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

Set your DVR's for this one, Boomers! Tom Brokaw hosts BOOMER$! tonight on CNBC. The show begins at 9:00 PST, 12:00 midnight EST tonight.

Tom Brokaw did an amazing piece on the Summer of Love a couple of years ago, this should be a dandy show as well.

Who knows, perhaps he might even mention your favorite Boomer nostalgia website! Hey, it could happen...

Regular readers of I Remember JFK know where I stand on the subject of Elvis. He had as much performing talent as any one individual who was ever born, but unfortunately, he also had the naiveté to put his trust in a manipulative individual who saw nothing but dollar signs as far as his client was concerned. The result was that Colonel Tom Parker stifled the man's talent to an extent that we may never know. During most of the 60's, instead of recording more and more great rock and roll like he cranked out during the 50's, he was in movie studios. Disposable, forgettable dreck was the overwhelming result. Each bad movie came out with a bad soundtrack. Lots of money was made, but untold quantities of God-given talent was tragically, permanently wasted.

But in late 1968, Elvis, backed by TV producer Steve Binder, dug in his heels against Parker and starred in a December NBC special that reminded the world of what all of the excitement was about ten years earlier.

Parker wanted Elvis singing Christmas tunes. Binder, who had previously stood up to Chrysler over Petula Clark touching Harry Belafonte's arm during a duet on her own 1968 special (Chrysler didn't feel the world was ready for a white woman to touch a black man on broadcast TV), was not intimidated by Elvis's doltish manager. The result was one of television's greatest moments, and a revitalization of the King's career.

The 60's was a decade of change for the movie industry. Films had been getting progressively more "mature" in their content since the mid 50's. This trend accelerated throughout the decade in which I first became aware of my surroundings and my place in the world. By 1968, the MPAA had instituted a ratings system, intended in large part to allow parents to control what sort of films their children would be allowed to watch.

One of the genres which accelerated the process was that of the low-budget Italian western, aka the Spaghetti Western.

I capitalize the term out of respect. That's a lot more respect than Hollywood critics gave it back in the day.

The classic Spaghetti Western is nowadays linked to the Man with No Name trilogy: Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But as I learned in penning this piece, there were, in fact, many, many more low budget films cranked out of Italian studios during the Decade of Change.

At presstime, we're experiencing one of those sopping-wet March snow dumps we get in my area every couple of years. Two days ago, my wife and I were walking the dogs in 70 degree sunshine, today, I'm looking out at eight inches of white stuff.

No matter. The previous warm weather put me in mind of a wonderful ritual that would take place every couple of weeks during summertime in Miami, Oklahoma in the 60's: the backyard cookout.

The ritual was simple, but profound: dinner, normally prepared on the stove, would be provided via dad's flat barbecue grill. That, to a kid, made ALL the difference.

We had the luxury of a screened-in porch. That meant no flies, no mosquitoes, and less wind blowing the red checkered tablecloth around. But I also experienced many a backyard cookout in the real elements. My grandparents' homes in Texas and Iowa were frequent sites, and the back yards were utilized as grand dining rooms in the highest sense of tradition. I would give anything to spend a 1967 summer day savoring the sights, smells, and tastes of a summer cookout. But memories are all we have. So let's share a few.

As a kid hanging around Moonwink Grocery, one of my favorite activities (and one of Mark, the owner's, LEAST favorite activities) was reading comic books. Sometimes, these would be Archie, Batman, or Superman. But sometimes, it would be an issue of CARtoons.

CARtoons was a mixture of comics and captioned photography. The comics included cars with outrageous hood scoops, massive engines, and gargantuan tires. The photos often featured clueless cops. It was all irresistible to a seven-year-old kid.

CARtoons got its start the same year that Barbie and I did, 1959. It was the creation of Pete Millar and Carl Kohler. Millar was an artist and a drag racer. Together, the duo produced what became a memory for Boomer youths of the 60's.

The magazine came out every other month. Sometimes, it would come out eight times a year. It was sort of an informal situation. But its fans were many, and, well, fanatical.