"Made in Japan." Our fathers, who may well have fought in the Pacific theater in WWII, would derisively roll their eyes when reading this out loud from a label on a cheap piece of junk. "Serves them right" they might have mused, recalling fallen comrades in arms, "to be the lowly producers of the world's cheap junk." When we grew up, probably 90% of our toys bore the label claiming Japan as their place of origin. Long before we became so dependent on foreign oil, our first serious trade deficit arose thanks to huge ships loaded with every sort of plastic or tin gewgaw which was assembled in that Asian island nation half a world away. And that label implied cheapness, shoddiness, disposability, lack of quality. One would NEVER give someone else a meaningful gift that was made in Japan. How times have changed. At presstime, the economic roller-coastering of late has put many American companies in a state of crisis. General Motors in particular is in serious trouble, the very continued existence of this industrial giant being in real jeopardy. Yet, Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Mazda, and Honda are all doing very well, thank you. And the reason they are doing so well is that "made in Japan" has come to mean something very, very different than it did when we Boomers were kids. Where did it all begin? When did the "Made in Japan" label go from something to be derided to a stamp of the highest quality? A date would be hard to pick. But by the mid 1970's, Japanese-made items like cameras were recognized by the rest of the world as being sophisticated instruments manufactured to extremely high standards. There was nothing shoddy about a Nikon. Or a Pentax, a Canon, or an Olympus, for that matter. The elder members of the Boomer generation were coming home from Vietnam loaded with goodies picked up very cheaply overseas. These goodies included Pioneer stereos, Seiko watches, and Nikon cameras. The same kids who played with toys that their fathers sneered at now viewed items made in Japan in a very new light. What Japanese-manufactured items would be the next hot tickets? During the Korean conflict, Japanese automakers, who had been around since the early 20th century, were commissioned to manufacture army trucks. The much-needed business from the nation's conquerors was just the ticket to revive an industry that had been driven to near-extinction by the loss of WWII. After the Korean armistice, the manufacturers cranked out tiny cars perfect for Japan's crowded roads and expensive fuel prices. Occasionally, one of these miniature vehicles would show up on American highways, to the amusement of WWII vets driving massive tailfinned land-boats. By the 1970's, when all of those Vietnam vets were arriving back home, Japanese cars had gotten a bit larger and more powerful. They also had developed a reputation for dependability and durability. And they got good gas mileage when fuel prices began going haywire. That leads to today. When my kids began looking at the possibility of purchasing their first cars (which would be affordable on a minimum-wage budget), I told them that dad would work on them for free as long as they were (a) Japanese and (b) fuel-injected. They kept up their end of the bargain, so did I. Now, China is the world's laughingstock when it comes to cheap junk. Sometimes, it's not so funny when things like poisons get into foodstuffs. But look for the world's most populous nation to sooner or later learn the lesson so effectively demonstrated by Japan: Quality is much, much more valuable than quantity.

