April 1975...Pretty Much Forgotten but I remember this issue.
Maybe it's my age, but I find myself
pining away with nostalgia. I can't say life was
better then if you include all the shit that was going on. There were
the Boston race riots over forced busing, we lost the Vietnam War,
President Ford was shot at by Squeaky Fromme, the redhead from the
Manson Family. The Son of Sam killings were still a year away.
So as you see, the world was just as
fucked up then as it is now, perhaps more now?
Be that as it may, nostalgia never does
think about the shitty times, does it? Only the good.
What I'll do at times is plug in a year
into Google, hit “images” and see what comes up. Sometimes I'm
shocked at the pictures and scenes I've long forgotten about. It's
good for jogging the memory. I wondered at myself why I had
forgotten about all that stuff but then again, how can you remember
very single detail?
Accidentally, after searching for
“Christmas 1975” I came across the toy above. I was floored. ““I
had that! I had the very same toy!” I shouted this in my head. It
was a silly gun gallery toy but for a young boy it was fun as hell. I
have no idea when we threw it out as most kid's toys end up in the
garbage anyway. I guess I became too old for it, it broke or both. It
could be still in the Johnston landfill, deep down under all the
other refuse.
Then there was GI Joe with “Kung Fu
Grip!” This wasn't a surprise but still, I harked back to when I
played with one then. At first, you play with it as it was intended.
He was to fight filthy, dirty Commies and Viet Minh. After a while,
a boy's imagination takes over. My GI Joe fell to his death countless
times out of my bedroom window after he was trying to scale the side
of the house. He fell down the stairs too many times. A year later,
he had lost most of his hair when we boys had a “dirt yard war”
where we placed our GI Joes in foxholes and shot them with bb guns
and finally, napalmed them when Jimmy tossed a flaming Dixie cup of
Kingsford Briquette Charcoal Starter fluid at them.
Where were our parents? This was then
kids were tossed out of the house during summer vacation because we
were “underfoot.” Some of us would come home with a nice
laceration, burns or some other injury. This was met with bitching
and complaining and “What are you? STUPID?” comments from out
parents. Not too much sympathy then. That was also met with your own
parents telling their friends about the jack-off moronic things you
did. The neighbor or friend would nod their heads in agreement with
you Mom or Dad. So we kids finally learned not to say a damn thing.
Coming home with with blood running down your arm because you decided
to jump your bike over a log meant you wiped it up and said nothing.
Old TV shows. That's a good one I'll
search for. I always prided myself, then as now, for not watching too
much of it. I wasn't one of those kids social commentators said was
“turning our brains to mush by too much TV.” Bullshit...I
watched heaps of TV then. Those old TV's with the tube technology
could heat your living room then. If you put your hand behind the
set, you could feel the air currents move from the warmth. Generally,
if it was winter, I'd get home from school, turn the TV to channel 38
and get a few hours of Loony Toons cartoons. Those are still the
best, even with the horrific violence and racists themes they had. At
night, I'd do my homework during commercials. We used to get the TV
Guide and I swear it was like a social calendar in ways. I'd read it,
find out which days/nights I'd HAVE to be home to watch the shows I
wanted.
“No, I ain't coming out
tonight...Sanford and Son is on!”
And there are times when I think I'd
puke after seeing some pictures from 1975. I'll Google, 1975 Class
Pictures and see the kids of that time. I then goof on the fashion
they wore. Wait a minute...I wore too!
See that kid in the blue circle...that
was how I dressed. Those plaid pants should've been outlawed. My
Mom's thought was search the sales at Ann & Hope and then buy
different colors of the same damn shirt or pants! A little later on,
I was looking like the kid in the red circle when Mom discovered the
Garanimals Kid's Clothing Line. I was sporting the outfit of a Disco
Pimp then and I loved it. What's interesting about this photo is the
boy's longer hair then. Mine was longer than most then, crawling down over my collar...as long as
the girl in the white circle.
So, if nostalgia ignores the miserable
times, just what was miserable back then?
The constant fighting with my brother
was probably one. I was ten, he was 15 and in the full throes of
teen angst. We traded barbs with one another across the kitchen
table many nights. I found new ammunition in the new acne on his face
and called him “Mountain Face” for a while till he shoved me into
a rose bush when the parents weren't looking. My friends and I found
his friends hideout for drinking and smoking pot and I lorded that
over his head as a threat to “tell Dad.” That was met a week
later with Jimmy Keough, his friend, giving me a wedgie that lifted
me off the ground with the threat “NEVER tell anyone about that
place!!”
I was in Miss McHale's class then. I
can think of the great times that we had or I can ignore the fight I
had with a Danny Greene on the way home, near Pinault's Pharmacy.
The prick got me from behind and we toppled onto the parking lot and
being sucker punched, I lost that fight. I ran into Greene about a
year ago at my pub and thought for a few seconds...”Should I shove
him out of his chair and say: 'Remember me...asshole!?'”
As in all classes, there's a social
hierarchy. I'll rip off Matt Groening's humor here. “There's
nothing more cruel and dangerous than a roving pack of 10 year old
girls.” In McHale's class there was a girl, Colleen T. who had to
put up with the guff of the other girls who just HEAPED it on her.
She was at the bottom of the girl's hierarchy and was reminded of it
most days. We boys occasionally got into it but since girls were
disgusting, most of the time we didn't engage Colleen at all. Though
I can remember I shot a comment at Colleen that was mean. Thinking on
it then as now, it was unfair. I eventually apologized to her but she
was sooo pissed off she didn't accept it till later in the day. Kids
are NOT innocent! Neither was I.
**
Nostalgia is great. Pining away for
your youth is too. Why? Because then, everything was new to you and
exciting. Humor could be found anywhere and in any form. The energy
level was great too as you could go for hours w/o becoming tired.
As an adult, nothing is new to you really. Been there, Done that. I
swear, as you get older, you lose that incredible plasticity your
brain had then. You could pick up anything in a few hours and then
shift out of that to a new paradigm just as easily. Now? Everything
becomes more stiff, like hardening concrete because you Swear to God
that you are RIGHT and any other way is dead wrong. I find myself
quietly dismissing a younger person's opinions and giving tepid “Oh,
that's nice” responses. Ack! I'm turning into my Dad.
**
An Aside I Thought Revealing About This Whole Issue
There was a curious incident where
something hit me regarding nostalgia or “love of youth.” I enjoy
music and once I was listening to Paul Simon's “Live Rhymin'.” On it
is a live, slightly gospel version of Bride Over Troubled Water. While
I was listening to it, I found his vocals emotionally open and had
incredible depth and subtlety. He sings without screeching his point
across and that's what I found alluring. There are soft changes that
“make” the entire song. I found out later when I thought about
it, I wasn't celebrating the song, I was celebrating his
youthful voice and it's fresh and tender ability
to manipulate sounds when he was a young man. I was praising youth
here. There's no difference between that and older guys who sit in the stands, watching high school teens play football. They were once teen players too and they watch and relish in vicariousness
I guess you come to find out, the world
really doesn't change much and people sure the hell don't. It's
constant repeats like you see on TV. Each generation that comes up
thinks they're the first to discover everything. Of course they do,
it's New to Them like the old commercial would say. We were no
different back in 1975.
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