Last Lines

     We've all read about the last words of some famous people. For example, drummer Buddy Rich died after surgery in 1987.  As he was being prepped for the operation a nurse asked him, "Is there anything you can't take?" And he responded, "Yeah, country music."

     Or the composer Gustav Mahler who died in bed. He reportedly was conducting an imaginary orchestra. His last word was: "Mozart!"

     Basketball great "Pistol" Pete Maravich collapsed during a pickup basketball game. His last words were: "I feel fine."

     John Wayne who died in L.A. at age 72 turned to his wife and said, "Of course I know who you are. You're my girl. I love you."

     Joe DiMaggio reportedly said, "I finally get to see Marilyn."

     Then there's my favorite, from Steve Jobs. According to his sister Mona, the Apple founder's last words were, "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow!"

     But famous endings go beyond last words. My favorite ending to a TV show is from The Sopranos, when the screen just goes black.

     You probably remember Mary Tyler Moore who was laid off along with her TV family, saying goodbye, then turning out the lights in the studio and walking away.

     Or Ted Danson, aka Sam Malone, turning away a customer at Cheers and saying, "Sorry, we're closed."

     My favorite last line from the movies is from the coming-of-age drama Stand By Me. The story is told as a flashback, and at the end Richard Dreyfuss, now an adult, sits at his desk and slowly types: "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?"

     There are a lot of other famous last lines, like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, at the airport telling Louis, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

     Or the classics. Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz says, "There's no place like home."

     From King Kong: "Oh no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast."

     Scarlett O'Hara in both the movie and the book Gone with the Wind says, "After all, tomorrow is another day."

     Another famous last line of a novel comes from the unforgettable Catcher in the Rye when Holden Caulfield says, "Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody."

     Or how about this one from The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: "She was seventy five and she was going to make some changes in her life."

     But my favorite last line in a novel is from The Great Gatsby, which I read again last winter. F. Scott Fitzgerald concludes: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

How Has America Changed?

      I was born when Harry Truman was president. I don't remember him. But I do remember Ike and Elvis, and Ann Landers and and Billy Graham, and Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart.

     A lot has changed since those days of the 1950s and '60s. A lot has stayed the same.

     For example, toilet paper today is no different from the toilet paper I grew up with. The house I live in is no different, either. My house was built in 1965, and despite some renovations through its various owners, it remains pretty much the same. My wife and I did redo the kitchen after we moved in. But we still have a refrigerator, a stove, a dishwasher and kitchen sink that aren't much different from what was here in 1965.

     Of course, some things are very different. My phone, for example. My computer, which I have instead of . . . well, I still remember the Smith Corona electric typewriter I got when I was a junior in college. We used to get a daily newspaper delivered to our door. Now we get our news on cable or social media. The news is faster. But is it any better?

     Over Thanksgiving dinner my brother-in-law and his brothers started reminiscing about slide rules. Do you remember them? Haven't seen one of those in about 40 years.

     Other things are the same but different at the same time. For example, my car. It basically works the same way that our family Buick worked back in the 1960s. Except our car now has seatbelts and airbags and automatic headlights and a rear-view camera. It's also Japanese, not American. Our next car might be a hybrid, or fully electric.

     I wonder how much people have changed. When I was growing up people respected their elders and had a good old-fashioned Puritan work ethic. Now people are quiet-quitting, taking time off for paternity leave, retiring early.

     But maybe I'm just misremembering that old-fashioned work ethic. You know . . .  how we walked to school waist-deep in snow, uphill, both ways?

     Nevertheless, we did go to church on Sundays, we said the Pledge of Allegiance in school, and we had dinner as a family every night. And you could go all day without hearing a swear word. Today, perfectly respectable publications use the F-word, and you can hear it on TV as well -- not to mention the near ubiquitous use of lesser curse words that involve bodily functions and familial relationships. But one good thing. We do not hear the racial and religious epithets that were so casually thrown around when we were kids.

     However, we do have more school shootings. Does that mean we have more guns, or more mental health problems? I don't know. But one thing that's about the same now as in the 1960s -- the murder rate. It averaged about 5 murders per 100,000 people in the 1960s. After going up in the 1970s and '80s, the rate is now back down to about 5 again. Would that be considered progress? Something else that hasn't changed: In the 1960s there was no constitutional right to an abortion. Laws were left to the states. Today, again, we're in the same situation.

     We live longer than our parents and grandparents. Because we've given up smoking? But we're also more obese. Chalk up our longevity to advances in our much-maligned health care system. 

     We've certainly made advances in civil rights since the 1960s, for women, gays, people of color, people with disabilities. When James Meredith went to enroll in the University of Mississippi in 1962, only about 3% of  African Americans went to college. Today it's 50%. Back in the early 1960s about 10% of women went to college compared to 20% for men. Today, more young women than men go to college -- 70% of women and 62% of men. 

     We now have many more material goods than our families did when we were kids. The 1965 house we currently live in has a one-car garage. Because people back then owned one car. But today a married couple typically drives two cars. Our neighbors across the street, with two grown children at home, owns four cars.

     When I was growing up we had one TV. B and I still have one TV. But my friend Peter has four TVs, all of which get Netflix and various other streaming services. I'd venture to say that we all have more clothes, more books, more recreational equipment, more food, more kitchen gadgets, more knickknacks. (And also more debt?) We travel more than our parents and grandparents ever did. But here's the thing: Are we any happier?

Sixty -- Some Thoughts

     I read a blog called Going Gently by a man named John Gray. He recently posted a few of his reflections on turning 60. I myself am well past 60 at this point, but his thoughts still resonated with me . . . and I thought they might resonate with you as well. So I asked permission, and he said I could reprint his post for my American friends.

     Honestly, I don't know much about John, except that he lives in Wales with his pets in what seems like a quintessentially English cottage, and he works as a nurse -- often taking night shifts -- at a nearby hospice. He's a good man, a good writer, and a good observer of the human condition. Now, if I only knew what a scotch egg is . . .  

      60 Some Thoughts, from Going Gently

     Sixty

     I know it's such a boring platitude, but I have to say the words always said at these times . . . Where does the time go? I'm writing this at 5 a.m. Albert and I are the only ones awake. Dorothy is gently chewing on my PJ bottoms. She's dreaming she's a puppy.

     Where did the time go?

     I couldn't tell you . . . I really can't.

