What Was It Like in 1958?

     Last weekend I started reading Stephen King's recent book, 11/22/63. I haven't quite finished it -- the thing is over 800 pgs. long! -- but the story has me entralled and so I enjoy plowing through it.

     The book tells the tale of Jake Epping, who in 2011 is a 35-year-old divorced teacher at a Maine high school. Epping is one of the few people in town who frequents Al's Diner, a silver trailer standing on concrete blocks near the railroad tracks. One day the owner of the diner, Al Templeton, calls Epping and asks him to come over. He has a secret.

     Epping arrives to find Al Templeton looking pale, coughing up blood. Al is dying of cancer. He escorts Epping into the pantry in back of the diner, and tells him to walk forward ... toward the steps.

     What steps? Epping wonders, as he slowly enters the pantry. But suddenly it seems as though he's stepping down, and down again. And then the warm sun comes out, and he has arrived in 1958.

     When Epping climbs back up the steps, back to 2011, Al Templeton explains how he's been going back in time for years. When he goes down the stairs, it's always 1958. While he's there, time proceeds normally. But whenever he comes back to 2011, it's only two minutes later. Al Templeton has been away for years, which is why he's now old and sick -- even though he has only been gone two minutes in 2011 time.

     Templeton was trying to stop the assassination of John Kennedy. But now he is too old, and dying of cancer, and he has missed his chance. His dying wish is for Jake Epping to do it for him.

     Epping travels back to 1958. He has a few scores to settle of his own; then over the course of the next five years he proceeds to put together his plan to stop Oswald from killing Kennedy.

     This explanation only scratches the surface of the book (remember, it is over 800 pgs.). But I was curious about the observations that Jake Epping makes regarding how the world was different back in 1958.

     The thing that first seduced him into taking on the project, into agreeing to go back in time, was the taste of the root beer. "I sipped through the foam on top, and was amazed. It was ... full. Tasty all the way through."

     As we look back on 1958, perhaps a lot of us can see that things were better then. (Do you have any opinions on that one?) I can certainly recall the sodas I drank when I was a kid. And I agree with Jake Epping. They tasted better.

     What else was different back in 1958?

     The first thing Epping couldn't help but notice. Everybody smoked their heads off, even on public conveyances. In 1958 nobody worried about smoke. They didn't worry about cholesterol either.

     As he settles in to his new (old) life, Epping notices that in 1958, you rarely saw a man in a supermarket. Men did not buy groceries in 1958. He also notices that the cars and the houses were not always locked up, and he observes, "People might not have been more honest, but they were more trusting."

     He also says there was less bureaucracy, and a lot less paperwork in 1958.

     Following on the trust theme, when Halloween rolled around he met a young girl with her dad, on the street, and to be friendly he bent down and offered her a piece of candy. The days of candy doctored with LSD, or spiked with a razor blade, were far in the future -- as were the days of "Do Not
Use If Seal Is Broken."

     In 1958, people read TV Guide. They read Life and Look and Reader's Digest.

     Of course, back then people had rotary dial phones; and there were pay phones at gas stations and drug stores.

     Milk was delivered to your door.

     According to Epping, in 1958, which was the heyday of Jayne Mansfield, full breasts were considered attractive on a woman, rather than the embarrassment they are today.

     And, yes, there is a love interest in the book. Apparently this was before birth control pills; but Jake Epping says the condoms back then were no better or worse than they are today. (I can't verify any of this myself; I was nowhere close to being sexually active in 1958.)

    Also, back then, there were plenty of good, fast roads crisscrossing the countryside. Many of them were new. By 2011 those roads were choked with traffic, but back then they were almost deserted, and driving was actually a joy.

     Epping doesn't offer an opinion about whether the cars were better or worse (although he seems to love the used 1954 Ford Sunliner convertible he bought for $315, when gas was 19 cents a gallon). He doesn't weigh in on whether the music was better or not.

     On a more serious note:  People worried about nuclear war, but no one worried about global warming or suicide bombers flying hijacked jets into skyscrapers.