It was great growing up in the Jet Age, which melded seamlessly into the Space Age. We took the Art Deco dream and turned it into real life. The ultra-modern, automated society that was envisioned by the generation that endured the Great Depression was becoming real for us, the Baby Boomers. What better way to turn the old into new than to remove that messy firetrap known as the Christmas tree and replace it with a beautiful, shimmering aluminum model, complete with bright blue globes and a light wheel that would magically transform it into a rainbow of colors in a darkened room? Thus did many of us grow up with memories of, not coniferous smells, strings of lights, or mom sweeping up dead needles on a daily basis, but instead, past visions of conical-shaped metallic tannenbaume that lived in boxes in the attics eleven months per year. The aluminum Christmas tree can trace its "roots" (groan) to 1958. It all began in Chicago, when an anonymous enterprising Ben Franklin store employee created a small Christmas tree out of metal and put in a window display. Tom Gannon, who worked for Manitowoc, Wisconsin's Aluminum Specialty Company as the toy sales manager, was in town for a visit, and he was impressed. So when he went back home, he pitched the idea of an aluminum tree to the company president. You see, Manitowoc was known as the Aluminum Cookware Capital of the World. So why not create a Christmas tree out of the same material, which could be used year after year, and which would leave nary a stray needle on the carpet? The president was impressed, and designers soon set to work. By late 1959, the aluminum Christmas tree was offered for sale to the public. The tree was in a kit form that would be assembled by the homeowner. The package included a floodlamp with a rotating four-colored disk in front of it that would change the colors of illumination every fifteen seconds or so. There was a very practical reason for the lamp's inclusion. The first trees' branches were made of aluminum-covered paper which was even more flammable than spruce needles. Not only that, but a broken bulb could cause a nasty short circuit amongst the metallic foliage. So customers were strongly discouraged from hanging any other types of lights on the tree. However, bright blue ornaments were encouraged (and included in many packages). The trees sold fairly well the first year, but the 1960 Christmas season saw their numbers skyrocket. Thus did many of us have sweet memories planted in our young minds of glorious scintillating aluminum branches that magically changed colors before our very eyes. The boom lasted for ten years. During this time, colored trees appeared with shades like blue, pink, and green (imagine that!). Then, closely paralleling the same fate and timeline of plastic pink flamingoes, they fell out of style and began to be considered tacky. But, like their polycarbonate avian brethren, aluminum trees have once again become fashionable in a retro sense. Thus, at least one brick-and-mortar museum dedicated to aluminum trees, ATOM, exists, and vintage aluminum trees in immaculate shape sell on eBay for prices approaching four figures. And yes, they are making them again. The ones our parents bought were less than ten clams. At this site, (sale) prices range from 289 to 939 bucks. So, like many of our memories, you can once again enjoy this blast from the past. Just remember to bring a fat pocketbook with you...

The Blogging Boomers Carnival, 88th edition, has been foist upon us. All ye click this link to explore the assemblage!

The Blogging Boomers Carnival is off and running over at the Midlife Crisis Queen. Go have a look for yourself!

I have spent about fifteen hours moving I Remember JFK (and about twenty other domains that I host) over to a new server. It's been quite an experience that tested all of my powers of geekiness, but it's done. The results should be faster load times for you, and less out of my pocketbook ;-). And I hope to be back on track with a new memory Wednesday. So stay tuned...

The term "ubiquitous" is defined as "existing or being everywhere, esp. at the same time; omnipresent." Ubiquitous perfectly describes the humble writing implement known as the Crayola Crayon. The depicted postage stamp was released in 1998, graced with an illustration of an early-20th-century Crayola box. This shows that kids have been playing with Crayolas for over a century, making the pigmented wax writing implements ubiquitous in the truest sense of the word. Binney and Smith, a company that specialized in industrial pigments, released the first box of eight Crayola crayons containing red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, and black sticks in 1903. It sold for a nickel. The brains behind Crayolas (the name was dreamed up by Alice Binney, wife of one of the company's founders) realized that kids would delight in drawing and coloring with them. They would also likely ingest them in the process. Therefore, Crayolas were made of non-toxic materials. Thus did they arrive in my hands sometime in the early 1960's. I don't remember my first box of Crayolas, but, like most kids, coloring was one of my first artistic activities. I was probably three or so, just old enough to be somewhat trusted not to eat the delicious-smelling creations. Seriously, is there any more intoxicating aroma than opening up a shiny new pack of Crayola Crayons? But, of course, it wasn't all joy for Boomer kids when it came to Crayolas. The first thing that would happen is that the more popular colors would wear down. That would lead to using, say, raw umber to color a tree trunk instead of brown, which was showing wear and tear (as in tearing the paper sleeve back a bit). The more fortunate among us had the 64-color box that had that sharpener in the back. Thus, a reasonable facsimile of the pristine pointed tip that adorned a brand-new Crayola could be produced. The rest of us had to make do with using a dull crayon's sharpest edge for fine details. But sooner or later, time would catch up with every new box of crayons, and they would be reduced to shortened, war-wounded shadows of their former selves. So many of our boxes of Crayolas looked like the image to the right: Once immaculate and beautiful, but now showing signs of struggles against coloring books that required vast amounts of yellow, dark blue, and black to create landscapes and such that would adorn refrigerators and schoolroom walls for an amount of time suitable for masterpieces of their caliber. Eventually, popular Crayolas would become too short to go into the box. Then they would be relegated to a cigar box full of their brethren which would have all of their paper peeled off, to be used by laying the entire crayon down on the paper and creating a one-inch wide swath of, say, blueness for a vast sky. Like us, Crayolas saw their share of having to change with the times for politically correct reasons. In 1958, in response to requests from schoolteachers, "Prussian blue" was renamed "midnight blue." I'm not exactly sure what that was all about, unless there was a sense of anti-Teutonic prejudice in the air. In 1962, the color "flesh" was renamed "peach." I guess that's better than "Caucasian." And in 1999, "Indian red" became "chestnut." The last color change is particularly PC. You see, "Indian red" is a pigment produced in India and used in oil paints. However, since it could give the "wrong impression," it was renamed. Thus have Crayolas mirrored the Boomer generation. We are showing wear and tear, some of us more than others. We have had to make changes as society has demanded them. But we have also endured in pretty much the same easily-recognizable form that we have always had. Could a postage stamp commemoration be far behind?