     So, I have been reflecting . . . like you do. I'm reflecting until Wednesday when it actually hits me albeit gently . . . square in the face. On the 1st. I'm working all day, and we are shorthanded. I won't have time to feel anything.

     Here are just 20 thoughts, thoughts in the night just before dawn.

      1. Working where I do has made me realise that people who "hate getting old" are idiots. You are allowed to hate becoming ill, becoming infirm, becoming depressed. But don't hate getting old. I am lucky reaching 60. I know that, and I am grateful.

      2. Memory is a fickle friend.

      3. Strange as it may seem sex is better now than when I took it for granted. However, it is unfortunately more infrequent.

      4. Certain memories last a lifetime and they will never leave you. I dip into a score as I lay in bed . . . 1968 Janet and I doing Tarzan impersonations out of our bedroom window. 1972 my grandmother smelling of love and cold cream. 1973 my first viewing of The Poseidon Adventure.

     1980 a family party at Ann's house. 1992 getting drunk with Nu in a Galway pub . . . dancing on a Sheffield hospital roof in the dark. 1996 seeing New York City from the air.

     2002 meeting my first dog Finlay . . . true love. 2015 getting married. 2016 watching the corps de ballet in Giselle at the Royal Opera House.

     Happiness . . . a flash of realising I was happy, truly happy.

      5. Being a nurse . . . and seeing people at their very best often when they were experiencing their very worst.

      6. Now realising that when someone starts a conversation with, "I'm not being . . ." they always are.

      7. Actions always speak louder than words.

      8. I miss not being a dad, but I can now be a cool sort of uncle and grandadish. A couple of weeks ago my teenage nephew Leo texted after a date and excitedly told me he'd just had his first kiss.

      9. Friends are life, but at 60 they start to leave you. Please treasure them.

     10. The Walking Dead needs a UK version, and I soooooo want to be in it.

     11. I no longer have to pretend to put up with bad behaviour, bad music, bad films or toxic people.

     12. I don't expect good news coverage on breakfast TV. I say what I think more when I deal with any services and won't put up with shitty management at work.

     13. Never talk about politics, gun laws, or post a seemingly innocuous blog without thinking about it online. And if I do, I expect a load of shitty responses.

     14. I now recognise that real friends are real in so much that they don't rationalise affection or praise or support. They just accept you.

     15. Sleep if you can in the afternoon.

     16. What did we ever do without phones and internet?

     17. Don't be disloyal to yourself. I've done it far too many years now. Don't do things you don't want to do. Don't be what you don't want to be, and don't expect others to do the same.

     18. Eat a scotch egg when I bloody well want one.

     19. If you love someone, tell them. Tell them as often as you can.

     20. To now move forward into my 61st year by embracing a new skill (professional counselling), a new career, and new experiences. I realise that and deserve it.

     Hey ho, I'm almost 60. And I'm off to work, soon. So wish me a happy birthday. I'm shallow enough to enjoy every single comment.

What Are You Saying?

     The other day my wife asked me to do something, follow up on some project I'd started but hadn't finished. I nodded. "Sure. In for a penny, in for a pound."

     Then I added, "I bet you haven't heard that expression in a while."

     She looked at me. "Sure I have. I used it myself just the other day. But then, as you know, sometimes I think I'm like a housewife from the 1950s."

     I didn't think there was much danger of that. But it did get me thinking. A few months ago I did a post called As My Mother Used to Say . . . which offered some age-old advice about life, love and the virtues of caution, prudence and hard work -- you know, the middle-class values we all grew up with.

     I've always said that if we'd only listened to our mothers, and just did what they told us, without question, without arguing, we'd all be better off in life.

     But that's not what happens, is it? Anyway, I thought I'd round up some other age-old bits of wisdom, advice, or just quirky expressions -- and see if you remember them, follow them, or perhaps can offer one or two of your own.

     For example, remember when someone told you that you were "knee high to a grasshopper" or remarked that someone was "busier than a one-armed paper hanger"?

     Today we use the word "meh." But back in the day we were more expressive and said, "Fair to middlin'."

     When one of us kids did something particularly stupid my dad would exclaim, "For cryin' out loud!" He also warned us, "Don't take any wooden nickels." And when he got philosophical he'd say, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

     My mother, more of a realist, warned us, "You can't squeeze blood from a stone," and a variation, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." But her favorite expression was: "The proof is in the pudding."

     A teacher in middle school told us: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander." She must have been a proto-feminist.

    When we were kids and whining about some horrible injustice, or begging for a treat or favor, we were told: "Go ask your father." Or sometimes, "Hold the phone," or, "Hold your horses."

     When parental patience wore out, my mother would heave a big sigh and groan, "You sound like a broken record." Or my dad would more likely laugh and say, "Not in a month of Sundays!" Sometimes we'd have to wait, "Until the cows come home."

      Following on the farm theme we were also told, usually by a teacher or coach: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." We knew that "the early bird gets the worm," and some things are "scarce as hen's teeth." Some people are "happy as a tick on a dog" while others won't get what they want "in a coon's age."

     I don't remember any specific occasion, but I do know there were instances when I was told: "Make like a tree and leave." Or more forcefully: "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." Or more poetically: "Don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you."

     Then from another point of view, there was my sister's favorite expression: "Let's beat this pop stand!"

     Is that all she wrote? Heavens to Betsy! No way! I'd be a monkey's uncle if there weren't at least six of one or half dozen of another sayings that we can still recall. So . . . a penny for your thoughts!

Are We Obsolete?

      I learned how to drive in our old VW bug. The car had no radio, hand-crank windows, and a four-speed manual transmission. I was pretty proud of my skills with a manual transmission, because not everyone could do it.

     But now, if you mention a manual transmission, people don't even know what you're talking about. If you want a manual transmission in your new car you have to special order it . . . and wait a few months for someone in China to build it.

     Definitely, driving a manual transmission car, being able to stop and start on a steep hill -- that's an obsolete skill.

     What else is obsolete?

     Fixing a car. You don't fix a car anymore. You just replace a computer chip.

     Reading a map. Everyone uses GPS now. My kids have no idea where they are, much less how they got there. They just follow instructions from their iPhone.

     Tuning into a radio station. I used to be able to rotate the dial and find Cousin Brucie on WABC 770 in New York, without looking at the display -- and when I was in the car, without taking my eyes off the road. Later on as a young adult I could find 1010 WINS, "all news, all the time." Now I just ask google to get whatever I want. I don't even have to touch the device. My sixth sense on the radio dial is completely obsolete.

