Great article Cobb ... we must have been separated at birth (just kidding; don't ask me to figure the logic behind that one ...); you nailed my childhood down into the boards... I think you only might have left out Monty Python ... but otherwise ...I've always gotten along with the tail end of the Boomers (I'm in the middle) shading into Gen Xers more than with the front end Boomers who always struck me as self-obsessed and hysterical (Clintonesque?). When I was a senior in high school a lot of our student teachers were recent U of W (Seattle) graduates and they were really sick of all the protest BS. After Vietnam ended I was amazed at how fast the First Wave Boomers took to coke and disco - party time! Politics? Wha? Huh? Since I am slightly older and crustier, I'll tell you that growing up with Motown in the 60s probably slaughtered more racism, more effectively than, well, I don't know what to compare it to - it was amazing. Someday someone will do a book on that. Finally I've often thought that the problem with millennials and Gen Zers is that they grew up without "In Living Color" re-runs - cheers! DQ
Monty Python, Dr. Demento, Firesign Theatre, MAD Magazine, and of course here in Los Angeles, The Young Marquis - The Raging Rhino of Rock & Roll. We had a snide sense of humor, parody that could be devastating. We didn't hate people, we mocked them. What we hated was being caged in, being suppressed. We had a defiant love of freedom, we had snappy answers to stupid questions, we wanted to fly like an eagle to the sea.
I think MDCB and I are within a month of each other and except for the race riots and teargas, his reminiscing tracks pretty close to what I experienced a thousand miles to the east. But it seems, like the future, GenX was happening but it wasn't evenly distributed. I got a good dose of later Boomer, WWII vet ethics, morals, and tastes along with the hunker-down-and-endure South Dakota mindset. In it's own way, tough to break out of...lots of crab bucket behaviors.
Also: Hot wheels, baseball cards, Lincoln logs, rock-em sock-em robots, and Keep On Truckin'
I'm sure we can keep this thread going. I was also a huge sucker for die-cast metal warplanes. I specifically remember that I loved them even more than Hot Wheels, but because I did, I refused to steal them but felt very little guilt about stealing a candy bar.
I had the original Hot Wheels set with a purple Silhouette, and then went all the way through Superchargers to Sizzlers Fat Track. My favorite Christmas gift ever was the Ontario Trio Hot Wheels set. Then I finally got into HO, but always Tyco and never AFX. I definitely wrenched on my little cars.
One of my favorite TV shows was Combat!. I always identified with the dogface soldiers. Sea Hunt, as well. So those ethics were baked in. Never got much into Adam 12, but I did love Efrem Zimbalist Jr in The FBI. (Sponsored by Ford and US Steel).
I wasn't much of a collector. Neither comic books or trading cards. I also didn't really have the patience to buy Revell kits and finish them. I think I only did one, the Monogram Flap Jack. But I had three little brothers. Nothing so fragile could survive in my house.
As a boomer, I'm ashamed of this rematch with two old guys few Americans want as leaders. I pray Biden steps aside, and/or Trump is convicted as a felon. A professor of political science has an opinion piece in USA TODAY: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/05/20/biden-trump-polls-2024-election/73702186007/. And Ezra Klein (NYT, Sunday 19th) has some good insights about seven risks facing Biden. Time to pass the torch! (Although I would love to see Liz Warren as our first woman Prez (Mexico will surely elect a woman in June) — as Warren is a champion of the middle class, and a life-long conservative who has been tarred and feathered as a "librul / socialist" by the oligarchs via their social media minions.
Great article Cobb ... we must have been separated at birth (just kidding; don't ask me to figure the logic behind that one ...); you nailed my childhood down into the boards... I think you only might have left out Monty Python ... but otherwise ...I've always gotten along with the tail end of the Boomers (I'm in the middle) shading into Gen Xers more than with the front end Boomers who always struck me as self-obsessed and hysterical (Clintonesque?). When I was a senior in high school a lot of our student teachers were recent U of W (Seattle) graduates and they were really sick of all the protest BS. After Vietnam ended I was amazed at how fast the First Wave Boomers took to coke and disco - party time! Politics? Wha? Huh? Since I am slightly older and crustier, I'll tell you that growing up with Motown in the 60s probably slaughtered more racism, more effectively than, well, I don't know what to compare it to - it was amazing. Someday someone will do a book on that. Finally I've often thought that the problem with millennials and Gen Zers is that they grew up without "In Living Color" re-runs - cheers! DQ
Monty Python, Dr. Demento, Firesign Theatre, MAD Magazine, and of course here in Los Angeles, The Young Marquis - The Raging Rhino of Rock & Roll. We had a snide sense of humor, parody that could be devastating. We didn't hate people, we mocked them. What we hated was being caged in, being suppressed. We had a defiant love of freedom, we had snappy answers to stupid questions, we wanted to fly like an eagle to the sea.
I think MDCB and I are within a month of each other and except for the race riots and teargas, his reminiscing tracks pretty close to what I experienced a thousand miles to the east. But it seems, like the future, GenX was happening but it wasn't evenly distributed. I got a good dose of later Boomer, WWII vet ethics, morals, and tastes along with the hunker-down-and-endure South Dakota mindset. In it's own way, tough to break out of...lots of crab bucket behaviors.
Also: Hot wheels, baseball cards, Lincoln logs, rock-em sock-em robots, and Keep On Truckin'
I'm sure we can keep this thread going. I was also a huge sucker for die-cast metal warplanes. I specifically remember that I loved them even more than Hot Wheels, but because I did, I refused to steal them but felt very little guilt about stealing a candy bar.
I had the original Hot Wheels set with a purple Silhouette, and then went all the way through Superchargers to Sizzlers Fat Track. My favorite Christmas gift ever was the Ontario Trio Hot Wheels set. Then I finally got into HO, but always Tyco and never AFX. I definitely wrenched on my little cars.
One of my favorite TV shows was Combat!. I always identified with the dogface soldiers. Sea Hunt, as well. So those ethics were baked in. Never got much into Adam 12, but I did love Efrem Zimbalist Jr in The FBI. (Sponsored by Ford and US Steel).
I wasn't much of a collector. Neither comic books or trading cards. I also didn't really have the patience to buy Revell kits and finish them. I think I only did one, the Monogram Flap Jack. But I had three little brothers. Nothing so fragile could survive in my house.
Is there a more poignant GenX song than this one?
https://youtu.be/KSVetAleJLw?si=e7aQChwSKpTeU9kI
And that's the way it was.
As a boomer, I'm ashamed of this rematch with two old guys few Americans want as leaders. I pray Biden steps aside, and/or Trump is convicted as a felon. A professor of political science has an opinion piece in USA TODAY: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/05/20/biden-trump-polls-2024-election/73702186007/. And Ezra Klein (NYT, Sunday 19th) has some good insights about seven risks facing Biden. Time to pass the torch! (Although I would love to see Liz Warren as our first woman Prez (Mexico will surely elect a woman in June) — as Warren is a champion of the middle class, and a life-long conservative who has been tarred and feathered as a "librul / socialist" by the oligarchs via their social media minions.