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

Many Presidents have had brothers who were also in the limelight. Most notably, our site's namesake, JFK, had two famous siblings who also chose political careers.

But arguably, the most entertaining presidential brother as one William Alton Carter III, otherwise known as Billy.

Jimmy Carter came from nowhere to become the Democratic presidential frontrunner in 1976. The press were intrigued by this Georgia peanut farmer who had captivated the public's interest so quickly and so thoroughly.

So small town Plains, Georgia suddenly became a haven for news crews from all of the networks, as well as many powerful print publications. They all wanted to know more about what made Jimmy Carter tick, especially his family.

They weren't disappointed. Among his relatives were many colorful characters, but surpassing them all was his baby brother.

I just had an epiphany.

An epiphany is basically an awakening. My tiny little version was that I had been cranking out Boomer memories for what will be two years in a couple of months, and yet, I had never written about the poetic voice of our generation, who appeared on the national scene in 1962, just in time to explain the tumultuous events which were about to unfurl for the rest of the decade, and whose words and music would be followed with nearly religious devotion by the nation's youth.

Thus, my tiny little epiphany was that I needed to bring up the much greater one given the world by one Robert Zimmerman, better known by his self-chosen name Bob Dylan.

This column is entitled "Scratching the Surface," because much more will need to be written about Dylan here to present an acceptably whole picture of him and his effects on the Boomer generation.

Dylan got his start in the New York coffee-houses that were Beatnik hangouts in the early 60's. He was an ardent fan of Woodie Guthrie, who was dying in a New York hospital. Dylan traveled all the way from home state of Minnesota, and did manage to meet his idol, as well as Guthrie friend Ramblin' Jack Elliot.

So what could television be capable of in 1977, anyway?

The one-eyed monster had gone from an expensive luxury for the wealthy thirty years earlier to a ubiquitous part of practically every American home. It captivated a huge portion of the nation's population every night with fare that ranged from good to horrible.

But could the idiot box make a moral statement? Could it present history as viewed through the eyes of its oppressed, and change the way modern society did business?

Well, there was only one way to find out.

In January of the year that I graduated from high school, Roots began airing in an unprecedented eight-consecutive-night run. ABC had no idea what to expect from the public. The series would depict unprecedented cruelty, violence, and innuendo. But there was nothing titillating about it. It was a serious story that ended up hooking the nation and keeping it glued to their sets for an entire week.

In 1972, a gritty mobster movie was all the rage. The Godfather, despite its running time of over three hours, was a huge hit all over the nation.

The next year, when the Academy Awards show was televised, there was a lot of buzz in the air about the movie. As it turned out, Cabaret was the big scene-stealer at the Oscars, winning most of the statuettes when running head-to-head against The Godfather. So the team behind the film, as well as ardent fans who were tuned in, were thrilled when the Best Actor award was announced and Marlon Brando's name was heard.

What happened next caused the audience in attendance, as well as the one tuned in on TV, to gasp.

Instead of Mr. Brando, a young lady wearing a leather outfit decorated in Native American beadwork walked out, carrying a piece of paper. The crowd sat in stunned silence.

I was very fortunate to be a change-of-life child. My older brothers weathered lean financial years growing up, typical of young families. But by the time I came along (mom's surprise at the age of 37!), the household I was born into was a comfortable middle-class situation with dual incomes. Ergo, we enjoyed a new car every other year, Saturday night dinners out, and a couple of amazing vacations.

In 1967, we went to the World's Fair in Montreal. That will be a future remembrance in itself.

In 1968, after much Flipper-fed begging on my part, we drove to Florida.

That two weeks make for some of my most precious memories. And it's a pleasure to dust a few of them off and share them with you.

One June morning, we piled into the Plymouth and headed for the Sunshine State. I was in eager expectation as we headed for something I'd never seen, but always dreamed about visiting: the ocean.

Human nature is a funny thing. Put people into strange circumstances, and the results can be hilarious.

Producer Allen Funt figured this out in 1947, and began a radio show called Candid Microphone, It was a hit, and also proved popular in the form of filmed theater shorts.

In 1948, in the very infancy of the medium, Candid Microphone made it to TV.

If you older Boomers don't remember Candid Microphone, it's for good reason. The show jumped all over the place before being merged into The Tonight Show as a recurring segment, followed by yet another move to The Garry Moore Show. Somewhere during all of the hopping around, the segment changed its name from Candid Microphone to Candid Camera.