     Writing. Remember in fourth grade -- or sometime around then -- learning how to write in script? Those flowing "a"s and bulbous "b"s? And how the "h" went above the line, and the "g" below the line? Nobody picks up a pen or pencil anymore.

     Typing. I took a typing class in summer school, the summer after 11th  grade. I tested at 50 wpm, and later managed 60 wpm when I got a Smith Corona electric my sophomore year in college. I was pretty proud of that, since all my friends either had to beg a girl to type their paper for them, or else they employed the hunt-and-peck method at around 20 wpm. But nobody types anymore. They thumb their text messages. That, however, turns out to be a skill beyond me. I resort to hunt-and-peck on the phone.

     Sewing. I recently found out that my wife owns a sewing machine -- and has for most of her adult life. I've known her for 20 years. But I've never seen this machine, much less ever witnessed her actually sewing. Is that because I'm an insensitive, inattentive male? No! It's because she hasn't used her sewing machine even once in all these 20 years. 

     Balancing a checkbook. What's a checkbook? Plastic is the way we pay these days, and even that's starting to get phased out, as the humble check was years ago. Soon we'll all just hold up our phone to a sensor. As for cash? That's for drug dealers only. And coins? People won't even pick them up off the ground.

     Telephone voice. It used to matter how you answered the phone, especially in business. You want to welcome your customers . . . and your friends. But nobody telephones anymore because nobody answers the phone anymore . . . because the only calls we get are robocalls. Instead we text, email, zoom, tweet or Instagram.

     Filing. There used to be a job title called "File clerk." No more. Files are gone. Paper is gone. Sorting by alphabet is a lost art. Now everything just gets sent to the cloud -- and the computers do the sorting.

     Tying a Windsor knot. Sporting a Windsor knot in your tie used to be a mark of class. Everyone knew you were destined for the executive suite. Now the black t-shirt is the dress code of executives. And a Windsor knot is nothing but a sign of pomposity. I don't know what the female equivalent of the Windsor knot is . . . maybe wearing a skirt and high-heels?

     I remember my first resume. I listed Xeroxing under my skill set. Well, that was pretty lame, even then. But if you know how to mimeograph, if you know how to Fax, don't tell anyone. If you use a paper calendar, hide it under your desk. And if you still have an aol email account . . . well, I guess that's okay if you're driving around with a manual transmission.

What's Your Favorite Decade?

     We've all been around for a while, most of us since the 1950s, some of us from the 1940s. Times have certainly changed, for the country and the world -- and for ourselves as well.

     I need to credit Apache Dug for the idea of this post. He recently wrote a post on Bob Newhart and along the way mentioned that he loves the 1970s, or more precisely he said, "for me, the '70s are gold."

     Personally, the '70s was not my favorite decade. Okay, there were some great TV shows like All in the Family and Roots . . . and Bob Newhart. But otherwise, honestly, there was also Vietnam, Watergate, gas lines . . . bellbottoms and bad music.

     So my question is: If you had to pick a favorite decade in your lifetime, which one would it be?  I  know, I know, we're probably supposed to say our favorite decade is one that's yet to come, the 2020s. But c'mon. For us? Realistically? Besides, the decade hasn't exactly started out so well.

     So looking back, we've all seen some good times and bad times. I sometimes think that the best time in my own life was when I was in junior high (now known as middle school ... don't ask me why they changed the name). I remember those days fondly. I had a great group of friends. My family lived in a nice house in a great neighborhood. I even got my first girlfriend. They were innocent times for me, before my brother got sick, before we had to move to a new town where I didn't know anyone, before I felt the slings and arrows of high school.

     But my favorite decade, I think, was the 1990s. I was doing well at work, getting promotions and making good money. My wife and I were getting along (we got divorced in the following decade). We had a nice house, and I worked close to home, so I didn't have a long commute and I was able to watch my kids grow up -- I went to a lot of their swim meets, tennis matches, school concerts, class plays. 

     The world was also safe in the 1990s. The Cold War was over; freedom rang out in Europe. There was peace at home. There was no violence in the streets (a few exceptions like Rodney King, but nothing like the '60s, or 2020 for that matter). There was relative peace in the world (with a few exceptions like Bosnia, but even Afghanistan was relatively quiet).

     I recently read that the last time the polls showed a majority of Americans thought our country was "headed in the right direction" was in the 1990s -- for several years under President Clinton. Since then the only time a majority thought things were going right was for a brief time under President Bush after 9/11. Ever after, it's all been all downhill.

     Back in the 1990s people seemed more civilized, less polarized. They weren't as nasty and hateful. Or so it seems to me anyway. And then there's the capper. The '70s had Newhart, true. But the '90s had Seinfeld. As well as The X-Files, The Simpsons, Twin Peaks, the list goes on. And movies like Fargo, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park.

     One last thing. Today in 2021 we pay $148.50 a month for Medicare Part B. Back in 1991 the Part B monthly premium was a $29.90. Wouldn't you like to pay $29.90 again? So if the 2020s turn out anything like the 1990s, I'd be okay with that!

Alone Again, Naturally

      Yesterday, December 7th, was the 79th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It used to be more present in our minds, command more attention. But a lot of time has gone by. I remember in high school a surprise quiz was called a Jap quiz. Can't say that anymore.

     Today is the 40th anniversary of the killing of John Lennon outside the Dakota in New York City. He was only 40 years old. It's hard to believe that the amount of time elapsed between John Lennon's death and today is the same time span as his entire life -- and is actually longer than the time between Pearl Harbor and Lennon's death -- not the advent of The Beatles, but the end of The Beatles.

     As I'm writing this, I'm listening to a recording on Youtube of The Beatles' rooftop concert, with "Get Back and "Don't Let me Down." This was the last appearance of The Beatles, in 1969, over half a century ago. Now George Harrison is also dead (of cancer at age 58 on November 29, 2001, my son's 16th birthday.)

     Paul McCartney, age 78, has five kids and is on his third wife (but fourth partner counting Jane Aster his girlfriend and muse for the crucial years of 1963 - 68.) and he still tours and performs, sometimes with 80-year-old Ringo Starr who also tours as Ringo Starr and His All Star Band.

    What's your favorite Beatles song?

