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

We Boomers grew up with a soda fountain within easy walking distance of where we were. Sadly, they disappeared, to be replaced by the self-serve convenience store. However, with the retro movement, soda fountains are making a bit of a comeback. Today's podcast is all about the long-lost, lamented soda fountains we grew up with.

Forty-seven years is a long time to be around, particularly if you are a rock and roll group long known for pushing things to excess. But the Rolling Stones have accomplished just that. And they have managed to attain the title of World's Greatest Rock and Roll band in the process. Today's podcast is all about the lads who first got together way back in 1962.

Time was that there were three magazines on the racks that Boomer boys scarfed up by the bagfuls: Mad, Sick, and Cracked. In a time when TV humor was much too tame for us, we devoured the politically incorrect satire that was contained therein. Today's podcast looks at the Big Three humor mags we grew up with.

Podcasts have been back for a couple of weeks, but if you tried to find them through iTunes, you couldn't. That's because I had configuration problems on my end. Well, I'm hoping that those bugs have been squished. So whether you listen to podcasts through iTunes or some other online service, the rss feed should now be coded to locate I Remember JFK on their end. And you can also add my rss url (http://www.irememberjfk.com/mt/atom.xml) manually to whatever desktop software you use to grab podcasts.

Happy listening!

Think back, Boomers. Once upon a time, listening to the radio meant one thing: listening to AM radio.

Now perhaps you had a father like mine, who enjoyed tuning in shortwave broadcasts from all over the world. That could mean a possibility that selecting stations on the home radio might mean switching bands. But dad, proudly geeky in his own blue-collar way, was the exception. Most families under the charge of WWII vets had AM radios in the house. And obviously, the push-button car radio of the 50's and 60's only pulled in AM signals.

But somewhere along the line, we started listening to FM.

Perhaps the experience was an epiphany for you. Perhaps you tuned into an FM station for the first time and noticed that the sound was decidedly clearer, that it was practically unaffected by lightning static, and that you could hear music in true stereo.

Such wasn't the case with me. I don't recall my first experience listening to FM. My first car, a 1966 Ford Falcon, had AM. My bedroom radio could pull in monophonic FM, but what was the point when WLS was the greatest (AM) radio station on the planet?

Boomers, remember when you first started listening to FM radio over AM? Listen to today's podcast to hear recollections of when the new radio band began taking over the radio business.

The world has reacted in various ways to the swine flu scare at presstime. Mexico has basically shut down, recent soccer games being played all over the country before empty stadiums. The fans aren't allowed in, but the games get played anyway. Strange.

Anyhow, the CDC is calling for clear heads and calm. And you know what? The Boomer generation is doing exactly that. You see, we've been here and done this before.

On February 5, 1976, an Army recruit at Fort Dix told his drill instructor that he felt lousy, but not sick enough to see the medics or to skip an upcoming training hike. Within 24 hours, the soldier, 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis, was dead. Doctors determined that he was killed by the same influenza which caused the pandemic (the world's first) of 1918-19, which took a half-million US lives, and killed 20 million worldwide. Two weeks later, health officials disclosed to America that the disease, known as swine flu, had killed Lewis and hospitalized four of his fellow soldiers at Fort Dix.

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http://www.irememberjfk.com/mt/podcasts/swine_flu_scare_5-8-2009.mp3

Boomer kids grew up on two wheels. From the time the training wheels came off, we were spotted buzzing around town on our Sting-Rays, or on less expensive banana-seated clones.

However, many of us had more technologically sophisticated rides. Perhaps we inherited them from our parents or older siblings, or perhaps the non-conformists among us showed our rebellious traits at an early age by opting for them over the high-handlebarred models that everyone else preferred.

The result was the fairly common sight of three-speed bikes on the 1960's streets where we lived.

The three-speed bike has a venerable history. Before the invention of the automobile, bicycles were seen as an alternative method to getting around town for those without a horse. And let's face it: it was difficult for a city dweller to own a horse, so the bicycle may well have been an essential part of his or her life.

Thus, around the turn of the century, technological developments were taking place very rapidly on bicycles. In 1909, the British Raleigh bicycle, equipped with a Sturmey Archer 3-Speed hub, started production. Thus began the three-speed revolution.

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http://www.irememberjfk.com/mt/podcasts/the_three_speed_bike_5-11-2009.mp3

The year was 1973. My middle brother was home on leave from serving in the navy. While on tour in the far east, he stopped in Japan and picked up a Bridgestone ten-speed and had it shipped stateside. He had it with him when he arrived at our Pea Ridge, Arkansas rural home.

Thus, at the age of fourteen, bicycling became serious business for me.

It was that way with many of us Boomers. During the 70's, we gave up our Schwinn Sting-Rays and began riding sophisticated machines that would gear down so that we could climb hills with ease, or gear up so that we could approach forty miles per hour on downhill stretches.

The ten-speed had actually been around for a long time prior to that. The derailleur gear shifting system was "invented" in 1949 by the Campagnolo bicycle company of Italy. They actually reworked an existing system that had been around for many years previously, but their innovation was such that European bicycle manufacturers began cranking out ten-speed bikes in large numbers.

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http://www.irememberjfk.com/mt/podcasts/ten_speed_bikes_5-18-2009.mp3
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There are a few basic staple foods that every single Boomer kid partook of, no matter the race, creed, or social status. For example, there was Campbell's Soup. There were various incarnations of TV dinners. And there was the grilled cheese sandwich.

Today's column isn't specifically about the grilled cheese sandwich. No, rather, it was about the technological innovations that led to the ability of our mothers to open the fridge, pop out a slice of American cheese, put it between two slices of bread, and quickly and easily create a bit of culinary heaven.

I could trace history back to Bedouin shepherds who lived thousands of years ago, but instead, I'm beginning with James L. Kraft.

Kraft had moved to Chicago from Canada in 1903. He opened a cheese production business with the $65 he had in his pocket.

Kraft was a sharp cookie, and he soon devised a method of transforming cheddar scraps, which would otherwise be disposed of, into a processed cheese. It was so innovative that he patented his idea in 1916. Kraft's cheese would also last much longer on the shelf than classic cheese, and consumers loved its taste!

Boomer ladies, I'm sure that if I cross the chauvinistic line in today's piece, you'll be more than happy to let me know.

What would a beach party movie be without Annette Funicello in her bikini? Fortunately, the world of the 60's didn't have to find out. That's because the two-piece bathing suit, once considered so risqué that ladies who sported one risked arrest, was a commonplace sight on American beaches of the 1960's, much to the delight of all of us who possess a Y chromosome.

The bikini's history is a venerable one. 4th century CE artwork discovered in Sicily depicts Roman ladies exercising while wearing what today would be considered bikinis.

But the Dark Ages, the Victorian Era, and predominant social mores kept the two-piece outfit that was intended to be worn in public by members of the fairer sex pretty much out of circulation until 1946. It was in that year that Frenchmen Jacques Heim and Louis Reard designed and released what was called for the first time the bikini. The diminutive swimsuit was named after Bikini Atoll in the Pacific, the site of the much hailed (at the time) atomic bomb tests which began taking place that same year.

However, bikinis were still rarely spotted on US beaches for several years afterwards. It was Brigitte Bardot's performance in Roger Vadim's scandalous And God Created Woman in 1956 (but not released in the US until the next year) that opened the floodgates.