On the road again…

Off to LibertyCon in Chattanooga! Looking forward to seeing old friends, being on a few panels, and hopefully picking up a few new readers!

I received this in response to my post about aging earlier in the week and have to share it…

THOSE WERE THE DAYS!!!!Β  GLAD WE COULD ENJOY THEM.

**********************************************************

1950’s version of an E-Mail

I have no idea who put this together, but it is interesting!!

Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan , or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me,

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.


We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one’s seen him since.

We danced to ‘Little Darlin,’ and sang to ‘Stagger Lee’
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.


Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie, they never made it twice..

We didn’t have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.


We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,
And Oprah couldn’t talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had our share of heroes, we never thought they’d go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.
For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.


We’d never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren’t named Jefferson , and Zeppelins were not Led.


And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We’d never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars.

Original Antique Rotary Western Electric Model 302 Telephone image 1
And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and ‘gay’ meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-Ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.


We hadn’t seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.


And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.


T-Birds came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for those dysfunctions in the Land That Made Me, Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill


And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.


But all things have a season, or so we’ve heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.
They send us invitations to join AARP,
We’ve come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they’re using smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children’s children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Comments

On the road again… — 9 Comments

  1. Safe travels, the fabric of society is close to being permanently ripped.

  2. Hope your meet up goes well. That was a good poem – brought back some memories, though I was born in early 60’s so a lot of that just preceded my time.

  3. Enjoy your trip! Travel safely, and be prepared–it’s June in Tennessee, which means it’ll be a mite warm and humid.
    Welcome (back) to Tennessee!

  4. All- Thanks for the comment it is appreciated and yes Tennessee bud it is hot and humid in Chattanooga! πŸ™‚

  5. Congratulations to the author. That was nice.

    One nitpick, though:
    > We’d never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,

    Detective novel readers knew about car phones; Hollywood detective Shell Scott wore outrageously colored suits and drove a flashy Cadillac convertible with a radio-telephone. He’d pick up the handset and tell the operator to place a call for him while he was cruising Rodeo Drive, or check with his answering service to see if anyone had left a message for him.

    That was seriously high-tech stuff for the early 1950s.

    Shell Scott was way flashier than Thomas Magnum, and got beaten up more often than Jim Rockford. And Scott got way more interesting cases than Magnum or Rockford…

    I sometimes wonder why there was never a TV series based on the Shell Scott books, but given what Hollywood tends to do when making adaptations, it’s probably good that they’ve overlooked him.