The elder members of the Boomer have once again spoken. Today's I Remember JFK memory is all about Winky-Dink and You, praised by, among others, uber-geek Bill Gates as an interactive kid's show that turned the television into the world's first multimedia device. Winky-Dink began airing at 9:30 central time on Saturday mornings in 1953. Televisions were rare enough then that kids would often gather at a home that had one to see the adventures of the little star-headed adventurer wearing the plaid pants who needed YOUR help to get out of various fixes. Winky-Dink featured Jack barry as Winky's narrator, who would prompt kids at home to put their plastic Winky-Dink screen over the front of the boob tube and draw whatever it was that the hero needed to formulate an escape from whatever fix he had found himself in. Of course, the mere lack of a screen wouldn't stop imaginative children from drawing directly on the glass with whatever writing implement was handy. Thus did many a parent learn that a fifty-cent investment in a Winky-Dink screen kit would greatly extend the life of a much more expensive television set. To say that Winky-Dink had a passionate following would be an understatement. There are a wealth of memories all over the web from grown-up kids who assisted W-D in escaping tight spots by drawing bridges to get over rivers, parachutes to gently lower him to the ground, or ladders to crawl out of deep holes. The reason for these vivid recollections is simple: the act of drawing on the screen helped plant the moment deeply into the child's permanent memory. TV was new enough that the youngsters involved likely remembered life without it, and now, this recently-obtained incredible talking moving picture machine was inviting them to become part of the show! That's powerful stuff. The interaction also involved decoding messages. Example: Horizontal lines would appear on the screen. Barry would direct kids at home to trace them out with the soft Winky-Dink crayons included in the kit. Later in the show, vertical lines would be shown. Once the kid traced them out, a secret message would appear. Now, I ask you: is there anything on this planet more cool than that to a seven-year old kid? Afterwards, the plastic screen would be peeled off of the television and wiped clean. Static electricity made for a very powerful "magnet" that held the sheet in place. It was all perfect for an interactive television experience. Mr. Bungle joined Jack Barry on the show each week. Dayton Allen played the hapless assistant who would inadvertently screw things up. Allen was a familiar "face" of 1950's and 60's children's television, playing the puppet voices of Phineas T. Bluster and Flub-a-Dub on Howdy Doody, He also voiced Deputy Dawg, Fearless Fly, and those mischievous magpies known as Heckle and Jeckle. Winky-Dink and You rode high until it was canceled in April 1957. Host Jack Barry had gotten quite busy with other projects, including hosting the soon-to-be-infamous quiz show Twenty-One. Thus ended chapter one of Winky-Dink. Chapter two began in 1969, with a syndicated version of the show that once again caused kits for interaction to be sold in dime stores all over the nation. The five-minute show was a minor hit until 1973. This time, the cause of its demise was more obvious: concerns about radiation possibly emanating from now-common color televisions. Today, you can still purchase Winky-Dink (the latter incarnation) on DVD, including the screen kit, at this site. It's a cheap 25 dollar investment in planting some seriously great memories into the minds of your grandchildren. And great memories are what life is all about, right?

