I woke up this morning with my tongue in cheek. It happens every now and then.
I was thinking of those days when America was still the envy of the world. It seemed we had more of everything then, didn't it? And not just more, but life was somehow richer and shinier. Darn close to perfection actually.
I tend to do absolutely nothing on my days off but reminisce. Like the women in Mad Men in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Spending hours at the beauty salon getting their nails polished, their hair permed, their eyebrows plucked. Then tossing down two or three slow gin fizzes with their little white pills before dinner while their dapper hubbies with their slicked back Don Draper hair chatted about golf scores. I wish we could go back to that time, don't you?
It seemed like every household could afford a maid then too. Those lovely Negro women who quietly slipped a coaster under each cocktail glass. I don't ever remember them complaining. They just seemed, well, so grateful and content. God, what a picture perfect time to be alive.
People understood and accepted their place in the social structure back then as well. They knew the value of a job. Any job. Sadly, today you hear too much griping by folks demanding a fair wage. Shouldn't it be up to the employer to determine what fair is? Isn't that just common sense? Refugees and immigrants are so lucky to just be here. I think it's a bit presumptuous of them to ask for health care and education. Their getting sick and being ignorant is really not my problem.
Thinking back I have certain images that pop into my mind. Like Schwinn bikes and Pez containers and going to the drive-in with mom and dad. The bluish glow of flashing images coming from the giant screen as we navigated into our spot. The barely discernible chatting coming from the speaker boxes. The pesky gnats and mosquitos that left me with little red marks all over my hands and legs.
My older sister had two good friends in high school back then. Ronny Johnson and Allison Lipschitz. One night from the back seat of our Ford station wagon, I noticed Allison's head moving up and down behind the steering wheel in Ronny's car. Ronny had a big smile on his face. And then a few minutes later Ronnie was jumping up and down on Allison. My sister turned to look at me and when she noticed what I was seeing, she whacked me so hard on the back of my head, I literally saw stars. Any way Allison wasn't chosen prom queen that year like everyone thought she would. She had to take some time off from school, and when she came back, she was pale and sick looking. People in my neighborhood were all whispering about her nasty "infection" and how she almost died. I guess she'd lost a lot of weight at the "fat farm" which made it okay.
Then, of course, there was my East Coast neighborhood where I grew up about 25 miles south of Boston. And the cast of characters that were what everyone likes to call "salt of the earth" folks. Mr. Wiley with his Confederate flag hanging from his truck. Mom thought it was "quaint and regional". He was originally from Tennessee and she said people from the South had a rich history and it was hard for them to let it go.
Our next door neighbors were a couple named Al and Theresa Colangelo. At neighborhood barbecues Mr. Wiley would sneer and call them Dagos (I guess Wop was kind of insulting back then.) Now we have to call Dagos "European Americans" because of the PC Patrol. I think that's a bit much. I was brought up to call a spade a spade and a redskin a redskin. Everyone's just too sensitive.
Mr. Colangelo was an officer of the law by the way. And a real - what you might call - entrepreneur. Late at night I'd see men dumping boxes of radios and TV's, toasters and stereos on his front lawn. Mr. C. never seemed to remember them being dropped off though. I asked him about it one day when I was ten. He smiled, pointed his big old gun at me and said, "Don't you worry about anything, missie." Just like we were in a John Wayne movie. I love those memories.
Today people get pissed off at officers of the law when they beat the crap out of special education folks or dark skinned kids with hoodies. But the truth is they're just doing their jobs, protecting the rest of us from what could be a clear and present danger.
I have fond memories of Theresa too. She was a gas. (That was an expression we used back then) In Theresa's case she really was 250 pounds of the stinkiest methane you could imagine. Not sure what she was eating for breakfast every day but you always knew when Theresa was in our house. Mom warned us never to light matches when she was around. She had that terrible disease where your skin slowly turns white. She looked like a cumulonimbus cloud floating through the neighborhood. (Theresa inspired my love of metaphor incidentally. She's why I became a poet.)
Theresa was a very good mother too. Mom said she was "extra attentive" to her 7 year old son, Tommy. She always hollered the same thing every night before sunset. "Get in here now you little son of a bitch before I split your head open." Then we'd all laugh throughout the village - that nervous kind of laughter. She was the Jackie Gleason of F Street. Today Theresa would probably be put in jail for "child abuse". I guess there's no more cutting anyone some slack. Yes, Tommy had a few bruises. What kid didn't? You can't even twist your kid's arm today without some watch group harassing you.
Don't get me started on animal rights. Cows have feelings? You've got to be kidding.
My tongue just switched positions incidentally. It's hard to hold it in one place for long.
I suppose nostalgia is like that. But I can tell you when I see those men and women in Congress working so diligently to turn back the clock and bring us back to the 1950's and 60's before all the you know what hit the fan, it makes me proud to be an American.
A few more years like the last 20 and we won't need a time machine.
Segregation, back alley abortions, police corruption, obesity, child and animal abuse. Nuclear threat. They have fancy names now for what we just believed back then were things that should not be named.
