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

Thanks to popular demand (and please, keep your requests coming!), today's I Remember JFK memory is about a radio voice that is so familiar that it seems parodied, even when it's not: that of Casey Kasem.

I wasn't always a Kasem fan. That's because his rise as the voice of America's Top Forty coincided with the decline of my beloved AM rock and roll medium. It wasn't Casey's fault, but his packaged FM show hastened the death of WLS's rock and roll 100,000 watt voice, as well as that of other AM powerhouses.

But Casey couldn't be blamed for that, any more than airline magnate Howard Hughes could be blamed for the fact that you can no longer catch a passenger train to any town in the US with a population of 1,000 or more.

In fact, Mr. Kasem is an amazing story of just how ANYBODY can succeed in America. And he is also a nice part of the memories of Baby Boomers. And that makes him an essential cog in the I Remember JFK machinery. So Casey, this one's for you.

The 70's was a decade known for lots of wild and crazy stuff that came and went in a flurry. I mean, what was hotter, then colder, than disco music? Other uniquely 70's crazes that appeared for a bit, shined brightly, than vanished included fondue pots, macrame, and CB radios.

Another 70's debut, but one that didn't vanish as much as it evolved into smaller, lighter incarnations, was hi-fi stereo systems.

When we were kids of the 50's and 60's, we got along fine listening to transistor radios and portable record players. But as we became teenagers and young adults in the 70's, why, it was time for some serious musical upgrading to take place! And manufacturers of huge wooden-encased components were more than happy to help us out.

On those not-often-enough vacation times, my wife and I always head to the same place: a warm, sunny, beautiful beach somewhere in Florida.

In 1968, my family took a vacation in the Sunshine State, and it was a huge thrill for an eight-year-old kid, especially when that kid was a devoted fan of Flipper. And I honestly believe that the fact that Florida keeps drawing me back year after year can be traced to the appeal that the television show and its non-human star first placed in my heart so many Saturday nights ago.

Flipper, the movie, was released in 1963, and starred Chuck Connors as Porter Ricks. I have no recollection of it whatsoever, but it must have made a significant splash (ugh, sorry) at the box office, because a sequel was released the next year called Flipper's Big Adventure, this time staring Brian Kelly in the lead human role.

In the fall of 1964, on a Saturday night, Flipper the TV series debuted. My parents had a weekly ritual of heading to nearby Joplin, Missouri for a nice dinner out on that particular evening each week, leaving me in the care of my middle brother. Bill knew that whatever else went on that night, I HAD to see Flipper. And he was just young enough that I believe he got a kick out of it as well.

Dining out on a budget in the 50's and 60's involved jumping in the car and heading to the drive-in.

And you had lots of choices for food to be delivered to your car via roller-skate-wearing-carhop. For example, there was A&W. In Oklahoma, we had Sonic. And there was yet another chain in the Midwest that once had over 750 franchises: Dog n Suds.

People had cars. People got hungry. People couldn't afford to spend much. That all added up to the need for drive-ins. And they could be found everywhere. A small town with a population of 5,000 or so might have three or four drive-ins doing a brisk business.

Reading all of that writing on the wall, two music teachers from the University of Illinois, Don Hamacher and Jim Griggs, decided in 1953 to get in on the fun. They opened a drive-in in Champaign and called it Dog n Suds. It was a hit, so much so that they were approached by a sweet old lady with a bank account full of cash to build her one just like it.

Aargh, the frustration. Despite the fact that I spent my youth wearing jeans with knees patched, not one photo! Oh, well . . .

Playing was hard work for us Boomer kids. A typical day would involve creating roads in the grassless dirt under the shade tree with our Tonka bulldozers, creating battlefields for our GI Joes, or perhaps exploring imaginary moonscapes with Major Matt Mason.

All of that activity had one thing in common: wear and tear on your knees. Thus, in short order, our denim blue jeans had holes worn in them that our moms dutifully repaired with iron-on patches. And it was a rare pair of jeans worn by a kid at play of the Eisenhower, Vietnam, or Watergate eras that didn't have the ubiquitous rectangles secured in place halfway up the legs.

The purchase of a pair of Levi's was a long-term investment. A new pair of jeans was designated "for school." That meant the only wear the knees would receive would be on the playground. We didn't have our Tonkas, GI Joes, or any other dirt toys with us there, so the knees would last perhaps a couple of months.

When television was in its infancy, it may well have foundered if not for the influx of advertising dollars from tobacco companies. Thus, many early shows featured cigarette brands as part of their names.

As television got bigger and bigger, the concept of a single sponsor for shows waned. This didn't bother tobacco companies in the least. They simply swamped the airwaves with commercials.

Thus, we Boomer kids grew up with a steady diet of catchy ads designed to put into our minds the desire to someday smoke cigarettes, just like the grownups.

The ads were quite insidious. I remember the whistled "I'd walk a mile for a Camel", Lark's charcoal filter, The Marlboro song (which I later learned was actually the theme from The Magnificent Seven), the fact that you can take Salem out of the country, but you can't take the country out of Salem, and many, many more.

Rock and roll music. Television. These two very potent forces of the 50's combined to create a juggernaut of a television series that possibly every single Boomer watched at least once. It was a regular Saturday afternoon ritual for me in the early 70's, until I became observant enough to note that many of the artists were lip-syncing. By then, the Midnight Special was on, and that's where I got my fix of genuine live music at the much cooler time of late Friday nights.

