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Tuesday, February 27, 2018

The "In The Land That Made Me, Me!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Checking my emails and found one from one of my oldest friends, Bill, who lives in Arizona.  Haven't seen Bill in perhaps three years, but hope to see him sometime in the near future if all works out.  Bill and I lived a half-block apart as young boys and I was so sad when his mother, he and his twin sister as well as his younger sister had to move to the small town of Manheim which is a few miles to the north-west of Lancaster, PA.  We still keep in touch through emails and a telephone call once in a while.  But, its still not the same as being able to sit down face to face and talk about the good ole days.  So, when I opened my email today and found Bill had sent me a few oldies' poems, I just had to share them with you.  For those who grew up in the late 40s and 50s, this is for you!  For the rest of you, you can just wish you were living during that time in history.  Certainly less stressful that today's world.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

A POEM THAT WAS US

A little house with three bedrooms,
One bathroom and one car on the street
A mower that you had to push
To make the grass look neat.

In the kitchen on the wall
We only had one phone,
And no need for recording things,
Someone was always home.

We only had a living room
Where we would congregate,
Unless it was at mealtime
In the kitchen where we ate.

We had no need for family rooms
Or extra rooms to dine.
When meeting as a family
Those two rooms would work out fine.

We only had one TV set
And channels maybe two,
But always there was one of them
With something worth the view

For snacks we had potato chips
That tasted like a chip.
And if you wanted flavor
There was Lipton's onion dip.

Store-bought snacks were rare because
My mother liked to cook
And nothing can compare to snacks
In Betty Crocker's book

Weekends were for family trips
Or staying home to play
We all did things together –
Even go to church to pray.

When we did our weekend trips
Depending on the weather,
No one stayed at home because
We liked to be together

Sometimes we would separate
To do things on our own,
But we knew where the others were
Without our own cell phone

Then there were the movies
With your favorite movie star,
And nothing can compare
To watching movies in your car

Then there were the picnics
at the peak of summer season,
Pack a lunch and find some trees
And never need a reason.

Get a baseball game together
With all the friends you know,
Have real action playing ball –
And no game video.

Remember when the doctor
Used to be the family friend,
And didn't need insurance
Or a lawyer to defend

The way that he took care of you
Or what he had to do,
Because he took an oath and strived
To do the best for you

Remember going to the store
And shopping casually,
And when you went to pay for it
You used your own money?

Nothing that you had to swipe
Or punch in some amount,
And remember when the cashier person
Had to really count?

The milkman used to go
From door to door,
And it was just a few cents more
Than going to the store.

There was a time when mailed letters
Came right to your door,
Without a lot of junk mail ads
Sent out by every store .

The mailman knew each house by name
And knew where it was sent;
There were not loads of mail addressed
To "present occupant”

There was a time when just one glance
Was all that it would take,
And you would know the kind of car,
The model and the make

They didn't look like turtles
Trying to squeeze out every mile;
They were streamlined, white walls, fins
And really had some style

One time the music that you played
Whenever you would jive,
Was from a vinyl, big-holed record
Called a forty-five

The record player had a post
To keep them all in line
And then the records would drop down
And play one at a time.

Oh sure, we had our problems then,
Just like we do today
And always we were striving,
Trying for a better way.

Oh, the simple life we lived
Still seems like so much fun,
How can you explain a game,
Just kick the can and run?

And why would boys put baseball cards
Between bicycle spokes
And for a nickel, red machines
Had little bottled Cokes?

This life seemed so much easier
Slower in some ways
I love the new technology
But I sure do miss those days.

So time moves on and so do we
And nothing stays the same,
But I sure love to reminisce
And walk down memory lane.

With all today's technology
We grant that it's a plus!
But it's fun to look way back and say,

HEY LOOK, GUYS, THAT WAS US!

But wait, there is one more poem that Bill sent to me that is just as interesting.

In The Land That Made Me, Me

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.

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.

If you didn't grow up in the Fifty's, 
You missed the greatest time in history . . . .

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