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20th
century carried a lot of weight. Prior to the 1920’s when my parents were born,
the century suffered from a polio epidemic, the San Francisco Earthquake, WW-1 and the Bolshevik movement. The
Czar & his family’s execution.
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| Spanish Flu Hospital |
My
grandfather had the Spanish flu that killed so many. With the hospital full,
they found a pallet and wedged him in a corner, hoping he would survive. He
did. 😊
In the 1920’s
women threw their corsets in the bin. Shedding inhibitions, men and women drank
bathtub gin and danced the charleston. My dad remembered when homemade brews
exploded in the basement.
Silent films
morphed into talkies and the world paused at the harsh realities of the
Great
Depression. Dad lived in the city and
experienced long soup lines, issued clothing that my grandmother dyed, trying
to disguise the humiliation of government handouts. My mom lived in the
farmland and had more food at her disposal. Her aunties fashioned underwear out
of printed flour sacks, and very comfortable they were too, or so she said.
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| Soup Kitchen |
My parents witnessed the build-up of Nazi
Germany, the Spanish Civil War, the jitter-bug, Hollywood’s greatest days, the
biggest war ever, and the atomic bomb.
Women painted their legs to simulate silk-stockings because none were available. Dad said his Navy whites were always stained orange after a night of dancing, which did not put the men in good stead with their superior officers.
Women painted their legs to simulate silk-stockings because none were available. Dad said his Navy whites were always stained orange after a night of dancing, which did not put the men in good stead with their superior officers.
After the
war, Hollywood introduced black noir movies, where the scenes always seemed to
take place at night, the streets wet as if it had rained. Women’s hats got
smaller, their hair shorter.
Into the 2nd half of the century, we
saw the rise of Communism and as a reaction to that, McCarthyism. Remarkable
scientific marvels catapulted the world from a sleepy planet to OMG, don’t
press that button.
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| WW-2 |
The Korean
War marched around the periphery of our cynical thoughts. Eisenhower was
president. Elvis Presley had women screaming, “Kiss me. Kiss me.” Hollywood put
out incredible grade B movies where couples ‘necked’ the entire film.
Everyone
swing-danced; later we did the ‘twist’, causing women’s waistlines to shrink. Dr
Salk found the cure for polio and mom dragged us to the school where we were
first in line to eat a sugar cube saturated with the vaccine.
The Cuban
Crisis. Fathers came home early from work and informed their families we only
had hours to live. The planet went silent with fear as a shaky hand hovered
over the Red Button of Doom. From then on, we ducked and covered under our school
desk, breathing in dirt from the playground.  |
| Nuclear Fallout Map |
The Beatles
& Rolling Stones. A bevy of unfortunate killings: JFK, Martin Luther King,
Malcomb X & Bobby Kennedy’s assassination.
The Berlin Wall.
The Berlin Wall.
Race
for the moon. In the Apollo Program, panels 32 & 16 on the LEM (Lunar Excursion Module) were my dad’s responsibility. He was
proud of his work and once asked my grandmother what she thought of his part in
it. She asked, “What do you mean?” Dad huffed a breath. “My part in men going to
the moon and walking on it.” My
grandmother replied it was a hoax. No one could ever fly to the moon, much less
stand on it. The whole thing had been filmed on a movie set. My dad stared at
her in disbelief.
The
best music came during the 60’s & 70’s, mostly connected with the Vietnam War.
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| Two Cold Hippies |
Hippies ran amok across the country but they were especially filled with love
in San Francisco. Smoking weed, downing mushrooms and peyote buttons. LSD.
Dancing naked in the streets with flowers in their hair.
Going to dances were no longer popular. Stoned to the bone, everyone sat lotus-style on the floor or the grass (Woodstock-the world’s greatest example of sex, drugs, & rock’n roll) and listened to mind-bending music.
Going to dances were no longer popular. Stoned to the bone, everyone sat lotus-style on the floor or the grass (Woodstock-the world’s greatest example of sex, drugs, & rock’n roll) and listened to mind-bending music.
I
suppose I should mention Nixon’s Watergate; the assassination attempt on George
Wallace. Hollywood advanced into the computer era with the green screens and
the amazing special effects of Star Wars. Jimmy Carter’s Iran humiliation.
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| Woodstock |
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| The Berlin Wall |
The Shuttle exploded over Cape Canaveral, shutting down the program for a few years until the reason was documented and nailed in cement. Michael Jackson’s breakthrough that every musician wanted to copy, the Thriller video.
In
the 90’s, our world changed with the fall of Communism, the Berlin Wall
sledgehammered into chunks of concrete.
Our
planet became smaller with the advent of the computers on the business and
personal level. The internet came about with primitive chatrooms and emails. At
the airport, a loved one could still accompany you to the gate, and you could
carry on board a bottle of wine you wanted to give Auntie at the family
reunion.
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| Challenger Exploding |
People
live longer these days. Both in their 90’s when they left, my mom and dad saw so
much. What do you suppose they’ll say about the baby boomers in the 21st
century (other than we ruined the world, which we considered our own parents to
have done)?
Hopefully,
they’ll say: a lot.
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Many thanks to Wikicommons Public Domain