But that doesn't mean that AB was a bad show. On the contrary, the fact that it began as a Philadelphia local in 1952 that soon became a national staple that ran until 1989 shows that there was something very, very special about American Bandstand.

It all began with Philadelphia station WFIL on October 7, 1952. At first, host Bob Horn showed music videos. Is that visionary or what?

Of course, the music wasn't rock and roll. That's because the show actually predates the craze.

We Boomer kids were used to seeing "Made in Japan" on the bottoms of our various toys. Japan was the cheap place to make everything back in the 50's and 60's. But we were also used to seeing "Made in England" on one of our most beloved playthings: Matchbox miniatures.

It all began with a couple of unrelated Brits by the name of Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith on January 19, 1947. They founded Lesney Products in London, and began producing die-cast steel stuff. By the end of the year, the stuff included toys.

British kids grabbed them up from local stores as fast as Lesney could make them, so they kept it up.

By 1953, Lesney realized that they could make a very nice living concentrating on toys exclusively, and began looking at new product lines. Partner Jack Odell had a daughter whose school would allow kids to bring toys with the restriction that they be able to fit into a matchbox. So he took an existing Lesney toy, a green and red road roller, and miniaturized it so that it would be school-legal.

CBS faced a dilemma in 1971. Sure, they were the top-rated network. Sure, they were making untold millions in advertising revenue. But their audience was old enough to remember WWII, many even recalling the hard times of the Great Depression. CBS execs would have preferred a younger demographic. So they did what any clueless bunch of corporate clods would do: they unceremoniously dumped a batch of well-performing shows because their audience was too old.

The victims of what became known as "the rural purge" included The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Sullivan, and a relative newcomer called Hee-Haw.

Hee-Haw was a variety show that had a distinct country flavor. Hosted by Buck Owens and Roy Clark at the peak of their popularity in 1969, it was kind of like Laugh-In set in a cornfield. It was also a hit.

One of the things that I have to do when I write an article is obtain graphics. I try to use public domain images whenever possible. But sometimes, an individual will have the PERFECT image on their website.

That means asking that particular site owner nicely if I may use an image.

I'm scratching my bald head nowadays. The last couple of requests that I have made have netted me negative responses due to the fact that I appear to be making money off of I Remember JFK.

Well, yes, I am making a little bit of cash from this site. But I work a 40-hour per week job as a geek, and also provide editorial content for FamilyFirst. And I host sites for others, and write other blogs as well. I probably work a 50-60 hour week at the age of 48.

So I'm going to refer potential contributors of images to this article in the future. I don't apologize for making a few bucks from text-based advertising here. The sites that I visit most often have a heck of a lot more advertising than I do. If you object to the little bit of income that I get here (which doesn't even cover my server hosting fees, BTW), then my apologies for asking to use one of your images, which are free for the stealing for the less principled.

The internet is a wonderful place full of information. That doesn't necessarily mean that anyone who actually manages to make a buck or two here is out of line for asking politely to use the intellectual property of others.

Sorry for the rant, friends. A new memory will post Friday.

Our Boomer childhoods were quite well recorded when compared with those of our moms and dads. Growing up in the Depression, when you could either eat or take pictures, but not both, ensured that few photographs of our parents as cute kids would exist. And movies were simply unheard of.

But in the boom years after WWII, our parents could afford nice gadgets like they would never have dreamed of owning in their youth. And they were also very proud of their kids. So many of us were immortalized on 8mm film in our childhoods.

My father didn't have a movie camera. But I had an uncle who had one, and I'm reasonably sure that he shot movies of me. It would be a thrill to see them, but I probably never will.

My wife's parents had a movie camera as well, and also have movies of her running around as a toddler. She was a real cutie, BTW. ;-)

They also have footage of the 1964 Winter Olympics. Cool stuff.

"J E L L O!" the letters, sung to a rising scale, were a frequent childhood memory for me from TV commercials. Indeed, we were big Jell-O fans in the Enderland house in the 60's.

Mom loved it because it was inexpensive and simple to make. Dad loved it because it was easy for a dentures-wearer to consume. And I loved it because of that chewy, rubbery layer that would form at the bottom of the casserole tray that mom would typically pour the hot mixture into before popping it into the fridge, or icebox as we called it back then.

Of course, it would always be cherry Jell-O, with banana slices added. I must have eaten two or three hundred pounds of the stuff as I grew up in the 60's.

Another variant that mom would create was orange Jell-O with a can of fruit cocktail thrown in. Good stuff.

I grew up in a two-income household long before it was fashionable. My father owned a truck garage in Miami, Oklahoma, and my mom was a first-grade teacher. That meant times were busy around my house, and a kid frequently was expected to fend for himself, lunch-wise.

No problem. The good folks at Campbell's Soup took care of that. A good-faith estimate is that I have eaten 3,744 cans of Campbell's Soup over the years. That's averaging about a can and a half per week. If anything, that figure is low. In fact, in my cubicle at work, I have four cans of Chunky stashed away (along with fat-free saltines, of course, more on that later) for those days when I really don't want to go out and blow ten bucks on lunch.

Making Campbell's vegetable soup (my childhood favorite, LOVED those alphabet characters!) was a snap for a seven-year-old. Just open the can, mix up a can of water, and heat until just hot enough. Mmm, mmm, good!