It's possible to fall in love when you're six years old. I recall being quite enamored with numerous beautiful ladies on television as a child. There was Annette, my first. Jeannie grabbed my attention, as well as that of every other male in the USA. But I had forgotten how much I was in love with Shari Lewis until I found the featured YouTube video of her in the early 60's. Sonia Phyllis Hurwitz was born on January 17, 1933. She adopted the stage name Shari Lewis when she broke into show business as a puppeteer and ventriloquist. In 1952, she won first prize on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts. In 1957, New York kids would wake up to a show called Hi Mom. In that year, on that show, Shari, now a fixture in local children's television, debuted a simple sock puppet named Lamb Chop. The diminutive ewe would accompany Lewis into stardom. It wasn't long before Lamb Chop made a national TV appearance on Captain Kangaroo. She (and her beautiful creator) were an instant sensation. Lamb Chop wasn't your usual cutesy puppet. TV Acres, a frequent research source for me, describes her thusly:

(Lamb Chop is a) 6-year-old girl, very intuitive and very feisty, a combination of obstinacy and vulnerability....you know how they say fools rush in where wise men fear to go? Well, Lamb Chop would rush in, then scream for help!

Indeed, while looking quite cute, Lamb Chop would frequently let loose with wise cracks that would make stand-up comedians proud. The humor was frequently aimed at adults, making Lamb Chop a hit for all ages. Shari and friends (including her other puppet creations) got their own show in 1960. The Shari Lewis Show rode high for three years, then was unceremoniously canceled by CBS. Animated kid shows were much cheaper to produce than live-action varieties, thus ended a truly great series. But Shari and her smart-aleck sheep weren't done, not by any means. They appeared in video shorts, in dozens of books, as guests on numerous TV shows, and on their own UK series. When we started buying videotapes for our kids in the 80's, Lamb Chop was a huge seller as Boomer parents recalled how much they loved her. Thus, many too young to be Boomers are fans. In 1992, Lamb Chop's Play-Along began a successful five-year run on PBS. Shari hosted the show, of course. Even more children began loving Lamb Chop. But in 1998, this beautiful, sprightly, talented entertainer was tragically taken from us at the too-young age of 65 by uterine cancer. Thankfully, Lamb Chop continues to live on in the hands of Shari's daughter Mallory, talented in her own right. Atta girl. Watching films of Shari performing with her simple puppets fills you with astonishment at her talent. She eagerly follows along with the conversation between the critters, looking as fascinated by the goings-on as we are. You soon forget that they aren't real. No wonder we Boomer kids went nuts over Shari, Lamb Chop and her friends.

One of the most popular search terms people use for this site is "popo gigo." This proves two things. First of all the animated Italian mouse continues to have a worldwide following, and second, people have a hard time with his name! Well, I'll drop the term Popo Gigo two or three times into this article to help them find us. Indeed, in Japanese the mouse is properly known as Toppo Jijo and Topo Jijo. There, that should get Google involved in sending me more curious folks who remember a mouse with an Italian accent. Because, after all, I Remember JFK is THE source of all things nostalgia to the Baby Boomer generation, right? ;-) Topo Gigio was the creation of Italian animator Maria Perego. The stick-controlled foam rubber puppet was a big hit on Italian TV in the early 60's, and Ed Sullivan's staff got wind of the mouse's popularity among children and adults. Thus Topo Gigio made his first appearance on April 14, 1963, just in time for me (as well as millions of other 60's kids) to become an ardent fan. Researching this piece opened my eyes up to a correction of something I had believed all my life: that Topo Gigio was French. That's probably some sort of great insult to both cultures. I guess I just didn't understand the subtle nuances between the Latin-based languages when I was five. It was a team effort to make Topo Gigio come alive. According to this source,

The puppeteers moved Topo with their hands and three inch sticks. Maria Perego, Topo's creator, moved Topo's mouth and legs. Frederico Giolo moved Topo's arms, while his wife Annabella controlled the puppets oversized ears. The man who gave Topo his voice was Peppino Mazullo (some sources have called him Giuseppe Mazullo), who provided it offstage.

