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 . . . .