     I find myself in a reflective mood these days, so I'm thinking of She's Leaving Home or Across the Universe. I eventually get sad when my wife is away and I'm living all alone. I think too much about the past. About growing up in my New York suburb, going to high school and college. then going to work in New York City before eventually taking a job with a magazine back in the suburbs.

     I have mixed feelings about it all. Who among us didn't have a first love in high school that subsequently crashed to the ground? Who among us graduated from college with the record and the confidence to change the world? Who can't have mixed feelings about a career that was largely satisfying, reasonably well-paid, but also contained its share of defeats and downright humiliations?

     So I'm finding find myself wallowing in nostalgia, which is what too often happens when I am alone, with nothing else to focus the mind.

     I think about my two kids, growing up in the 1990s, and all the fulfilling moments, and how great it all was. But then I realize: it's all over! And everything since then, since the early 2000s, seems to have gone by so fast.

     The problem seems worse on weekends when all other activities shut down. No Zoom meetings with my senior learning center. No contact with the students I'm tutoring. There isn't even a stock market to watch, to pass the small bits of time, and the weather channel seems to repeat about every 15 minutes.

     I did finish reading Louise Penny's latest book All the Devils Are Here, which brings Inspector Gamache and his family to Paris for a case about corporate greed and intrigue. It's a good page turner, although I thought the ending flew off the handle a little bit. 

      I've also been watching Dawson's Creek, which I had never seen before. My son told me a while back that it is much better than The OC -- more real, more genuine, more gritty with its seting in Cape Cod not Southern California. The show debuted in 1998, when my daughter was in 10th grade and my son in 7th grade, in those last innocent days before cellphones, before the internet took over our lives. 

     Those Dawson Creek episodes reflect high-school life in the 1990s, but could for all intents and purposes echo high-school life from the 1960s. The teenage romance, the parents getting divorced, a death in the family, rebellion against arbitrary school authority. Maybe these are themes still relevant to coming-of-age stories. But for me it all seems nostalgic, and gets me thinking about my own past during all those hours when I'm alone, with no on to talk to, not much to do.

      B and I have been trying to Zoom together almost every night. We catch up on what the grandkids are doing. She's been spending afternoons playing with a three-year-old, and occasionally babysitting for a 22-month old. B is relishing the role of grandmother-in-residence, but she's already getting tired. "I've only been here a week," she told me last night, "and I'm feeling like I've stayed long enough, that it's getting to be time to head home." She paused. "What made me think it was a good idea to come here for a month?!?"

      Meanwhile, she sent me an email with a link to a local outfit that delivers Christmas trees. But I've decided I don't want a tree. I already have greenery and the lights on the mantel, and the outdoors lights over the garage. That's enough. I'm afraid a tree would emphasize how alone I am at Christmas, and remind me of all the Christmases past, with the kids, the costumes, the groaning dining room tables.

     I did talk with my daughter by Facebook. My granddaughter at 10 months is now officially crawling. She would power crawl from one end of the living room to the other to get her hands on my daughter's iPhone. I suggested putting the phone around a corner. Could she locate a phone if it was out-of-sight?

     The answer is: no. She lost interest when she couldn't see it. I guess that's a skill they learn later in life. When I told B about this later, she suggested my granddaughter had to play more hide-and-seek to develop the skill of retaining an image of something when it's not there any longer.

     Which is kind of what nostalgia is, isn't it?

The Sun Sets on 2019

     We drove out  to Central Pennsylvania, about an hour and a half west of us, to celebrate Christmas with B's sister and her family. They live in an old farmhouse that over the years has slowly been surrounded by one housing development after another as various people have sold off their farms (or in one case, a golf course) to real-estate developers. Apparently, housing is a lot more lucrative than farming.

    The area is still fairly rural, however, and B's sister lives in a stone house with three-foot-thick walls from the 1700s, with three acres, a huge red barn, and a big front yard and smaller backyard given over to vegetable gardening.

     We stayed in the annex, an attached part of the house where her husband's parents lived for over 30 years, until they died. (They chose "shared housing" long before it became popular in current retirement thinking.) The annex has a kitchen and dining area downstairs, and a large bedroom with a half bathroom up the creaky, narrow back stairs. You have to sneak back through a bedroom in the main house into a hallway bath to take a shower.

     We visited with members of the family, plus a young man from Tennessee, originally from India, and a young woman working in Los Angeles, originally from Iran. They were friends of B's husband's brother, who's a high-school teacher and somehow makes friends with almost anyone he meets in the hallways -- and often, as in this case, keeps up the friendships long after the kids have graduated. These kids were traveling back to the East Coast for a vacation. They were staying with their friend, the husband's brother, for a few days, then heading for a day in New York City and a day or two in Washington, DC.

     Anyway, around sundown I went out back and took a photo looking west. For some reason, it just seemed a brilliant finish to a holiday week, and put a period on the year . . . and a decade as well.
   

        It's hard to believe we're heading into 2020. Each year, each decade, seems to go by faster and faster. Is that the theory of relativity? We have to grab onto them, as best we can, and hold them close.
   

Remember These Brands?

     On the way to the beach the other day we passed Bordentown, NJ. That prompted B to ask, "I wonder if that has anything to do with Borden milk. Remember Borden's milk?"

     "Sure," I replied. "Elsie the cow. We got it delivered to our front door every morning when we were kids."

     And that got us reminiscing about the brands we knew as kids that are no longer around. Or maybe they still exist somewhere (as does Borden; I checked) but you just don't see them anymore. B pointed out that milk companies are fairly local, so Borden's must have only been around the New York area. As was Korvettes discount store, which became Caldor's. Both long gone. And Bradlees in New England. Then there was Schrafft's, the restaurant and candy maker. Did you ever go to a Horn & Hardart automat?

     But we also recalled the cars. Pontiac and Oldsmobile. Studebaker. My parents had a Studebaker when I was a little kid. Later on we had a Nash Rambler. So did B's family. We recalled the push-button transmission, and just how awful that car was. But as teenagers we didn't care. The car got us around . . . as long as we didn't have to go uphill.

     What about the airlines. Pan Am was the first to fly regularly scheduled jets across the Atlantic in the mid-1950s. But then I remember a friend of mine getting laid off from Pan Am, in the mid-1980s, when it was jetting toward bankruptcy. There was TWA, Eastern, Braniff. Remember Laker? All gone.