     It was acceptable, back then, for people to make jokes about three jigs stuck in an elevator . . .  or three Yids on a golf course.

     Once, Epping stopped at a gas station in North Carolina to use the toilet. There were two doors and three signs. MEN was stenciled on one door, LADIES on the other. The third sign was an arrow on a stick, pointing down a small hill. It said COLORED. He walked down the path and saw, amidst some unmistakable signs of poison ivy, a narrow stream with a board laid across it on a couple of crumbling concrete posts.

     "If I ever gave you the idea that 1958's all Andy-n-Opie," writes Stephen King, "remember the path, okay? The one lined with poison ivy. And the board over the stream."
     

This is Wicked

     We did go to Cape Cod, where the air was clear and the water was . . . warm? The first day we went over to a beach on the bay side, where a crowd of people splashed and frolicked among the little waves. B was content to sit on a chair in the sand and soak up the sun. I donned my wetsuit, waded into the water and dove in.

     I got a few bemused looks from the other swimmers, who told me, "Oh, isn't the water nice?" and "This is beautiful out here, isn't it!" They must have been hardy New Englanders.

     Like my sister in Florida, and fellow blogger Douglas at Boomer Musings, I don't consider the water warm until it gets up toward 80 degrees. But one of the advantages of age is that you're no longer self-conscious about these things. You don't mind being the only one splashing around in a wetsuit. After all, I got to go swimming; otherwise I would have still been sitting on the beach.

     The next day we went out to the ocean. But the beach was closed. Sharks had been spotted offshore. And indeed, we saw a seal bobbing in the surf only 30 or 40 feet from the beach. According to local wisdom, where there are seals, sharks lurk nearby.

     We also took a little kayak trip through the marshes, led by a crusty old Cape Codder whose major frame of reference was John Kennedy, who seems to still be alive on Cape Cod. Our guide told us we would have a wicked wind to paddle against on the way out, but the way home would be wicked easy. Wicked, he told us, is a common expression among people on Cape Cod (maybe it comes from Boston?)

     Anyway, we had a wicked good time for three days on the Cape. But I came home with a wicked bad cold. I'm feeling miserable, and it will be a few days before I come up for another blog post.

     So I'm going to go collapse on the couch and watch some of the 9/11 ceremonies. I suppose feeling wicked miserable is the appropriate frame of mind for a commemoration of this wicked, wicked event.

Summer's Not Over Yet

     Well, I thought the weekend before Labor Day was going to be our last summer fling, when we traveled to Pennsylvania to see B's sister and spend a few days with them in their century-old stone farmhouse. They're not farmers. They're teachers (one of them just retired). But they have a little cornfield in their front yard and a major kitchen garden out back, and we feasted on corn and tomatoes and vegetables for three days.

     But, somehow, it didn't seem like enough. We yearned for the seashore. So B has managed to get a couple of days off from work, and we're headed to Cape Cod for a different kind of weekend. Fish and clams and lobsters, and sand in our clothes, and a bike ride along the coastline.

     It's after Labor Day. The summer crowds are gone. Rates are down a little. And we don't have kids in school, so we can go.

     A few years ago, after we spent a week in Montauk where the ocean water is cold, B bought me a wetsuit as a Christmas present. So I'm bringing along my wetsuit. They say the water off Cape Cod stays warm into September.

     I'm not sure I believe them. But I'll give it a try.

     See you next week.

A Moral Dilemma

     The other day I faced a moral dilemma. Actually, it wasn't me, it was a friend of mine. And he had no qualms about it. But I did.

     The background:  Four of us were playing golf, and two of my friends started talking about how they had played golf together the previous weekend, and had been hooked up with two other strangers. One of the guys turned out to be kind of a boor. There was a foursome of Asians in front of them, who were holding them up, making them wait from time to time (which is not unusual on a golf course) and the guy started complaining. At first he just grumbled to himself. Then he complained to my friends. And then he started in with the derogatory racial terms. Not loud enough so the Asians could hear him. But plenty loud enough for my friends to hear.