If I recall correctly, Topo Gigio would make his appearances late in the show. He would appear in his nightclothes and parry with "Eddie" for a couple of minutes before telling him that he must go to sleep and dream. Many times, the object of his dreaming was his sweetheart, Rosie. Then Ed would give him a kiss and he would crawl into his little bed. Such a ritual was very therapeutic for a kid who was terrified by the prospect of waking up shaking from a nightmare. Little Topo Gigio let me know that dreaming was, indeed, a wonderful thing, to be looked forward to. After he went to sleep, I was ready to do likewise. The diminutive mouse was a regular fixture of the show right up until its final 1971 episode. He might have vanished at that point, and for the English-speaking world, an argument might have been made that he did indeed do just that. But remember Topo Gigio was an Italian creation. And despite losing the weekly boost in popularity from "Eddie," his creators continued to market the mouse to the rest of the world. The result is that today, Topo Gigio has a huge following among the Spanish-speaking and Japanese-speaking world. Topo appears (as Toppo Jijo) in Japanese anime cartoons. So today, millions of Japanese children are planting memories of the very same mouse that we Boomers fell in love with way back in the 60's, albeit in a completely different format. He has also been the subject of record albums and videos released all over South America. Thus, the popularity of the product of Ms. Perego's imagination has, in many ways, surpassed that of "Eddie" himself, whose show planted the mouse in our Boomer memories. Here's a Youtube video of Sullivan and Topo Gigio doing their thing.

The 86th edition of the Blogging Boomers Carnival is up and running over at This Marriage Thing. Go see what's going on with the coolest Boomer bloggers on the net!

It has come to my attention that when I embed a YouTube video here, and this site is viewed through Internet Explorer, it looks ugly. The video sits on top of the text like a block of styrofoam in the ocean, instead of being smoothly wrapped by text. The reason for this is Microsoft Internet Explorer. IE is, in this web developer's eyes, a problem child. Browsers like Opera, Firefox, and Google's Chrome all follow (to a greater or lesser extent) W3C standards. Microsoft, however, has long made it a practice to do things their own way, ignoring standards followed by everyone else. This is their business strategy. If you get used to doing things Microsoft's way, so goes the theory, then you will be bound to them for life, for better or worse. It's a very poor business strategy, IMHO. And I won't even go into the security risks to your private data that IE presents. I try to make things look nice for IE users. After all, they comprise 57.5% of this site's visitors. But, unfortunately, you can't have your cake and eat it too when it comes to embedding YouTube videos. There is code that will allow text to wrap nicely in IE and in the polite browsers, but it's a complicated jumble that has to be customized for every video embedded. So I have decided to make the videos look nicely text-wrapped for Firefox et al. That means that they should also look nice for any non-IE browser. My apologies for the ugly placement of YouTube videos, IE users. It's nothing personal. There's a reason that IE's market share drops every month. Please look into trying Firefox, Opera, or Chrome. It's safer, the web looks better, and it'll make you feel better about yourself.