     B wondered if Tang is still around. "I used to love Tang," she said wistfully. I don't know about Tang, but I used to guzzle 7-Up like a camel. When was the last time you drank a 7-Up? Then I suddenly found myself singing . . . Brusha, brusha, brusha ... new Ipana toothpaste. But now that we're older, we all use Sensodyne ProNamel, since our teeth are sensitive and our gums are receding.

     Magazines. Whose family didn't subscribe to Life or Look, or the Reader's Digest or Saturday Evening Post?

     I remember Christmas, circa 1965, when we got a Polaroid instant camera. Who among us didn't type their term papers on a Smith Corona? Or spin a Decca record on a Motorola or Garrard record player? But these are more changes in technology than simply brand name.

     Of course, many more brands are still with us, and have outlasted all the vicissitudes of history. My dad ate Wheaties every morning for breakfast. You can still find Wheaties on the grocery store shelf. After we got rid of the Studebaker, my parents drove a Buick for years. Buick is still around. Apparently Buick has actually made a comeback and is now once again considered a good car.

     The VW bug went away and then came back, as did the Ford Thunderbird and Ford Mustang -- although the latter may have been a mistake. The Mustang had many fans; but it was a cheap car that tended to fishtail when rounding curves or corners.

     So I guess we've made some progress. Remember "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should"? Now you've got to look under a rock to find a Winston. Or a Kent, a Lark, a True, a Tareyton, a Chesterfield or Old Gold.

     And today the cool car is a Prius or Tesla with seatbelts and airbags, instead of a Corvair or Ford Pinto -- either one of which could explode and send you to a place where you no longer have to bother with brusha, brusha, brusha.

A Dimming of the Light

     I don't know where you were during the eclipse. I was out on the golf course, in New York, where the moon covered 70 percent of the sun. But, honestly, the effect was minimal. We had some high whispy clouds, but nothing really covering the sun. The sky got slightly darker; the light turned brilliant like late afternoon; and then it was over.

     I was on my way home from attending a memorial service for my friend Joe. His ashes were buried at sea . . . or really, about a mile off the Rhode Island shore, near the Point Judith lighthouse. A lovely ceremony, with family and close friends. Then a larger gathering later on, with a few more people.

On a South Carolina golf course, circa 2009.

     Of course, it makes us think about how we ourselves would want to go, where we would want our remains. Both my parents were cremated, and their ashes are buried at their retirement home in Florida.

     My sister and I went down there once, a few years later, to view the site. But it didn't do much for me. It just didn't feel like my parents were there. It might be different if we had a family burial place. But we don't.

     The ship captain gave the family the exact coordinates of the burial spot. I don't know if they'll ever go back out to see it again . . . or if he'll still be there.

     But it was nice to get together with three old friends, the day after the service, to play a round of golf in honor of our departed colleague. He was a golfing friend, but also a work friend, a poker friend, a lunch companion. He held great Fourth of July parties -- he had a swimming pool and risked life and limb to light up a fireworks show every year. We vacationed together in South Carolina; our kids didn't know one another, but they were the same age, so we followed them growing up, going to college, getting married. And now his older daughter is pregnant.

     To tell the truth, he was a lousy golfer. But my world will be a little darker without him. He was a great guy, and would have made a wonderful grandfather.

Charlie Alfa Papa Echo / Charlie Oscar Delta

     We have planned this vacation in Cape Cod, MA, since January -- that's how far in advance you have to book in order to get a place that you really want.

     On our way here we were able to stop and see the wife of my friend who died . . . his widow now.

     B and I were talking in the car along the way, and we wondered whether we were visiting her for her benefit, or ours. We didn't even know precisely why we were going. We just knew we had to.

     We had a very nice afternoon with his wife and daughter as they showed us around their new condo complex (It's not officially a 55-and over community, she told us, but everybody who lives here is over 55). We reminisced about my friend, and she retold the story of how they first met at a meditation seminar, back in 1974.

     And then B and I continued on to Cape Cod. Or, as I talked about in my July 6 post "Singing Past the Graveyard" we moved on with our lives, which we do as human beings. Or as the singer said about Clementine . . .

How I missed her, how I missed her
How I missed my Clementine,
Till I kissed her little sister,
And forgot my Clementine.

     I guess maybe I feel a little guilty about moving on with my life. But I have to say, after agonizing over a multitude of decisions we confronted when moving and unpacking and settling in to our new place, it feels nice that today our weighty decisions involve whether we go to the Sea St. beach or the Bank St. beach. Do we go over to The Port for dinner, or get some corn on the cob and clam chowder and eat at home?

     The house we're renting belongs to a former captain in the U. S. Coast Guard Reserve. There is a lobster trap on the ceiling, a ship's captain's table in the living room, a map of Cape Cod shipwrecks on the dining room wall. The pillows have pictures of sailboats on them; the bedspreads are festooned with anchors, the bookcase is filled with titles like Tales of the New England Coast.

     There is also a guide to International Naval Signal Flags on the wall, and so last night and this morning I've been learning the signal flags. I'm doing this from memory, so correct me if I'm wrong . . .

Alfa
Bravo
Charlie
Delta
Echo
Foxtrot
Golf
Hotel
India
J ... I forget J
Kilo
Lima

... and I'll learn the rest of them for next time. Ahoy there!
  

A Premonition?

     I'm usually a pretty upbeat guy, looking at the bright side, enjoying life, approaching the world from the humorous side. Why then, suddenly, was my last post a morose reflection occasioned by the song "Oh My Darling, Clementine"?

     At about the same time as I was writing that post, a few days ago, and unbeknownst to me, a good friend of mine suffered a massive heart atttack. He died almost instantaneously. He was just 65 years old.

     I didn't find out about it until two days later. So was I having some kind of premonition that something like this might happen?

     I know many people our age have lost spouses, friends, even children. It's a shock to the system and, honestly, I just don't know how to respond. We all know we're going to die. But when it happens to someone, to someone we know and love, we are literally at a loss.

     My friend knew he lived an uncertain life. Both his parents died when they were in their 60s. When he was younger he was heavy, and he smoked. He had a heart attack when he was in his 40s. He used to joke that he'd suffered his attack about a year after he'd given up smoking . . . as though perhaps that was the reason.

     He lost weight, took better care of himself, never had another heart episode. But he signed up for Social Security as soon as he was eligible. There's no reason for me to wait, he commented archly. That would make a bad bet.

