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

Every previous generation had it tougher when they were kids. My own children grew up in a world of Nintendo, VCR-recorded cartoons and movies, and light-up-sneakers. My world was playing outside all day long, black-and-white TV, and PF Flyers. Our parents, of course, grew up during the Great Depression. Food was much more on the minds of many of them rather than play.

But we Boomer kids enjoyed the privileged days of play that our parents never enjoyed. Instead of spending long hours working in the field, as did my father, we spent long hours pursuing imaginative new forms of play.

After all, asking for toys meant hearing about those long hours working in the field all over again. So we learned to keep our requests for toys at a strategic, effective minimum, and to make toys out of things at hand. Many times, these things were provided us by various members of the plant world.

Ah, life on the road circa 1967. Where would we spend the night? Would dad pull an all-nighter and get us somewhere early in the morning? That was known to happen. Or would we stay at a nice, clean, cheap, joyless motel without a pool?

Or, would dad, feeling flush after a particularly profitable week fixing diesel trucks in his garage, spring for the ultimate experience in lodging? That would, of course, be the Holiday Inn!

Once in a while he did take the splurging plunge, and it was a moment of ecstasy for this kid when he did.

After all, Holiday Inns not only had pools, they were huge, fancy, illuminated, gorgeous pools!

And that wasn't all. Most of them had very nice restaurants, as well. No greasy spoon experiences when we stayed at the motel with the big, friendly green sign outside!

And we kids weren't the only ones who were thrilled. Our moms greatly enjoyed the occasional positive change in the overnight stay experience.

The decade of the 60's is renowned above all for its protests, particularly of non-Caucasian races demanding an end to being treated as second-class citizens.

But what was going on in small-town America, the little burgs where many of us Boomer kids grew up?

Miami, Oklahoma was my hometown, as regular visitors of this site are well aware. And while we had a large percentage of American Indians, as did practically every other town in the Sooner State, I don't recall seeing any black people while I was growing up.

Many communities that were located outside the deep south had sundown laws. The idea was that non-whites were welcomed during the day, but had best be out of town by nightfall.

I don't know if Miami had such a shameful regulation, whether officially or informally (which was just as, if not more, intimidating). I hope not, but I suspect that they did. Black faces were rare all over the four-state area, comprised of the corners of Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas that were close to the northeast corner of Oklahoma. In all likelihood, blacks were shunned pretty much everywhere outside of the larger communities like Tulsa and Joplin.

Kids in Baltimore woke up one day in 1953 to find a brand new television show just for them. It featured a host named Miss Nancy (Nancy Claster), and was conducted as a school session, beginning with the pledge of allegiance, and ending with something you never saw in school: a magic mirror.

The kids were four and five years old. They rotated in their appearances, so that fresh faces were always on. And the concept was a hit.

In fact, Claster and her husband marketed the Romper Room idea to television affiliates all over the US.

Syndication was in its infancy. Perhaps that's why the package that the Clasters offered was strange by today's standards.

You see, you could either purchase the show intact, straight from Baltimore, or you could produce your own local version, which would strictly follow the same format.

In my area, we got the Baltimore (or possibly Chicago, where the actual show relocated) package, although by the mid 60's, Miss Nancy had stepped to the side and allowed her daughter, Miss Sally (Rogers) to take over on the show. I remember her well.

We Boomer kids all had one thing in common: mornings were accompanied by breakfast.

Nowadays, I rise from bed at 3:30 AM and drive a half hour to my job as a geek (which I love, BTW) and begin drinking copious amounts of strong coffee while handling the third shift technical support calls which came in during the night.

Those out of the way, I might slip into the breakroom for a breakfast of lowfat pretzels or the like.

Yes, very strange, I admit. But strange breakfast food comes naturally to a kid who grew up eating a before-school concoction of sugar, milk, and a small amount of actual nutrients, to be consumed whilst reading the back of the cereal box.

BTW, the large graphic above is quite out-of-character for I Remember JFK, to be sure, but its anonymous creator simply made something too amazing to be shrunk down.

I wonder if any Boomer kid in the US ever grew up without breakfast cereal in the morning? Sure, some days we would be treated with Cream of Wheat, Malt-O-Meal, or perhaps full-blown bacon and eggs, but by and large mornings were busy times for families. This was particularly true in the case of my own dual-income household. Dad would be getting ready for another day at his truck garage, and mom would likewise be preparing for her own vocation of teaching a first grade class at Wilson Elementary, on the other side of town from my own alma mater of Nichols.

Needless to say, cooking breakfast was a difficult venture. So most mornings, it was one of a bevy of cartoon characters who provided me with the essential sugar that a kid used to get going in the early hours.

These friendly faces included So-Hi (I'll bet the clueless execs who named the stereotypical Chinese Rice Crinkles pitchman were the butt of many jokes among the younger staffmembers at Post over that moniker), Tony the Tiger, Capn' Crunch, King Vitaman, The Kellog's Corn Flakes rooster, the Blue Gnu, and the very weird Apple Jacks apple face.

When I would accompany my mom to Farrier's IGA store for the weekly purchase of groceries, I would spend a long time at the cereal aisle. Eventually I would select a box of sugar-sweetened goodness and present it for her approval.

"You just want this one because of the toy inside!"

How could she say such a thing? I mean, of course, it was TRUE, but still...

