Some of you might have read another version of this on Facebook. But that is deliberately transitory and I decided I wanted to hang on to this, so I decided to make a blogpost, which I can (and will) archive, since this is turning into a journal of sorts that I want to hang on to.
Here is a little exercise in memory, media and nostalgia. Take a decade that intrigues you, whether you were already born or not. If you were born already, name some of the things you remember firsthand. Then, whether you were born already in that decade or not, name some of the things you "remember" about it from media about it.
For me, starting with the 1950s, which by my definition run until 1964, when a huge amount of cultural change starts becoming apparent, even to rural white people in Idaho:
Things I sort of remember firsthand, which was on a rural farm in a rural state, Idaho, that was at least five years behind California in most trends:
1) Fear of being nuked from a classroom exercise where we really were told to bend over in our desks and cover our heads in case of nuclear blast.
2) Getting lost in a sea of identical looking adult kneecaps.
3) Hanging out with my Dad in farm fields, beginning to realize that farming was really hard work
Here is a little exercise in memory, media and nostalgia. Take a decade that intrigues you, whether you were already born or not. If you were born already, name some of the things you remember firsthand. Then, whether you were born already in that decade or not, name some of the things you "remember" about it from media about it.
For me, starting with the 1950s, which by my definition run until 1964, when a huge amount of cultural change starts becoming apparent, even to rural white people in Idaho:
Things I sort of remember firsthand, which was on a rural farm in a rural state, Idaho, that was at least five years behind California in most trends:
1) Fear of being nuked from a classroom exercise where we really were told to bend over in our desks and cover our heads in case of nuclear blast.
2) Getting lost in a sea of identical looking adult kneecaps.
3) Hanging out with my Dad in farm fields, beginning to realize that farming was really hard work
4) Doing a lot of farm work, including with work horses at first, before we got a tractor (I am the short one in this photo with horses at haying in 1958)
5) Feeling really patriotic reading a comic book about WW II
6) Being afraid of water but finally getting over it via swimming classes
7) That TV was black and white and had two channels since there was no ABC station
8) Feeling a bit envious that people who did not live on farms got to travel more
9) Really enjoying my immediate and extended family, including a lot of nephews near my age
Nephews and me in 1959
The mediated things I remember are:
1) Being fascinated by historical novels that took place in exotic places
2) Thinking Disneyland looked pretty cool and wondering if I might ever get to someplace that far away
3) Thinking that Leave it to Beaver families looked a lot richer than we were
4) Getting intrigued with exotic items mentioned in Mad Magazine, like bagels
5) Wondering who Howard Johnson was and why Mad Magazine like to make such fun of him
6) Wondering what ad men did and why Mad Magazine like to make such fun of them
7) Being really shocked at the news over the radio, piped over the junior high loudspeaker system, that Kennedy had been shot, and being even more shocked that some kids cheered
7a) As a result beginning to realize that my Dad was maybe the only Democrat in town and thinking harder about what that meant
8) Tuning into Wolf Man Jack on a huge old tube AM radio because I was beginning to get very intrigued by pop music
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