bugs Bunny, Heckle and Jeckle, Superman, Mighty Mouse, Astro Boy, Tennessee Tuxedo, Underdog, and many, many more.

And advertisers knew that the way to reach our demographic was to place their commercials on that Saturday morning slot. Thus, we were all subjected to the same commercials over and over that are permanently stuck in our minds even now.

We Boomers have proven to one of the most adaptive of generations, haven't we? For instance, my eldest brother, who can remember baking powder submarines and Howdy Doody, just succeeded in installing Ubuntu on two different laptop computers. And he's not NEARLY as geeky as I am. Even though the Linux users among us are still in the minority, most Baby Boomers have a personal computer in the house that they use for everything from writing letters to running businesses.

So it makes you wonder, what the heck did we do before we became enslaved to the smart boxes that now live in our homes?

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far, far away, we didn't have computers at home. How did we cope?

If a Butlerian Jihad should occur (if you don't grasp that term, either read Frank Herbert's Dune or simply look it up in Google), we would be lost, at least for a while. But in the old days, when you had to be a serious geek to own a computer, we managed just fine.

For example, take balancing check books. In 1994, I installed Quicken on my computer for the first time. I've used it ever since, although I will probably be switching to a Linux-based alternative soon. That means I have 13 years of financial records archived. That's pretty amazing. So is the fact that balancing my bank accounts takes minutes, instead of the laborious process that I engaged in long ago when the bank statement came in the mail.

For lots of great content that is aimed squarely at you, the Baby Boomer, browse on over to Contemporary Retirement Coaching!

On November 30, 2007, Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. passed away. His death at an advanced age would have been a surprise to many television viewers of ABC's Wide World of Sports in the early 70's. They were convinced he would die at the end of one of his stunts gone awry.

He was born in Butte, Montana in 1938. At the age of eight, he saw a Joie Chitwood Auto Daredevil Show. He was entranced by the performance, and decided at an early age that he wanted to make a living being a daredevil himself. Knievel became a teenager prone to getting in trouble. Dropping out of high school after his sophomore year, he went to work at the Anaconda Mining Company. Clowning around while driving an earth mover, he took down the power line that fed the city of Butte. The town was without power for several hours.

In 1956, a police chase caused him to crash his motorcycle. Knievel was hauled off to jail and thrown in a cell next to another local neer-do-well, William "Awful" Knofel. Legend has it that the jailer came up with the nickname "Evil" Knievel on the spot.

Knievel's hard work had finally earned him some attention. When he was well enough to start jumping again, the crowds and the financial rewards were bigger. He had taken to adding another car to each jump, and was up to sixteen when his luck dipped again on July 28, 1967 in Graham, Washington. After recovering from a severe concussion, he tried again the next month at the same place. Unfortunately, it was the same result. This time he broke a wrist, a knee, and two ribs.

Knievel finally made it onto television as a guest on the Joey Bishop Show later that same year. As his fame grew, so did the sizes of the crowds who payed to see his exploits.

Knievel kept jumping higher and longer, and announced his intention of jumping over the Grand Canyon.

We grew up in the Jet Age. The Computer Age. The Space Age. Cars were getting longer, sleeker, and faster. The world, too, was moving more and more rapidly. What on earth would the future be like over thirty long years distant?

One prediction was made by Philco-Ford in 1967. Click on the video on the left to see for yourself how close they came.

By the way, that guy who cringes when he pays his wife's bill electronically is actually future game show host Wink Martindale.

All in all, this was a pretty impressive stab at how the computerized home of the future would be run. Thanks to Wesley over at Life Two for digging it up.

Americans are a fickle bunch, to be sure. By 1968, we had grown bored with the space program. At first, it was thrilling to see black and white images of the earth from space. But by 1968, it had grown routine. We wanted something more.

In spectacular fashion, astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders gave us what we wanted: our first view of earth from the moon.

The Apollo series officially won the space race America had with the Russians. Trailing from the start, we somehow managed to catch and pass our communist rivals and beat them to the moon. This was despite a tragic beginning to the Apollo program.

I have to tell you, I am completely blown away by Tom Brokaw's EXCELLENT presentation on History Channel, 1968. I have always felt that 1968 was a pivotal year, not only because of the untimely assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, but also because it seemed that rock and roll music also had an early peak that year. I won't go into that too much, because that will be a future column.

But watching Brokaw's special, the significance of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago finally came home to roost with me. It gave Richard Nixon the Presidency, for better or worse.

Let me place a disclaimer here. While politics is probably a part of our lives, my little I Remember JFK soapbox is decidedly APOLITICAL. My commentary is strictly in the historical sense, not the field of opinion.

I don't know about you, but I get a little annoyed when somebody is telling a story that suddenly pushes their political beliefs.

Wow, it's hard to believe we're up to Blogging Boomers Carnival # 50.

It's a good one, too, over at Gen Plus. Cruise on by and enjoy!

In 1957, General Foods began developing an orange-flavored breakfast drink in powdered form. In 1959, the year that Barbie and I were born, Tang began showing up on store shelves.

Its initial impression on the public was tepid at best. After all, what was wrong with good old frozen orange juice? You could also get Donald Duck orange juice in a big can (although it tasted like crap to this six-year-old). Why buy powdered orange drink?

Well, six years later, we found out why. Because the ASTRONAUTS drank Tang out in space!

Watching Tom Brokaw's 1968 on the History Channel, I had a memory spring back to mind that was buried too deeply for me to dig up without a little help.

After the unspeakable assassinations of that year, I, and many other kids, assumed that leaders were destined to die violent deaths.

My mother's shock of JFK's death was still fresh in my mind on April 4, 1968, when the local programming was interrupted to announce that Dr. Martin Luther King had been gunned down in Memphis. While the former caused her to be hysterical, her reaction to King's death was more controlled.

It had nothing to do with racism. My mother was born in the Texas Hill Country to hard-working parents. My grandfather, who lost a lung to WW1 mustard gas, ran his own gas station. My grandmother was a schoolteacher.

There are a few individuals out there who either inspire love or hatred. No in-between. I use the Dallas Cowboys as an example. Much of America loves the team, at least an equal amount despise them.

Howard Cosell was such a man. A poll in the 70's revealed that he was both the most loved and most hated sports broadcaster out there. That summed him up nicely.

Born Howard William Cohen in Winston-Salem, NC, in 1918, he moved to Brooklyn as a child. His parents pressured him to become a lawyer, and he did just that, graduating from New York University School of Law and being admitted to the New York Bar in 1941.

However, instead of going to work as a lawyer, he joined the United States Army Transportation Corps and was quickly promoted to major.