Rant-Man's Notebook

By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

The Good Old Days

Today is my birthday. If I'd been sharp, I would have made up a wishlist at Amazon or someplace so you could all give me presents for being born. But I didn't, so you'll just have to send cash. Ha.

So I'm old. Which means of course that I'm supposed to prattle on about how much things have changed. Except I don't want to.

Remember a while back I went off on a rampage about the stinking Baby Boomers and their self-absorbed domination of the civilized world? They're still at it.

A friend e-mailed me this thing. It's supposed to make you all warm and fuzzy for how good things were back in the Golden Days of "Leave it to Beaver." Let's put on our rose-colored glasses and take a stroll down memory lane, shall we? I'll be interjecting my comments along the way...

WERE YOU A KID IN THE FIFTIES OR EARLIER?

Were you a kid in the Fifties or earlier? Everybody makes fun of our childhood! Comedians joke. Grandkids snicker. Twenty-something's shudder and say "Eeeew!" But was our childhood really all that bad? Judge for yourself:
Nope. I was born in the '50s, but my earliest memories are of the early '60s. Most of this stuff would probably apply, though. We shall see....

In 1953 The US population was less than 150 million... Yet you knew more people then, and knew them better... And that was good.
Except that all the people you knew were the same color and religion as you, and you had total freedom to beat up or harass anybody who wasn't.

The average annual salary was under $3,000... Yet our parents could put some of it away for a rainy day and still live a decent life... And that was good.
That's because taxes have gone up about ten times more than inflation. But that's another rant for another day.

A loaf of bread cost about 15 cents... But it was safe for a five-year-old to skate to the store and buy one... And that was good.
It's actually safer now. We're all just terrified by the relentless bombardment of the news media.

Prime-Time meant I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Gunsmoke and Lassie...So nobody ever heard of ratings or filters... And that was good.
Prime-Time also meant a lot of really crappy TV that everybody forgets. But aside from that, if you watch "The Real World" or "Fear Factor" or "Big Brother" or any of that other crap, then the decline of TV standards is YOUR FAULT. Stop whining.

We didn't have air-conditioning... So the windows stayed up and half a dozen mothers ran outside when you fell off your bike... And that was good.
Those same mothers would close their eyes and turn their backs when your dad was beating the crap out of you. Domestic violence was a "family matter" and the neighbors stayed out of it. Not so good.

Your teacher was either Miss Matthews or Mrs. Logan or Mr. Adkins...But not Ms Becky or Mr. Dan... And that was good.
Unless Mrs. Logan or Mr. Adkins happened to be a vindictive, fascistic, sadistic bastard, in which case you were out of luck. Teachers could do whatever the hell they wanted and get away with it.

The only hazardous material you knew about... Was a patch of grassburrs around the light pole at the corner... And that was good.
It wasn't called "hazardous material" back then, but the smog in Los Angeles was far, far worse in the 1950s than it is today. And just because we didn't know what factories were spewing into the air and water doesn't mean it was harmless.

You loved to climb into a fresh bed... Because sheets were dried on the clothesline... And that was good.
And of course Mom just loved to spend several hours a week doing laundry.... So, are we saying that the Women's Liberation movement was a bad thing?

People generally lived in the same hometown with their relatives... So "child care" meant grandparents or aunts and uncles. And that was good.
Unless your family had packed up and moved to someplace your dad had been stationed at when he was in the military, in which case your nearest relative was thousands of miles away, and "child care" meant a thug of an older sibling who hated your guts and could do whatever he wanted to you.

Parents were respected and their rules were law.... Children did not talk back..... And that was good.
It was only good if the parents were sober and rational. If your dad drank and had a mean streak, you were on your own. Saying "good morning" could be considered talking back, and asking to use the bathroom was grounds for a beating. And nobody could do anything about it. Polite people didn't discuss such things except over coffee, and then only for the entertainment value.

TV was in black-and-white... But all outdoors was in glorious color....And that was certainly good.
Unless you lived in the wrong part of town.