     Yes, he had a dark sense of humor. B used to call him Eeyore, because he had a rather jaundiced view of life. We'd worked for the same company for a number of years, and he worried about getting laid off for . . . well, for most of the time he was employed there. Then he finally did get laid off. But by then he had built up a pretty good retirement account for himself, and his wife had gone back to work, so financially he was pretty well off.

     We'd worked together on occasion. We played golf together and we played poker together. And he used to throw great July 4th parties. He had a pool in his backyard, and we'd go swimming and hang around the deck, and then he and another friend would set off fireworks. He never burned down his house . . . although he did worry about it in his own way.

     He liked to read books. He listened to 60s and 70s music. He watched the BBC and liked British humor. He had a collection of canes.

     He sold his house only about a month ago and moved with his wife to a retirement condo on the water, near where he grew up around Boston. But it was also two states away from where they'd been living for the past 35 years, and two states away from their two grown daughters. His younger daughter is working and has a boyfriend. His older daughter is also working, and is married and just recently announced that she's expecting a baby. It's sad to think he will never see his grandchild -- just missed it by a few months.

     I don't know what his widow will do. Stay where she is? Go back home? She probably doesn't know herself. She's in shock, even more than the rest of us. And so for now, at a loss for words, all I can say is:  Goodbye Joe.

Singing Past the Graveyard

     When I was younger I couldn't imagine the world going on without me. I guess I couldn't imagine that I would actually die, either. But if I ever did, I figured the world -- or at least the world as I knew it -- would end along with me.

     Of course now I'm older and wiser. I'm still in denial about my own death (okay, you can stop laughing). But now I can imagine the world going on after I'm gone. Maybe seeing our children as adults gives us some glimpse into the future -- a future without us.

     I don't mean to burden you with a morbid or macabre post. But the thought entered my mind during a July 4th celebration at our local park.

     There was a bike parade, a tug-o-war, a cake walk, a dog exhibition, as well as plenty of hot dogs and hamburgers and snow cones and cotton candy. There was also a music tent featuring a brass band playing patriotic songs and a husband-and-wife team playing old Irish ditties and American standards from Steven Foster, George M. Cohan and others.

     Then the duo sang "Oh My Darling, Clementine" written in 1884 and attributed to one Percy Montrose. It's such a familiar song, although not one I'd heard in years. In decades. Not since I was a kid. B and I wondered why the song is so ingrained in our minds. Was it a song we learned at camp? A lullaby sung to us by our mothers? We didn't know. But we listened to the lyrics as the duo sang . . .

Near a cavern, cross a canyon,
Excavating for a mine,
Lived a miner, forty-niner
And his daughter Clementine.

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine.
You are lost and gone forever,
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Drove she ducklings to the water
Every morning just at nine,
Hit her foot against a splinter,
Fell into a foaming brine . . .

Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles soft and fine,
But alas, I was no swimmer.
So I lost my Clementine . . .

In the churchyard in the canyon
Where the myrtle doth entwine,
There grows roses and other posies
Fertilized by Clementine . . .

How I missed her, how I missed her
How I missed my Clementine,
Till I kissed her little sister,
And forgot my Clementine.

     Of course, the audience laughed at the end, as the banjo player winked and said, "Betcha don't remember that last line, do ya? Or maybe you just never got that far in the song."

     The song sounds like a lullaby, but is actually a parody of the usual sweet, sentimental song. And we sang it to our babies?!?

     Now it makes us laugh. It also reminds us that one day we, too, will be lost and gone forever, off to fertilize roses and other posies. But life continues, people forget, and the world moves on without us.

Answers to: Are These Baby Boomer Icons Dead or Alive?

     A few have passed on, but many are still with us, living out their lives in peace and relative obscurity. How many did you get right?

     1)  Bob Dole, wounded World War II veteran, was the Republican presidential contender who lost to Bill Clinton in 1996. Afterwards he became a Washington lawyer and lobbyist and also chairman of the campaign to build the World War II Memorial. He also made a number of TV appearances, including a celebrated ad for Viagra. Now alive and well at age 93, Dole lives in Washington and is married to former Cabinet member Elizabeth Dole.

     2)  Marion Barry was the only African American in the doctoral program in chemistry at the University of Tennessee, when he quit to focus on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He moved to Washington, DC, ran for school board and then city council. In 1977 he was shot when a group of radical Muslims took over the District building. Barry recovered and ran for mayor in 1978, won re-election in 1982 and again in 1986. By then Barry was plagued by rumors of womanizing, drug abuse and misuse of public funds. On Jan 18, 1990 he was famously arrested for drugs in a Washington sting operation. After spending six months in prison, Barry was back in politics, winning a fourth term as mayor, then in 1998 returning to the city council. He died of cardiac arrest in 2014, after having dominated Washington, DC, politics for a generation.

     3) Dion DiMucci, grew up in The Bronx singing with his father, a vaudeville entertainer, and in 1957 formed a group named after Belmont Ave. In February 1959 Dion was on tour with Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holy and others when he was invited onto the plane out of Clear Lake, Iowa. He elected to stay behind, and the plane crashed, killing everyone on board. Dion went on to produce hits such as "Teenager in Love," "Where or When" and as a solo artist "Lonely Teenager," "Runaround Sue." After his star dimmed in the 1960s  he experimented as a singer/songwriter and later with Christian music, before returning to his roots, and today at age 77, Dion continues to perform.

     4)  Annette Funicello leaped into our hearts as a Mouseketeer, then went on to become a teenage idol starring in movies like "Beach Party," "Bikini Beach" and "Beach Blanket Bingo." In 1992 Funicello announced she was suffering from MS. She died in April 2013 at age 70, but not before received a star on Hollywood's walk of fame -- and today in Disneyland Paris, there is a 1950s-themed restaurant, Annette's Diner, named after her.

     5) Michael Crichton was already wildly popular by the time Jurassic Park came out in 1990. He'd written his first medical thriller, The Andromeda Strain, while still a student at Harvard Medical School in the 1960s. He went on to write a dozen bestselling books, several movie scripts, and the NBC TV medical drama "ER". Crichton was diagnosed with throat cancer early in 2008 and died on Nov. 4, 2008 at age 66.

     6)  Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch in 1916, won a number of movie awards, but though he was nominated three times for Best Actor, his only Academy Award came as an honorary award for 50 years as "a creative and moral force in the movie industry." He suffered a severe stroke in 1996 but survived, and just celebrated his 100th birthday on December 9, 2016.

