This year I will turn 50. The Golden Anniversary if you\u2019re married or a television network. A near antique if you\u2019re a car. And someone who\u2019s a grandpa man in the eyes of anyone under 18.<\/p>\n
It is a strange age to be. My brain says I\u2019m still young and by the life expectancy tables, I am. I have at least a good 30 to 40 years to go on this big blue ball. And when I\u2019m with people my age, they all seem really old.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, when I\u2019m with friends who are younger than I am (and that\u2019s the vast majority), they look at me with often strange looks because I am old enough to have witnessed first hand the history they had studied in school, but yet know all the pop culture icons they grew up with as well as all of my own.<\/p>\n
This occurred to me a couple days ago. I was fortunate enough to have been around during the dawn of television, the Kennedy assassination, man landing on the moon, Watergate and an assortment of other minor and major events that have shaped the history of the world.<\/p>\n
But I also know nearly all the songs of the first season of Schoolhouse Rock, I know what Pop Rocks are (as well as Pet Rocks), and I saw the King of Rock n\u2019 Roll, Elvis Presley, in concert during his caped years, but before his Pillsbury Doughboy era.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty much up on Harry Potter, but also remember watching the last episodes of MASH with Harry Morgan playing Colonel Potter and playing Clue in which it was often Colonel Mustard in the library with the wrench.<\/p>\n
I was there for the original bell bottoms, tie-dyed shirts and mid drift tops of the 70s and celebrated their demise and mourned their recent rebirth. Every time I think a bad fashion idea is dead and buried, it comes back. Baby dolls make their way back but Fedoras (unless you\u2019re Britney or Indiana Jones) have never had a comeback once.<\/p>\n
I recall watching the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights. I remember the night the Courtney\u2019s house burned in our neighborhood. Topo Gigo was on the Sullivan Show so I always know the fire was on Sunday. I saw the Beatles live on the show and couldn\u2019t figure out what the big deal was. But you have to give me a break. I was 7. But to my defense I got to see the halftime show when Justin Timberlake pulled Janet Jackson\u2019s top off and couldn\u2019t figure out what the big deal was either.<\/p>\n
Speaking of Topo Gigo, I\u2019m the only one in my household (friends included) who can watch \u201cThe Santa Clause\u201d and laugh when Tim Allen tells the police all the names he\u2019s known by. It took me a while to explain the reference to my nine year old son. Thankfully, I could pull up You Tube and show him a video of old Topo in action.<\/p>\n
And I have to say, I love the Internet for more reasons than email and CNN. I get to mystify my wife, friends and children with vague references to the past. Rather than thinking senility is creeping up on me, I can pop on google.com and show them I\u2019m not the crack pot they thought I was \u2013 at least not yet.<\/p>\n
Case in point. When I was a kid, we woke every morning to Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his dog Yukon King. And damned if I can\u2019t pull up the fact that it starred Dick Simmons at Sergeant Preston and aired from 1955 to 1958. Now, I wasn\u2019t born then (I can only be so old at one time) but I saw it in 1964 or so when it was obviously in reruns.<\/p>\n
Of course, I remember \u201cMy Mother the Car\u201d, one of the worst shows in the history of TV. It failed miserably. I think I was the only one who watched it. But I do remember it starred Jerry Van Dyke (who\u2019s mother was the car) and he ended up years later on\u00a0 the comedy, Coach. I couldn\u2019t help but say one time, \u201cHey, it\u2019s the guy from My Mother the Car\u201d and everyone just stared blankly at me.<\/p>\n
I know it\u2019s hard to believe now, but most of the TV shows back then were in black and white. I remember watching the first episode of The Wonderful World of Disney in Living Color. Years later, I watched the Wayans family crack me up on Living Color, with some unknown guy by the name of Jim Carey. Who would have thought Fireman Fred would be a big star some day?<\/p>\n
The same could be said of a guy named Tom Hanks. I remember him on Bosom Buddies. The thought of cross dressing seemed so funny back then and now I\u2019ve met more cross dressers in real life than I can count.<\/p>\n
Back then, I had friends who were gay but never talked openly about it. The first openly gay guy I knew was at the University of Washington. His name was Curtis and he was about the nicest guy I ever knew. And yes, I originally thought my friend Wendy meant he was just happy.<\/p>\n