Indeed, sometimes I would select a cereal whose flavor didn't really ring my bell for the prize inside. I remember selecting a box of Sugar Crisp once whose back featured a cutout record covered with images of Sugar Bear, Shoobee Bear, and Doobee Bear (snicker, snicker! Those clueless cereal execs at it again!). I just had to have that record, even though the cereal itself was awful (to this kid, obviously millions disagree). The internet being the amazing thing that it is, here's the record on YouTube!

I am currently recovering from the last yard sale I shall ever conduct.

Yeah, I say that every time, but I'm 49 years old, and I have seriously gotten too old for this stuff.

Anyhow, while digging through our old stuff to sell, I stumbled upon a true find for any blogger who occasionally suffers from writer's block:

Two little boxes cram full of Trivial Pursuit Baby Boomer edition questions!

I was a seriously good Trivial Pursuit player, as would be expected of a lifelong avid reader with slightly-better-than-average recall ability. My wife and I discovered the Baby Boomer Edition in the mid 80's. It was a blast, hearing questions about all of those things we grew up with, and was no doubt an early influence on what would one day become I Remember JFK.

Anyhoo, I'm actually looking forward to my next case of writer's block. I'm sure I'll be just a few trivia questions away from inspiration!

September 1968 was a time of unequalled tension in the US. Our fathers, brothers, sons, and friends were dying in Vietnam. We had endured the spring and summer assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. LBJ had thrown in the towel. The Democratic national convention was marred by a massive, heavily televised riot.

It seemed like everyone was either killing, dying, or otherwise wreaking havoc, regardless of where they stood on any issues. Just who were the bad guys, anyway?

Songwriter extraordinaire Tom T. Hall, and beautiful, no-nonsense-voiced Jeannie C. Reilly let us know in no uncertain terms who the enemy truly was: self-righteous hypocrites.

It was just what we needed. The combined efforts of the two talents provided us with Harper Valley PTA, one of the most recognizable songs in history, and a crossover hit that made it to #1 on both the pop and country charts.

Nowadays, New Age is everywhere. Some are into nature sounds (I particularly enjoy writing while "rain" falls all around me), some into crystals, others dig reflexology.

But go back to 1970 and the concept of New Age was an obscure one. Some hippies were into Yoga, but by and large the New Age movement had yet to ignite.

The spark it needed was the 1970 publication of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. The tale of a seagull who wanted more out of life than fighting amongst other members of his species grabbed the nation's attention that year, and became a runaway best seller.

And just like that, many decided the rat race was no longer for them. After all, what was the difference between clawing one's way up the corporate ladder and fighting your fellow seagulls for a piece of rotted fish that had washed up on the shore?

Thus, Richard Bach's tiny little novel (I read it in a single day when I was twelve) revealed the dissatisfaction that many Boomers and their younger parents had with their mundane lives.

Thinking like that was a million miles away from that of our grandparents, who were simply glad to have survived the Great Depression without starving to death.

Ah, sweet summers of the 60's. What could be more carefree than hanging out with Frankie, Annette, Fabian, Tab, and the rest of the gang on a sunny southern California beach with great rock and roll blasting in the background and, of course, a plethora of bikinis and muscular, bare-chested surfers...

Lord knows that there was enough pain, stress, and unrest in the decade to make your head spin. But beach movies provided us with an escape to a world where the biggest problem you might face would be trying to get the cute blonde with the groovy dance moves to notice you.

The beach movie era began with 1959's Gidget. Sandra Dee's character, Frances, learns to surf under the tutelage of one Moondoggie, played by James Darren. He is a dreamboat, and Gidget has her challenges ahead of her to get him to notice her as something other than a prodigy on a surfboard. Cliff Robertson plays the Big Kahuna, and Tom Laughlin, who would gain future fame as Billy Jack, had a bit part as well.

The movie was a smash, and another film involving lots of nubile young bodies clad in skimpy swim attire was released the following year.

So, how does one tastefully cash in on a show that was canceled after only 39 episodes, but which had proven immensely popular after its demise?

That was the quandary faced by execs of the perennially-third-ranked ABC network in 1960. The Honeymooners was dropped by CBS after slipping from #2 to a still-respectable #19 in the Nielsens. But the now-more-popular-than-ever series lived on in regular sketches on Jackie Gleason's variety show.

ABC smelled gold, but how to cash in without being too obvious?

The answer lie in a groundbreaking series: The Flintstones. The half-hour show, first aired in 1960, would be the first cartoon aimed at an adult audience. It would also be the first animated series to carry a single plotline for the entire episode. And it would also prove to be the hit series that ABC was looking for.

Most people didn't even realize they were watching a show that was pretty much based on The Honeymooners. ABC managed to accomplish the perfect cash-in.

Colonel Tom Parker had quite a goldmine on his hands. He managed Elvis Presley, the most valuable commodity in the entertainment industry of the mid 1950's. Of course, even the most manipulative manager couldn't make his client do anything he didn't want to, at least not without getting him to sign contracts granting the power to do so. There was money in music, to be sure. But there was more money in movies.

It turned out that Elvis did want to act. And his talents included the ability to do so quite convincingly. And the first films that Parker convinced him to make looked like the best of all possible worlds was being reached. The films were good, the acting was challenging, and the songs that were performed were good stuff.

However, the job satisfaction of his client and the commitment to artistic quality were not very high on Parker's agenda. So after a promising start, Elvis's acting career went downhill, quality-wise. Unfortunately for him, it would continue belching smoke until 1969.