Breathes there a Boomer who doesn’t remember the terror of rounding Marvin Gardens and Pacific Avenue, only having to face two hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place. At $2,000 for rent, Boardwalk put many a young boomer in Chapter 11. After all, we played lots of board games in those days. Youngsters in the 50s and 60s didn’t have access to video games, and that was a good thing. We used our minds … [Read more...]

The life of a Boomer can be measured in “firsts”. The first word as a baby, the first step as a toddler, the first grade, the first scout meeting, the first bike ride, the first Little League team, the first kiss, and most of all – the first car. By first car, I don’t mean the first one we drove, but the first one that was “ours.” Mine was a 1949 Pontiac two-door sedan. It was solid black, … [Read more...]

Bubble gum was one of the basic food groups for young Boomers. We grew up with the sticky stuff. It was a go-to sweet treat and it was cheap, just a penny. The Mom & Pop stores always had a jar on the counter. Reach in, grab a piece, lay down a penny and start chewing. Boomers became adept at blowing bubbles. A girl from Fresno, California, by the way, holds the world’s record for a bubblegum … [Read more...]

Since the introduction of moving pictures, and especially after television arrived, Americans have been fascinated with the Old West. For Boomers, western movies were a mainstay of entertainment. On the Big Screen, the “oater” films hit their stride in the 1950’s. The plot of almost every western was the same: The good guy in the white hat rides into town, shoots the bad guys and rides off into … [Read more...]

A big event in the lives of many young Boomers was churning a batch of homemade ice cream. It’s difficult to conceive that kids today – with all their video games, cell phones, sophisticated electronics and countless school and after-school activities – could ever get excited about making homemade ice cream, but we did! And the memories of family gatherings and the rich, creamy taste of freshly … [Read more...]

Children today don’t need a Guardian Angel. Who needs angels to watch over you when you have two over-protective parents that monitor each breath, public schools that inspect your lunch bags for trans-fats and a nanny-state government that requires seat belts and helmets when a youngster pulls up a chair to the kitchen table. But Boomers certainly needed Guardian Angels – a whole flock of them. … [Read more...]

It was spring 1957. I was playing basketball with Brad Stuart in his driveway when I heard them sing. We stopped shooting hoops and Brad turned up his radio. We listened intently to a hanting harmony. The song on WRON was “Bye Bye Love”. The artists were Don and Phil Everly – the Everly Brothers. Music was a vital part of life for young Boomers and we certainly had our share of great songs and … [Read more...]

Each generation has its own language and teenage Boomers were no different. Highly influenced by fast cars and maintaining total cool at all times, young Boomers created a vocabulary all their own, and interestingly, many of the terms are still in use today. To be in “fat city”, for example, was to be in great shape”. A “drag” was an extremely boring individual. The “fuzz” were policemen and … [Read more...]

As America by the millions tuned in to last Sunday’s Super Bowl on their flat screen, hi-def., high-res, plasma infused TV sets, it gave this Boomer pause to think back to how it once was with television sets. In the early years after the war, most families didn’t own a TV. It was the early to mid-fifties when sets became affordable enough that middle-income families could buy one. But what … [Read more...]

Digging deeply into the memories of childhood, this Boomer shudders at the thought of the early years of school, namely kindergarten and first grade. How I survived remains a mystery. In the 1950’s, there was no pre-kindergarten, in fact, kindergarten was optional. I remember it as a waste of about 5 hours a day. The teacher read silly stories and we spent much of our waking hours (yes, there … [Read more...]