Perhaps it's just me, but I recall being asked that question A LOT when I was a kid. Strangely, my own kids don't remember being asked so much. But there was no doubt in my mind what I would be one day, far off into the future, when I stopped being a kid and transformed into a full-grown man: a SCIENTIST! I was obsessed with science as a child. My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Abels, taught me to read in a single day via the magic of phonics. Science books were soon being devoured. And I was fascinated with things like bugs, crawdads, tree leaves, birds, and various things I found living in the dirt while excavating with Tonka equipment. Ergo, needless to say, someday I would ply my trade by wearing a white coat, being surrounded by loads of laboratory equipment, and making world-changing discoveries. Well, like with most of us, life took a different turn for me. I spent twenty-three years working as an electrician. It was a decent trade, but hardly what I envisioned as my life's work when I was seven years old. Fortunately for me, my love of science somehow translated into an affinity for all things computer. So I was able to make an incredibly rewarding career change at the age of forty to professional web programmer. I don't wear a white coat to work, I wear khaki slacks and polo shirts. My discoveries don't change the world, but they do help the profitability of my employer. I'm not surrounded by beakers and test tubes, but do have lots of Dilbert cartoon on the walls. Above all, I enjoy my job, which was what I DID envision myself doing at the age of seven. Had we gotten our wishes, the world would now be full of firemen, astronauts, ballet dancers, cowboys, policemen, and perhaps a handful of scientists. That's how things turned out for me. But what about you, friends? What did you see yourself doing when you grew up? And how did it turn out for you? Please share your thoughts with the rest of us. The floor is yours.

Human nature is a funny thing. Put people into strange circumstances, and the results can be hilarious. Producer Allen Funt figured this out in 1947, and began a radio show called Candid Microphone, It was a hit, and also proved popular in the form of filmed theater shorts. In 1948, in the very infancy of the medium, Candid Microphone made it to TV. If you older Boomers don't remember Candid Microphone, it's for good reason. The show jumped all over the place before being merged into The Tonight Show as a recurring segment, followed by yet another move to The Garry Moore Show. Somewhere during all of the hopping around, the segment changed its name from Candid Microphone to Candid Camera. Finally, in 1960, it appeared as Candid Camera, the TV show. And CBS now had a very solid 9:00 (Central time) anchor on the Must-See TV night of the decade, Sunday. Bedtime for kids in the Enderland house was 9:00 sharp on Sunday nights. Ergo, I don't have as many memories of Candid Camera as I wish that I did. But still, I can recall Allen Funt and Durward Kirby introducing short segments and my middle brother (who would sometimes successfully cajole dad into letting us stay up an extra half-hour) and myself collapsing in laughter. In typical kid-memory, what I recall most sharply was the "window blind" effects as a scene would fade in and out. But thankfully, YouTube is well populated with classic scenes from the era, as well as from later incarnations of the show and the British version. Witness the "drive-in bank," featuring frequent participant Fannie Flagg. The show was a monumental hit. Eventually, its peering into human nature would be much imitated by shows featuring hidden video and user-supplied home videos of whoopsy-daisy moments. At press time, the concept has culminated (for better or, in most cases, worse) in the form of the first distinctive TV style of the 21st century: reality TV. Funt deservedly gets the credit for the genius behind Candid Camera, but what you may not appreciate about him is the massive amounts of work that had to take place behind the scenes. For example, cameras were huge, bulky things in the 50's and early 60's. While they could be hidden behind fake walls and such, they also required extremely bright lights. Thus, many candid scenes were filmed under the guise of "remodeling" work being done in the various locations involved. Additionally, clueless network censors and sponsors who were paranoid about what constituted acceptable TV programming caused Funt misery. They needn't have worried. Funt himself made sure each segment was squeaky-clean. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications:

Funt himself destroyed any material that was off color, or reached too deeply into people's private lives. A hotel gag designed to fool guests placed a "men's room" sign on a closet door. The funniest, but ultimately unaired reaction, came from a gentleman who ignored the obvious lack of accommodations and "used" the closet anyway.