Your Dad knew how to adjust everybody's carburetor... And the Dad next door knew how to adjust all the TV knobs... And that was very good.
The dad next door was also probably a creep. His teenage son sure was.

Your grandma grew snap beans in the back yard... And chickens behind the garage... And that was definitely good.
The hundreds of chores that go along with gardens and chickens were not so hot. What planet are you from?

And just when you were about to do something really bad...Chances were you'd run into your Dad's high school coach... Or the nosy old lady from up the street... Or your little sister's piano teacher... Or somebody from Church... ALL of whom knew your parents' phone number... And YOUR first name... And even THAT was good!
They also knew all your business, and used it to put you down and write you off with some snide comment like "well, look at the family; of course he's good for nothing."

REMEMBER....
Thank you, no, I'd rather not.

Send this on to someone who can still remember American Bandstand, Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Sky King, Little Lulu comics, Brenda Starr, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk as well as the sound of a reel mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, playing in cowboy land, playing hide and seek and kick-the-can and Simon Says, baseball games, amateur shows at the local theater before the Saturday matinee, bowling and visits to the pool...and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar, and wax lips and bubblegum cigars and nickel Cokes.
And race riots, sit-ins, protests, Red Scares, lynchings, segregation, Civil Defense drills, bomb shelters, Mutually Assured Destruction....

If you're too young to remember those good old days, you missed a great time in American history! If you do remember, fight to regain those neighborhood values! Enjoy your memories, and share the wealth with those that were born too late.
What a load of crap! The perfect world that this delusional loon is prattling on about never existed. If you felt safe and comfy in your childhood, it wasn't because the Fifties were more innocent and nice; it's because your parents worked really hard at making you feel safe and secure in spite of the terrifying things that were all around. If your kids don't feel safe today, it's because you aren't doing your job the way your parents did theirs.

Think about it: if you were a child in the '50s, you grew up in the Cold War, with the imminent threat of global nuclear destruction hanging over your head, and yet you felt safe. Why? That threat has been removed, and yet your kids feel threatened. Why? Probably because you kept the damn TV on for days at a time after September 11 and scared the crap out of them.

The '50s were NOT A Golden Age of safety and innocence; they were also a time of paranoia, fear, and threat. You just THINK they were a time of innocence. You owe it to your kids to let them feel that way about the current times.

Here's the cold hard fact: The Golden Age is 12. Whatever the world was like when you were 12, that's the Good Old Days, whether it involved a Gene Autry serial at the Saturday matinee or Gotham Girls on the internet.

Besides which, as far as I'm concerned, these louts have no right to whine about how much better it was back then, since they're the ones who ruined it.

Boo Hoo Hoo. Things were so much better when you were kids. Who do you think screwed it up? You did! The kids in the '50s were the teens in the '60s and adults in the '70s and '80s, and they are the ones who couldn't stand the way things were. If you're feeling nostalgic for your childhood days, it's your own damn fault that those days are gone. You did it. You destroyed it with your protests and your drugs and your psychedelic hippie revolution. It's your own damn fault. Now shut up. Frigging Boomers. Whine whine whine. Ugh.

Aside from that, for me anyway, the Golden Age is right this minute, not 40 years ago. My life has never been better, and I wouldn't go back at gunpoint. I have no nostalgia for my childhood. The ONLY thing that was better back then is the music.

I was reminded of that recently when I went to hear a local band, The Ravelers. The ravelers is fronted by an old friend of mine, Hai Muradian; they play "the songs everybody knows," from early Beatles to "Burn Baby Burn (Disco Inferno)," and they put on a heck of a show. We had a great time at this sports bar in Upland that had horrible service and weird customers, but that's a story for another day.

I'll finish off with this sentiment from Billy Joel, another old fart:

You can get just so much from a good thing
You can linger too long in your dreams
Say goodbye to the "Oldies But Goodies"
Cause the good ole days weren't always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems
--Billy Joel "Keeping the Faith"

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