     "The guy was a real jerk," one of my friends said. "I was glad when that was over."

     But my friend Peter, who hadn't been there, challenged them. "So, you didn't do anything about it?"

     "Not really. He was just making us very uncomfortable."

     Peter shook his head. "If I'd been there, I'd have told this guy he was way off base. I wouldn't have played with him anymore."

     My other two friends gave a knowing laugh. "Maybe. But we didn't exactly want to get into a fight about it."

     "Oh, you're being ridiculous," Peter said. "I wouldn't have gotten belligerent with him. But I would have let him play ahead. Or just walked off. A guy like that has to get the message -- maybe it's okay to go up and politely ask people to hurry up, or ask to play through, but it's unacceptable to start in with the racial slurs, calling people derogatory names."

     I completely agreed with Peter, although if I'd actually been in my friends' situation, I don't know if I would have had the moxie to actually confront the guy, say to his face that he was being inappropriate, and tell him to get lost.

     But anyway, we played a couple more holes. Then Peter turned to me, with a sly smile on his face, and told me what he had done a few days before. He'd been driving home on a major state road, a few miles from his house, when he saw a sign. It was obviously homemade, painted on a piece of plywood. It said: "No Mosque." It had a red circle around the words, with a line drawn through it.

     Peter knew there was a proposal in his town to build a mosque. He'd seen it mentioned in the newspaper, but hadn't paid much attention. He really didn't know any of the details about the proposal.

     But, he told me, the sign really offended him. So he pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. He got out of his car, grabbed the sign and wrestled it out of the ground. Then he threw it into the trunk of his car.

     "So where is it now?" I asked.

     "It's in my basement," he laughed. "I just couldn't stand seeing that sign there. I had to take it down."

     "So," I said, "I guess you don't believe in freedom of speech."

     He looked at me. I was kind of kidding him, teasing him a little. "You know, I actually considered that," he replied seriously. "But I just thought it was too nasty. I couldn't let it stand."

     When he got home, he told me, his wife applauded his action. "Good for you," she'd said. And when he brought up his one qualm, the freedom-of-speech issue, his wife retorted, "The hell with their freedom of speech."

     She obviously considered it hate speech. But I wondered if the sign really qualified. Maybe there was a zoning issue. Maybe there were environmental issues about building the mosque, involving wetlands or traffic.

    Anyway, I found the whole issue interesting. In my own mind, I couldn't decide if Peter had done the right thing or not. If the sign really was hate speech, then he was probably right. But if other issues were involved, then maybe he was wrong -- not to mention the fact that he was stealing someone else's property.

     Later that night at dinner, I brought up the issue with B. "Yeah, sure, a zoning issue," she scoffed. "It was obviously an anti-Muslim message. I'm glad Peter took it down."

     "Yeah, you're probably right," I said. But as you can see, the question is still going around in my mind. And I wonder, whatever happened to the notion that you can strongly disagree with what someone is saying, but still defend their right to say it?

     I don't know. But now you know as much about it as I do. What do you think?

Remember Him?

     Today, September 2nd, is his birthday. He's turning 60 years old. But you haven't heard much about him lately. He retired almost 20 years ago.

     He was born and raised in Belleview, Ill., across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. He was raised by two women, his mother Gloria, and his grandmother Bertha Thompson, who he called "Two Mom."

    His mother was a coach, and she began teaching skills to him when he was just a toddler. "My mother rolled balls to me," he later explained, "and I swung at them."

     When he started playing against other kids, he found out he was small by comparison. But he didn't let that bother him. He made up for his size with determination and feistiness. When he was only 8 years old he entered his first official contest, playing in a group of 11-and-unders, and from then on he was a regular on the junior circuit, winning more than his share of games.

     In 1968, when he was 16, his mother took him to California to benefit from the tutelage of top-notch coaches. He entered UCLA as a freshman in 1970. He immediately made the team, became a star, and at the end of the year won the NCAA championship.

