Gee, I Don't Remember that Chair Being So Ugly
[October 12th] -- This picture of me was taken on Christmas Eve, 1962 -- I was six at the time -- in Alexandria, Virginia, just a "stones throw" from Washington, D.C.
How different life was then. In our home, we had one phone [black, rotor-dial of course], one television [black & white] with four channels. There were no blacks or hispanics in my neighborhood, nor in my school. None of my friend's moms worked outside of the house, and they really did wear dresses and aprons when they worked around the house. All the dad's came home at the same time. President John Kennedy would live for another year. The "Cuban Missile Crisis" ended just two months before my dad took this picture. The flag at George Mason School still had 48 stars.
There is much about this time in our country's history that I don't miss -- the racism, the segregation, and the incessant clouds of tobbaco smoke that engulfed everyone's homes [I didn't know even one parent who didn't smoke]. I do miss, however, the innocence, the feel of familial closeness, the "aw shucks" and "gosh darn" way of talking. No "Simpsons" or "Law & Order: SVU." It was "Leave It To Beaver" and "Perry Mason."
I don't want to go back to the early 60's and re-live my youth, but there are times that I wish that parts of that era remained with me today.
