Huntsville Times columnist Ricky Thomason on the '60s.
http://blog.al.com/times-views/2009/12/huntsville_times_columnist_ric.html
by Ricky Thomason
December 06, 2009
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. _ I often listen to music when I write. It seems
every other song from the sixties and seventies is about love, loving
your brothers and sisters.
Somehow, somewhere, the love train of the children of the sixties
jumped the track and went off the rails.
"Children of the sixties" is a term that conjures images of
Woodstock, rock and roll, free love and drugs.
Despite the romanticized legend, most who came of age in that era saw
little of the lot of that; we myth'd it.
They say if you remember the sixties, you didn't have fun, and maybe
I didn't, not enough anyway.
Many 'boomers remember many things about the sixties, so I'm not
alone. Try as hard as we may have to kill as many brain cells as we
could, it sometimes seems we altered reality less than our chromosomes.
We may have reproduced a twisted genetic helix of offspring tightly
wound around a selfish, materialistic, me-me-me core.
Myriad moms and dads have asked, "How can everything you ever wanted
not be enough?"
I feel alone when I stand on the crossties of the trestle of now,
look back and see the rail of yesterday parallel the railing of today.
It's the track on which history's train runs, memory tracks that grow
smaller in perspective until they merge at the vanishing point on the
horizon of time.
I think I remember someone telling me that the memory horizon moves
farther into the purple haze as we age, but I can't remember who,
what, when, where, or why they told me that if they did.
Let's just see what The Who happened to My Generation, the bunch who
asked "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?"
Seems we still can't get no satisfaction, but still like our jack, so
keep your hands off of our stacks.
What happened to the children of the sixties?
Many are still here, in our sixties, acting like children.
Woodstock?
That would be the butt of our NRA rifle. The non-violent embraced
violence and beat plowshares into swords like none or no one before.
Rocking and rolling?
Those are two chairs; one we sit in on the front porch, the other we
roll in when we scooter around the grocery stores and casinos.
Free love?
There was never any such thing. Still isn't. Remember, you pay for
love, but the hate comes free. Two of the three fastest rising things
today are the cost of Viagra and the STD rate among seniors, still
free-loving children of the sixties. Pull that thing over, granny;
it's time for the breathalyzer.
Drugs?
Drugs cost the children of the sixties back then; they're free for
them now. What Medicare doesn't pay for, Social Security does.
Warning: clinical trials conducted over the past twelve months have
proven that the most likely side effects of taking free drugs in
combination with government support include wearing your britches as
high as possible, griping about the government incessantly, aka,"
gumming the hand that feeds you," hatred of kids and other little
animals on your lawn, an abhorrence of taxes - though most collect
more than they pay - an irrational fear of socialism, defined as
"free medical care and government aid for anyone other than
themselves," or as some call it, "Their maybe-socialism may interfere
with my definite socialism."
In many cases a new disease known as "Tempest In a Tea Bag" syndrome
may increase the risk of stroke and myocardial infarction due to the
sudden increase in blood pressure associated with news events and
cultural change.
In the purple haze of my memories, I confuse them with codgers in the
sixties who referred to segregation as "the good ol' days."
Warning: pointing that out to the guilty 60's teabaggers can be
hazardous to your health. As the band, "Heart," sang, they may "Go
Crazy On You."
--
Ricky Thomason's e-mail: [email protected].
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