     7)  Alex Haley learned his craft in the Coast Guard when sailors would pay him to write love letters home to their girlfriends. Afterwards he (perhaps paradoxically) wrote for both Playboy Magazine and Reader's Digest and wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X  before he struck gold with Roots, a novel based on his family history. He died in 1992, at age 70, while working on a sequel, a novel based on his mother's family that was eventually published as Alex Haley's Queen.

     8) Julie Andrews, born in England, rose to fame doing Broadway musicals, and went on to star in such classics as Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. She continued working in both theater and film and, and now at age 81, is working on a new TV series called Julie's Greenroom.

     9) Rosa Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the of the NAACP when in 1955 she refused to obey the order of the bus driver to give up her seat to a white person. She was not the first African American to resist bus segregation, but she was certainly the most famous, becoming a symbol of the modern civil rights movement. She and her husband moved to Detroit in 1957 where she continued to work for fair housing and racial justice, and also wrote her autobiography. In her later years she suffered from dementia, and died in 2005 at age 92.

    10) Dick Cavett was a writer for The Tonight Show when he began to develop his own idea for a talk show. The Dick Cavett Show ran through the 1970s and while it was never as popular as its rival it did garner critical success as the "thinking man's" late-night TV show. Today, at age 80, Cavett still appears on TV, and is also working on Broadway and writing commentary for various publications.

    11) Diana Ross rose to fame as a founding member and lead singer for The Supremes., then went on to a successful solo career as a singer and actress. She has collected an armful of awards for her career and in 1993 was named Female Entertainer of the Century by Billboard magazine. Today at age 72 she still performs, having just come off a three-year In the Name of Love tour.

    12) Joyce Brothers had a PhD in psychology when in 1955 she went on "The $64,000 Question" game show and won the top prize answering questions about boxing. She then went on TV to offer advice about relationships. For years she had a column in Good Housekeeping and a syndicated newspaper column and wrote numerous magazine articles and several books, including her personal story, Widowed, about the death of her husband. Brothers died at home in New Jersey in 2013 at the age of 85.

    13) Bill Bradley was the Rhodes Scholar basketball player who delayed starting his professional career for two years after college so he could attend Oxford University in England. He played for the New York Knicks from 1967 to 1977, then went into politics, serving as U. S. Senator from New Jersey for three terms. He ran for president in 2000 but lost the Democratic nomination to Vice President Al Gore. Since then the 73-year-old Bradley has remained active as a corporate consultant and board member of several companies and charitable organizations.

    14) Michael Dukakis served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979, then again from 1983 to 1991. In 1988 he won the Democratic nomination for president, but was soundly beaten by George Bush in the general election. After leaving the governor's office Dukakis became a political science professor at Northeastern University, and after his wife was diagnosed with depression, he became active in issues regarding depression and alcoholism. Today he is 83 years old and still living in Boston.

    15) Dorothy Hamill was America's darling when she won the Olympic Gold Medal in figure skating in 1976. So, come on, we're all not that old! At age 60, Hamill continues to skate with the Broadway on Ice revue.

     

Are These Baby Boomer Icons Dead or Alive?

 
     Time does not go by so slowly, as the old Righteous Brothers* song, "Unchained Melody" claims. It actually goes by quickly, and sometimes we get so involved in our own lives, we lose track of what's going on elsewhere in the world -- who is still with us and who has passed on.

     Do you think it's morbid to guess whether these people are alive or dead? All these Baby Boomer icons have seen their time come and go, whether they're still alive or not. But I think they would be thankful if we pause -- now updated as of the beginning of 2017 -- and remember their contributions to our lives in terms of what they did, what they meant to us, and where they may be today.

     So in that spirit, can you guess: Who among these Baby Boomer icons is alive? And who is dead?

     1)  1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole                          Alive  or   Dead

     2)  Notorious Washington DC mayor Marion Barry            Alive       Dead

     3)  Singer Dion DiMucci                                                     Alive       Dead

     4)  Actress Annette Funicello                                              Alive       Dead

     5)  Jurassic Park writer Michael Crichton                           Alive       Dead

     6)  Actor Kirk Douglas                                                         Alive     Dead

     7)  Roots author Alex Haley                                                Alive     Dead

   
     8)  Actress Julie Andrews         Alive     Dead

     9)  Activist Rosa Parks             Alive     Dead
 
    10) TV host Dick Cavett            Alive     Dead

    11) Singer Diana Ross               Alive     Dead

  
    12) Psychologist Joyce Brothers                                          Alive     Dead

    13) Basketball player and politician Bill Bradley                   Alive     Dead

    14) 1988 Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis                Alive     Dead

    15) Olympic figure skater Dorothy Hamill                             Alive     Dead

     For the answers, check back here later in the week. Meantime, Happy New Year to everybody, and may we all thrive in 2017!
                                      
     * Bobby Hatfield of the Righteous Brothers died at age 63 in 2003, while Bill Medley (they were not actually brothers) continues to perform as a soloist, as well as with Bucky Heard as a new Righteous Brother.

Useless Things We Know

     B and I were in New York City for the weekend and went to the Rubin Museum which features art from the Himalayas. I stopped by a meditation booth, sat in a comfortable chair and listened to the recording of wind from the Himalayas. I was supposed to meditate. Instead, for whatever reason, I started recalling the initials of the people I used to work with at a publishing company some 20 - 30 years ago. In the office we used to sign off on papers with our initials, rather than our names, and I could recall the initials of almost every person in my division.

    I reprimanded myself for not being able to meditate properly, for exhibiting such a shallow Western mind. And, besides, what possible good can knowing all those initials do for me now?

     Later, when I got home, I began to think of all the things I've learned over the years, all the skills I've developed, that are now outmoded, out-of-date, completely useless. I'm sure you've got plenty of your own.

     For example, how to drive a stick shift. Nobody drives a stick shift anymore . . . it's an odd car company that even makes a stick shift anymore.

     Or know what a Nash Rambler is?

     Why you're not supposed to light three cigarettes on the same match.

     How to carefully place the needle on a record player between the songs on an 33 rpm LP.

     How about writing cursive script? Those beautiful flowing f's and s's and r's. Gone the way of the do-do bird. My fourth-grade teacher was so proud of the penmanship she taught us, using those guidelines on the chalkboard for upper case, lower case and descending lines in the q's and g's.

