1950s version of
an E-Mail. No idea who is
the author, but read on!
Long ago and far away, in a land that time
forgot,
Before the days of Dylan, or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a
race of innocents, and they were you and me,
For Ike was in the White
House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for
oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.
We learned to gut a muffler, we
washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on
the lawn.
We longed for love and romance, and waited for our
Prince,
And Eddie Fisher
married Liz and no one's seen him since.
\We danced to 'Little Darlin,'
and sang to 'Stagger Lee'
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land
That Made Me, Me.
Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too
many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.
And only in our
wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick, in
the Land That Made Me, Me.
We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette
was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie, they never made it twice.
We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo
Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.
Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and
Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.
We
had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T, And Oprah couldn't talk yet, in the
Land That Made Me, Me. We had our share of heroes, we never thought
they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.
For
youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was
forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We'd never seen the rock band
that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson, and
Zeppelins were not Led.
And Beatles lived in gardens then,
and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was Mary in the Land
That Made Me, Me.
We'd never heard of microwaves, or telephones in
cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in
jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant
fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-ed in the Land That Made Me,
Me.
We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And
microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.
And hardware was
a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships
were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.
Buicks came with
portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big
enough to cover both your cheeks.
And Coke came just in bottles, and
skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made
Me, Me.
We had no Crest with fluoride, we had no Hill
Street Blues,
We had no
patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for those
dysfunctions in the Land That Made Me, Me.
There were no golden
arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats
were not called Bill.
And middle-aged was 35 and old was
fifty-three,
And ancient were
our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.
But all things have a
season, or so we've heard them say,
And now instead
of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.
They send us
invitations to join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That
Made Me, Me.
So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger
jeans,
And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our
children's children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far
away in the Land That Made Me, Me.
If you didn't grow up in the fifties,
you missed the greatest time in history,
Hope you enjoyed this read as much as
I did.
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