But I also got to watch some good history along the way. I watched the nightly reports by Walter Cronkite from the jungles of Viet Nam. I saw Nixon resign from the White House and fly away in the helicopter. I saw Regan get shot by that crazy Hinkley guy. I watched the riots in the streets of Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention and sat confused at a bunch of freelovers sitting soaking wet at some concert in upstate New York\u2026 Woodsomething or other.<\/p>\n
And I got to watch man not only land on the moon, but walk on it. My mother used to let me stay out of school to watch things like that. She figured watching a space launch was far more educational than reading about it later in a book. This was long before the stupidity of standardized testing where we are more concerned with turning out zombie clones than free thinkers.<\/p>\n
Of course, I remember watching Challenger explode. I had just started my job in public relations at Associated Grocers. I snuck into the meeting room where we had the only TV that could receive network. I turned on the set just as shuttle countdown went to zero. I watched the fireball \u2013 history once again unfolded before my very eyes. And I cried.<\/p>\n
I was too young to cry when Kennedy was assassinated. I was just 5. But it\u2019s my earliest memories as a child. That and the only hurricane that had passed through Washington State in 1962. I only recall that because the power was out for a week back then. I remember the Kennedy funeral only vaguely. I think it made an impression because there were no cartoons for those four days in November.<\/p>\n
I remember a time when it was perfectly safe to ride your bike all over town. You could walk to school too. There were still some people our parents steered us away from, such as the bachelor down the street who lived on this big wooded lot. He had a circular driveway that led to his house and we used to two wooden hydroplanes behind our bikes through the drive. It was all dirt and we would put nails on the bottom of the hydros so they would kick up roostertails of brown dust.<\/p>\n
Back then, hydroplanes were the only major league sport we had in Seattle. The Seahawks and Mariners were decades into the future. We eventually got the Seattle Supersonics, named after the supersonic plane Boeing was building at the time. The plane was cancelled so eventually they just became the Sonics, which makes no sense at all. But I did watch them win the National Championship in 1979, with Downtown Freddy Brown and Slick Watts, who used to tip the headband on his head in the direction he favored going to that night.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the only National Championship I think Seattle has ever won. The Seahawks went to the Super Bowl once. I remember marching in the band at their first football game. They played San Francisco, I think, and Meredith Willson, who wrote the Music Man led 1,976 student musicians in 76 Trombones. I\u2019ll never forget the warbling sound the Kingdome made when we finished the last night. Years later, I watched as the Kingdome came tumbling down in a huge controlled demolition. It wasn\u2019t even paid for yet, but it did make one helluva show crashing to the ground.<\/p>\n
I began to learn I was old when my daughter Rebecca became a teenager. One day she was watching the Brady Bunch in reruns and I happened in on her. I said, \u201cI remember this episode. Boy,\u00a0 I had such a crush on Jan.\u201d She looked at me blankly like I was some kind of sicko to have a crush on a little girl. I quickly added, \u201cShe was my age when the show was on originally, Bec. Geez, what were you thinking?\u201d She looked back and said, \u201cWow, that was a long time ago, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
I think I aged 10 years on that one day alone.<\/p>\n
IF you think this is all confusing, you should see it through my eyes. The past and present go along so well together. Old memories mix with the latest in fads and pop culture and I can\u2019t help but marvel at the things I\u2019ve got to be part of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This year I will turn 50. The Golden Anniversary if you\u2019re married or a television network. A near antique if you\u2019re a car. And someone who\u2019s a grandpa man in the eyes of anyone under 18. It is a strange age to be. My brain says I\u2019m still young and by the life expectancy tables, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-randomalities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}