The show made for many a Sunday night laugh, then was unceremoniously yanked in 1967 despite barely slipping out of the Nielsen Top Twenty. It reappeared in a polyester-clad syndicated version in the early 70's, with Funt's guest hosts including Susan George, Betsy Palmer, and the aforementioned Miss Flagg. More recently, Funt's son continued to carry the torch in a revamped version of the show until a couple of years ago. Indeed, look for Candid Camera to resurface again and again. Finally, here are some of the greatest classic sketches as found on YouTube: Drive-in bank Diner scenes Rookie dentist Elevator group behavior Full closet

I was very fortunate to be a change-of-life child. My older brothers weathered lean financial years growing up, typical of young families. But by the time I came along (mom's surprise at the age of 37!), the household I was born into was a comfortable middle-class situation with dual incomes. Ergo, we enjoyed a new car every other year, Saturday night dinners out, and a couple of amazing vacations. In 1967, we went to the World's Fair in Montreal. That will be a future remembrance in itself. In 1968, after much Flipper-fed begging on my part, we drove to Florida. That two weeks make for some of my most precious memories. And it's a pleasure to dust a few of them off and share them with you. One June morning, we piled into the Plymouth and headed for the Sunshine State. I was in eager expectation as we headed for something I'd never seen, but always dreamed about visiting: the ocean. My first glance of the ocean was in Biloxi, MS. I made a beeline for the shallow Gulf surf and tasted a drop of water to make certain that it really was salty, a ritual I still find myself performing when visiting either coast. Soon, we were heading straight east along the coast for Florida. The ocean was a constant companion along the right side, and I bugged dad to death wanting to stop and jump in. But dad had other ideas. He drove across Florida's panhandle in a beeline for the Atlantic. Eventually, we popped out of landlocked driving at St. Augustine. Florida of those days had less ostentatious tourist attractions. Orlando was simply a sleepy, unremarkable little inland town known for its orange production. The destinations sought out by 1960's Florida tourists were by and large historical, natural, or kitsch, sometimes a combination of the three. History-wise, we spent a morning at Castillo de San Marcos, a fort built at St. Augustine by Spaniards eager to defend their territory from those blasted Brits. The 17th century fortress is no worse for wear today, unlike many other 1960's coastal attractions. Dad knew how to take a vacation. Take two weeks and do whatever. No hurries, stop and spend time at interesting places. Thus, we stayed a night or two at a series of small motels along Route 19. One I recall with particular pleasure was in Daytona Beach. It faced a quiet backwater beach that allowed for some bodacious sand castle building. Low tide would also reveal a wealth of undisturbed shells. The lonely beach had few people walking up and down its stretch. The gentle water would wash up sea urchin shells intact, the eggshell-thin structures handled with care by the mighty ocean. But mom wanted to see Miami Beach, so we moved on. We passed countless mom-and-pop alligator farms and parrot shows, most of them long gone. Once in a while we would stop, thus was I able to touch an endangered indigo snake, watch parrots ride little tricycles, and take home a genuine stuffed foot-long alligator. Once we arrived at Miami, we also visited the Seaquarium. I recall disappointment that the "real" Flipper (no doubt one of her stand-ins) didn't chatter endlessly like on television. Reality sucks. Mom finally saw Miami Beach, and the future of Florida. It was all huge hotels, condos, and other developments. Unimpressed, we got back on the road. Their hundreds of billboards worked their magic on us, and we made a stop at Cypress Gardens. The water skiing exhibitions were pretty cool, but the glass-bottomed boats were what really lit my fuse. To this day, I still spend a lot of my beach time snorkeling like the eight-year-old kid I was then, utterly fascinated by the underwater world. That was the last two-week vacation we would take. Sadly, our family just got too busy with other things to enjoy more than a week or less at locations that needed to be arrived at quickly. I still have a deep passion for all things Florida. I once took the kids to Disney World, but now that they are grown, have no desire to return. Instead, my wife and I share a love of the simpler Florida of the 60's. Thus, our present-day vacations involve lots of beach time, quiet boat rides to see wildlife, and an occasional indulgence into a kitschy tourist trap (just as long as it looks like it's been around since the 60's).

It's time for yet another episode of the continuing drama known as Blogging Boomers Carnival... This latest chapter takes place over at Contemporary Retirement Coaching. Enjoy!