Finally, in 1960, it appeared as Candid Camera, the TV show. And CBS now had a very solid 9:00 (Central time) anchor on the Must-See TV night of the decade, Sunday.

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.

It has come to my attention that when I embed a YouTube video here, and this site is viewed through Internet Explorer, it looks ugly. The video sits on top of the text like a block of styrofoam in the ocean, instead of being smoothly wrapped by text. The reason for this is Microsoft Internet Explorer.

IE is, in this web developer's eyes, a problem child. Browsers like Opera, Firefox, and Google's Chrome all follow (to a greater or lesser extent) W3C standards. Microsoft, however, has long made it a practice to do things their own way, ignoring standards followed by everyone else. This is their business strategy. If you get used to doing things Microsoft's way, so goes the theory, then you will be bound to them for life, for better or worse.

It's a very poor business strategy, IMHO. And I won't even go into the security risks to your private data that IE presents.

I try to make things look nice for IE users. After all, they comprise 57.5% of this site's visitors. But, unfortunately, you can't have your cake and eat it too when it comes to embedding YouTube videos. There is code that will allow text to wrap nicely in IE and in the polite browsers, but it's a complicated jumble that has to be customized for every video embedded.

So I have decided to make the videos look nicely text-wrapped for Firefox et al. That means that they should also look nice for any non-IE browser.

My apologies for the ugly placement of YouTube videos, IE users. It's nothing personal. There's a reason that IE's market share drops every month. Please look into trying Firefox, Opera, or Chrome. It's safer, the web looks better, and it'll make you feel better about yourself.

The 86th edition of the Blogging Boomers Carnival is up and running over at This Marriage Thing. Go see what's going on with the coolest Boomer bloggers on the net!

One of the most popular search terms people use for this site is "popo gigo." This proves two things. First of all the animated Italian mouse continues to have a worldwide following, and second, people have a hard time with his name!

Well, I'll drop the term Popo Gigo two or three times into this article to help them find us. Indeed, in Japanese the mouse is properly known as Toppo Jijo and Topo Jijo. There, that should get Google involved in sending me more curious folks who remember a mouse with an Italian accent. Because, after all, I Remember JFK is THE source of all things nostalgia to the Baby Boomer generation, right? ;-)

Topo Gigio was the creation of Italian animator Maria Perego. The stick-controlled foam rubber puppet was a big hit on Italian TV in the early 60's, and Ed Sullivan's staff got wind of the mouse's popularity among children and adults. Thus Topo Gigio made his first appearance on April 14, 1963, just in time for me (as well as millions of other 60's kids) to become an ardent fan.

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.

The elder members of the Boomer have once again spoken. Today's I Remember JFK memory is all about Winky-Dink and You, praised by, among others, uber-geek Bill Gates as an interactive kid's show that turned the television into the world's first multimedia device.

Winky-Dink began airing at 9:30 central time on Saturday mornings in 1953. Televisions were rare enough then that kids would often gather at a home that had one to see the adventures of the little star-headed adventurer wearing the plaid pants who needed YOUR help to get out of various fixes.

Winky-Dink featured Jack barry as Winky's narrator, who would prompt kids at home to put their plastic Winky-Dink screen over the front of the boob tube and draw whatever it was that the hero needed to formulate an escape from whatever fix he had found himself in. Of course, the mere lack of a screen wouldn't stop imaginative children from drawing directly on the glass with whatever writing implement was handy. Thus did many a parent learn that a fifty-cent investment in a Winky-Dink screen kit would greatly extend the life of a much more expensive television set.

The term "ubiquitous" is defined as "existing or being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresent." Ubiquitous perfectly describes the humble writing implement known as the Crayola Crayon.

The depicted postage stamp was released in 1998, graced with an illustration of an early-20th-century Crayola box. This shows that kids have been playing with Crayolas for over a century, making the pigmented wax writing implements ubiquitous in the truest sense of the word.

Binney and Smith, a company that specialized in industrial pigments, released the first box of eight Crayola crayons containing red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black sticks in 1903. It sold for a nickel.

The brains behind Crayolas (the name was dreamed up by Alice Binney, wife of one of the company's founders) realized that kids would delight in drawing and coloring with them. They would also likely ingest them in the process. Therefore, Crayolas were made of non-toxic materials.