There weren’t many ways to earn money as a Boomer teenager. Allowances were meager, maybe 50c a week. This was before child labor laws, where kids were required to do things like mow the lawn, load dishwashers, tend to younger brothers and sisters and help weed the garden for a lousy 50 cents a week. Summer offered some respite with a few lawn-mowing gigs, but there was often intense competition … [Read more...]

We were driving from Lewisburg, WV to enroll at UNC in Chapel Hill on a September day in 1962 when I first heard the group. The song was “Where Have All The Flowers Gone” sung by a group called Peter, Paul and Mary. Boomers grew up with this trio, pioneers in folk music, which gained steam in the 1960s. To many, folk music meant protests and flower children. To me, it meant some of the greatest … [Read more...]

My grandson, James, turned 16 this week and it reminded me of a magical time when the number 16 was the sweetest of all. Breathes there a Boomer who doesn’t remember what it felt like to turn 16? Sweet sixteen meant one thing – car keys. In West Virginia we didn’t have a learner’s permit, which kids in some states could get when they turned 15 or 15 ½. Nope, for us it meant we had to wait … [Read more...]

No one knows for sure what causes cataracts, but it may have something to do with not eating the required 6 daily helpings of fruits and vegetables and not flossing your eyeballs twice a day. It also seems that age has something to do with developing these nasty little blobs, which can occur unannounced anytime after age 50. There was once a time when I could not only read license plates on … [Read more...]

  Subscriber Nancy Jackson found this description of Boomer memories floating around on the Internet and it’s worth sharing.   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 … [Read more...]

They call it basketball. It’s on TV all the time, but it isn’t the same basketball Boomers recall. There was once a time, you see, when basketball was a civil sport. If there was the slightest contact, somebody got called for a foul. Not anymore. Today, they grab each other, push each other, bite each other, take a flying leap and land on one another and it’s “incidental contact.” On numerous … [Read more...]

  What Boomer can ever forget that first uniform of his or her youth, likely from being a member of a Cub Scout or Brownie troop. I clearly recall that royal blue shirt with the bright yellow kerchief, my Cub Scout uniform in 4th grade. As a new scout recruit, I was fascinated by the badges and emblems, and I wanted as many as I could pin or have Mom sew on my uniform. They didn’t cost … [Read more...]

  Boomers look back on the week after Christmas as a time to enjoy Santa’s bounty. We had new Flexible Flyer sleds, in case it snowed. We had Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse watches to set. We likely had a few new 45 records from Top Ten artists. We had Scrabble and Monopoly games to play. We had new Saddle oxford shoes and argyle sweaters. We had batteries for our transistor radios and some … [Read more...]

  It’s funny how things or people from the past pop into your mind. Last week, an incident happened to me that triggered such a memory. I didn’t have a paring knife that would slice warm butter and I like to tinker around the kitchen. By gum, I thought, I am going to go buy myself a sharp knife. So I went to Home Goods and tracked down the meanest, scariest looking knife on the … [Read more...]

  This Boomer looks back on Christmases Past like Ebenezer Scrooge encountering one of his ghosts. Three words come to mind. Some Assembly Required. You see, I was a young parent in the early 1970s and had a daughter, Angelin, who asked Santa for a complete kitchen set. Stove, refrigerator, sink and cabinets. Santa didn’t have the good sense to tell her this was impossible since Santa’s … [Read more...]