     He left school in 1972, turned pro and joined the tour. He hit his way to the top of the leaderboard in six tournaments that season, as a promising 20 year old playing against veterans a decade older than he was. The next year he won 11 tournaments.

     In 1974, he stepped up to dominate his sport. He won in Australia. He won in England. And he won in New York. At only 5 feet, 10 inches, 155 pounds and 22 years old, he beat tennis great Ken Rosewall first at Wimbledon and then again in New York to win the U. S. Open.

Stadium at the U. S. Open

     He won three-quarters of the Grand Slam that year, but was denied a shot at a full Grand Slam. He'd signed to play for World Team Tennis, instead of the Association of Tennis Pros. French officials opposed WTT, and banned WTT players from the French Open. But this young tennis player had his own ideas, and he wasn't going to be pushed around by a bunch of aging tennis bureaucrats.

     He climbed to the Number 1 ranking in men's tennis. Then he started dating Number 1 female tennis player Chris Evert. The relationship between the two American tennis greats only boosted his star power -- he made the cover of Time Magazine in 1975 -- as well as his popularity among the fans.

     Yet some people were put off by his on-court antics. He once gave the finger to a linesman after a disputed call. He argued with umpires, referees, officials, and other players. Nevertheless, his talent won out, and he stood atop his Number 1 ranking for an astounding 263 weeks during his prime years in the 1970s. Still, like any athlete, he suffered some heartbreaking defeats as well. He made it to the finals at Wimbledon three more times during the 1970s, but lost first to Arthur Ashe in 1975 and then to Bjorn Borg in 1977 and 1978.

     The U. S. Open was always his favorite venue (the 2012 Open is being played this week at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing, NY). He was victorious over Borg in the finals in 1976 and 1978. He beat out rival Ivan Lendl in 1982 and 1983 to take two more titles -- giving him a total of 5 U. S. Open titles, a record only later matched by Pete Sampras who won four times in the 1990s and a fifth time in 2003, and Roger Federer, who won 5 straight titles from 2004 through 2008. This coming week Federer has a chance to break the Connors-Sampras-Federer record with an unprecedented sixth win.

     The man I'm recalling is not John McEnroe, who won the U. S. Open four times. He is McEnroe's arch rival, Jimmy Connors, the original bad boy of professional tennis.

     Connors went on to win a second Wimbledon title in 1982, beating McEnroe in a spectacular come-back performance. Connors was three points from losing in a fourth set tiebreaker. Then he won the tiebreaker, and took the fifth and deciding set 6-4.

     But perhaps Connors finest hour came in 1991. By that time he was 39 years old. He had suffered several injuries, and was ranked way down at Number 194, needing a wild card to get into the tournament.

     In the first round he faced Patrick McEnroe, John McEnroe's younger brother. Connors lost the first set, then the second set. He was down 3-0 in the third set when he finally found his footing, hitting the ball with more power and accuracy. He started winning games, and at 1:35 a.m., after more than four grueling hours of play, he won the fifth set 6-4 and walked off a winner.

     He then won two more matches and found himself, on Sept. 2, 1991, his 39th birthday, facing top-ten player Aaron Krickstein. Connors was down two sets to one. He won the fourth set to tie it up. He fell behind 5-2 in the fifth and deciding set. Then once again Connors roared back, with the crowd cheering for their aging champion, and won the match in a tiebreaker.

     Connors later lost to Jim Courier in the semis, who in turn lost to Stefan Edberg in the finals. But the most memorable match of the year, perhaps of the decade, was the time when the aging star made magic happen once again on center court.

     Jimmy Connors retired from tennis in 1993 and went on to become a businessman and investor in gambling casinos. He married Playboy model Patti McGuire in 1979, and together they have two children. Over the years he has also done some tennis coaching (he briefly coached retiring American ace Andy Roddick) and tennis commentary for TV. He currently lives in Santa Barbara, Calif., with Patti, now his wife of over 30 years.