People Archives
Jack Webb's TV Creations I Remember JFK did an article on Dragnet back in 2007, but it really didn't pay enough homage to the man behind the show, Jack Webb. With that, today's offering will attempt to give credit where credit is due, to the creative genius that accompanied one of the most familiar...
Rock Star Deaths It's a bit sad that death is so much a part of our Boomer memories. We learned at a very early age that famous people die. We also learned, through the Vietnam war, that loved ones die. And as we kids grew up listening to and loving rock and roll...
Mel Brooks Everybody loves to laugh. And growing up a Boomer, one of my most consistent sources of laughter was Mel Brooks. Melvin Kaminsky was born in 1928 Brooklyn to a father descended from German Jews and a mother whose lineage was Russian Jews. He was a sickly child who soon discovered...
The Einstein of the Boomer Generation: Stephen Hawking Once in a great while, a scientific mind comes along that changes everything. These brilliant individuals include Euclid, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and a Boomer whose name fits right alongside the greatest of all: Professor Stephen Hawking. Hawking was born in Oxford on January 8, 1942, to Dr. Frank Hawking,...
Steve Allen Growing up Boomers, there were familiar faces on TV that kept showing up time after time that were as comfortable as a well-worn pair of slippers. They would move from series to series, and we sort of took it for granted that we would always have them. Sadly, that's not...
Bobby Fischer and the Match of the Century Many of us Boomers grew up with chess sets in the house. Many of these were cheap plastic jobs imported from Japan. Some of us had prestigious cast or carved versions. But odds are that all of us, when sitting down to take on one of our youthful opponents, fancied...
Jerry Lewis and His Telethon The year was 1952. Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin were the stars of The Colgate Comedy Hour. A staff member asked Jerry to help out with a local four-hour telethon to raise funds for research into muscular dystrophy which was broadcast on WABD-TV, a New York station. Jerry responded to...
Stan Lee Once upon a time, comic books were a part of every kid's existence. They were cheap, available everywhere, and were irresistible. Their themes ranged from war to horror to comedy to romance to their biggest attraction: superheroes. The list of famous names behind the scenes at comic book publishers is...
Raquel Welch Every generation has its sex symbols. Our grandfathers swooned over Clara Bow. Our fathers were gaga about Betty Grable. Our big brothers got saucer-eyed over Marilyn Monroe. And we Boomer kids felt the first stirring of our hormones over Raquel Welch. Raquel (that is her real name, BTW) was born...
Breaking News: R.I.P. Ronald Howes Another sad departure from our memory banks: Ronald Howes, inventor of the Easy-Bake Oven. Rest in peace, old friend....
Herb Alpert Well, after the commentary on the previous installment of I Remember JFK, the subject of this week's column was pretty obvious. The public wants Herb Alpert! And what the public wants, it gets, at least this time. :-) Herb Alpert was born on March 31, 1935. That makes him a...
Tiny Tim The date he was born was April 12, 1932. His parents were a Lebanese man and a Jewish woman. When he was five years old, his father brought home an old wind-up gramophone and a record of Henry Burr singing "Beautiful Ohio." Later, more old records were obtained. Young Herbert...
The Women's Lib Movement For some reason, the males of society have, by and large, long prevented women from enjoying the same freedoms that they have had. In western society, however, women have declared that they're not going to take it. They have done so in three waves, the last one having been evident...
Jesus Freaks ...And eleven long-haired friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus... When Convoy came out in 1975, the world knew exactly what C.W. McCall was singing about. An offshoot of the hippy generation, Jesus Freaks tended to grow their hair long, just like their hippy brethren, but overall lived lives that...
Photos from the Past, in the Style of Awkward Family Photos First of all, let me state that the names have been changed to protect the innocent. A good e-friend of mine turned me on to Awkward Family Photos, and I'm hooked. I've been looking for a suitable substitute to Mirsky's Worst of the Web since he decided to hang...
Anita Bryant Some people are known as lightning rods. Whether they intend it or not, the attention they receive is strongly positive or negative, with no middle ground. The result is that such a person is either loved or hated. Such a lightning rod that we Boomers grew up with was former...
The Cold War of the 60's One thing that all Boomer kids had in common was that they grew up with an inherent distrust of the Russians in particular, as well as communism in general. WWII was fought to eliminate tyranny and oppressive governments, and here we were, twenty years later, and there was a wall...
Orson Bean Orson Bean was born Dallas Frederick Burrows on July 22, 1928 in Burlington, Vermont. He had a cousin you may have heard of, Calvin Coolidge. But speaking from my own perspective, he is renowned for his quick comedic style and demonstrated on various episodes of the Johnny Carson Show which...
Marilyn Is Dead! As I have stated repeatedly here, my first coherent memory was the death of JFK. However, many slightly older Boomers have have a similar photographic recollection of the death of renowned tortured soul Marilyn Monroe. Starlets have handled their fame with various degrees of aptitude. Some, like Mae West, reveled...
What Will You Be When You Grow Up? 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...
Brando Sends an Indian Maiden to the Oscars 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....
Dylan: Scratching the Surface 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...
You may use any images you find on my site on your own personal site. COPY the images to your own server, PLEASE. If you link directly, you will likely get a logo encouraging others to visit I Remember JFK instead of the graphic that you expected. In return, I request that you include a link back to I Remember JFK. Fair enough?
Room 222:
Wednesday nights were for a great lineup of clever sitcoms around 1970. One of these was Room 222. Room 222 was Pete Dixon's classroom where he taught American History. His students loved his easy-going style. It was also a place where nobody ever graduated. Shows about schoolteachers have always faced...
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