     How to change a typewriter ribbon . . . or use whiteout.

     How to maneuver the rabbit ears to get the best reception. Do your kids even know what rabbit ears are?

     How to refill a fountain pen, or replace the cartridge in a cartridge pen.

     That there's such a thing as an electric blanket. (What ever happened to electric blankets, anyway?)

     Where Route 66 goes? And what it means.

     Who the "nattering nabobs of negativism" are, and who made the charge?

      Do you remember the name of William Randolph Hearst's sled in Citizen Kane? I do, for whatever good it does me.
    
    And the problem is, you simply can't get rid of useless information. How can I prove it? Okay, I bet you can fill in the blanks about what she was singing when you remember:

     There she was just a-walkin' down the street, singin' . . . .

     Snappin' her fingers and shufflin' her feet, singin' . . . . 

     She looked good (looked good), she looked fine (looked fine) and I nearly lost my mind.

     Before I knew it she was walkin' next to me, singin'. . . .

     So I close with another the bit of useless information I remember from Latin class: Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
    
    

A 100th Birthday Party

     Over the weekend we went to a birthday party for B's mother. She turned 100 years old earlier this month.

     Yes, she received a birthday card from President Obama, as well as her local Congressman and about a hundred other friends and relatives. She has a big family (she had seven children), and many of them came to Pennsylvania to celebrate her birthday -- people from as far away as Texas, Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts.

     The party was at her assisted-living facility, which was kind enough to lend us the activity room for the afternoon.

     After the party, many of the clan gathered at a campsite for s'mores and sparklers.

     On Sunday there was a picnic, where the youngest member of the family introduced her kitten to the centenarian.

     Sunday afternoon brought a trip to the old homestead -- a farmhouse that had been in the family from sometime in the 1800s until the children -- B's generation -- had to sell it in 1986.

     They passed it on to a family that were actually distant relatives. The now-elderly couple still lives there. On Sunday B's mother, age 100, saw the "new" owner, age 90, for the first time in a number of years.

     We took a tour of the house, which, honestly, looked more its age from the inside than the outside. But, I was told, there were two new bathrooms. When the house was in the family -- and B and her brothers and sisters and cousins used to go there in the summer -- there was just an outhouse attached to the back of the building. A lot of things about the house seemed different since she was a girl, reflected B, including the kitchen which seems much smaller than she remembered.

     The house is now registered as an official historic site.

     And here's the view from the front porch, down the road toward the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the little village of Morgantown, Pa.

     Would that we all had such great memories of childhood ... and the genes for living such a long and fruitful life.

Lessons Learned from the 1950s

     Recently I've been reading some history about the 1950s, including the exhaustive book The Fifties by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam. We lived in a different world back then, when we were kids and cars had fins, men went off to work, women stayed home, and children were not chided not for texting too much but for watching too much TV.

     Nevertheless, I couldn't help but notice some of the themes running through that decade more than a half century ago are still relevant in 2015 . . .

     For example, today we're all encouraged to "to our own thing" and "follow our bliss." But Halberstam reminds us about Alfred Kinsey, an entomologist who transformed himself into a sex researcher. He was criticized by conservatives and liberals alike, until he was forced to give up his teaching job and lost financial support for his research from the Rockefeller Foundation. Through it all Kinsey believed he was doing something important and he kept on conducting his studies.

     He lived in Bloomington, Ind., where he tended his garden, helped raise his children and was married to the same woman for over 30 years. Ultimately his work was recognized. The Kinsey Reports were bestselling books, and despite some later criticism of his methods, his work won him high regard among many in the scientific community. The lesson? You must believe in yourself before others will believe in you.

     Similarly, today, we're all products of self-help promoters and self-actualization preachers who encourage us to be all we can be, to not just talk-the-talk, but walk-the-walk. Reach for the stars, we're told, and even if you fail, you'll reach the moon.

     Back in the 1950s entrepreneurs like William Levitt, Kemmons Wilson and Ray Kroc all made their fortunes, sometimes in the face of critics who berated them, because they felt confident betting on the future of America. Today Jeff Bezos and Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg are doing the same thing. It's just that instead of building houses, motels and hamburger stands, the new entrepreneurs are building out the internet -- but they're still plenty optimistic about the future of the American consumer.

     Today we hear both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as well as half the American public, complain about media bias. But media bias is nothing new. The 1950s saw the usual East coast liberal bias in the voice of Edward R. Murrow on CBS and from the pages of the New York Times.

     But, according to David Halberstam, Time magazine under Henry Luce was the unofficial mouthpiece of the Republican party, and flagrant media bias came from the Chicago Tribune under publisher Robert McCormick. The newspaper was the FOX news of its day, opposing the New Deal, pushing post-war isolationism, supporting the anticommunism of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Also, as TV took over from print, people began to realize that news in the media was becoming less about actual news, and more about its entertainment value -- a trend that continues today, ad absurdum.

     Also, the 1950s remind us that fighting over politics is as American as apple pie. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public school violated the 14th Amendment. Thus began the long, contentious and sometimes violent march toward desegregation. The idea of feminism was being born, and the Beat generation foretold the anti-establishment movement of the 1960s.

     Meanwhile, in what might have been a precursor to Vietnam, America was pulled into the Korean war, with some people even advocating the use of atomic weapons, until Gen. MacArthur was fired and an uneasy stalemate was reached that continues to this day. The Cold War was gathering urgency, and Joseph McCarthy tore the nation apart with his accusations of communist activities in government and the arts. All this makes our current battles over health care, gun control, Afghanistan and the Middle East seem like just another, rather mild chapter in the ongoing American debate about policies and politics.
  
     And finally, in the 1950s, with people fleeing to the suburbs, it did not pay to invest in inner-city real estate, nor was it profitable to buy stock in railroads, steel or textiles. The "next big thing" at the time -- the investments that were to make money -- were in packaged goods companies that sold products to the parents of the Baby Boomers; in car companies that rolled out new models every year; in office product companies like Xerox and IBM.

     Similarly, today you don't want to invest in declining industries like automobiles, chemicals, media, or old-line department stores like Sears or J.C. Penny. You're better off focusing on the future, in the form of technology and the internet -- or perhaps betting on those same Baby Boomers by investing in finance, insurance and health care, or in inner city real estate as their hipster kids move back into the city.

     The French have a phrase for it, don't they? Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.