I guess I'll file this one under reviews. This column is about a couple of songs that share the philosophy of I Remember JFK, which is, of course, Boomer nostalgia ROCKS! I know of two songs that fill the bill perfectly. There are probably more, I'm depending on you, the readers, to help me out here. One of these songs, Old Days, was released in 1975. I was sixteen. However, I was already waxing nostalgic for the 60's. The song is definitely aimed at the elder members of the Boomer generation. But it's still a fun nostalgic trip for anyone who can remember JFK. Kids of the Baby Boom was released in 1987 by the Bellamy Brothers. Calvin Klein on the underpants was a red hot item in that particular year. Many of us were new parents. My own daughter was a year old, and my son was "under development." And nothing changes your perspective on life like the experience of being a new father or mother. I wasn't too big a country fan at the time, but I went nuts for this song anyway. It really connected with me. What follows are the lyrics to these songs, and a link to Songza, where you can hear either one of them (and about a million more) for free. Enjoy, before the human slime that run the RIAA shut it down. The Bellamy Brothers - Kids of the Baby Boom (1987) Our daddys won the war and came home to our moms They gave them so much love that all us kids were born We all grew up on Mickey Mouse and hula-hoops Then we all bought BMW's and brand new pickup trucks And we watched John Kennedy die one afternoon Kids of the baby boom It was a time of new prosperity in the USA All the fortunate offsprings never had to pay We had sympathy for the devil and the Rolling Stones Then we got a little older, we found Haggard and Jones A generation screaming for more room Kids of the baby boom Chorus: Kids of the baby boom, we had freedom, we had money Baby boom, here in the land of milk and honey Counting our chickens way too soon Kids of the baby boom Now we all can run computers and we all can dance We all have Calvin Klein written on our underpants And at six-o'clock, like robots, we turn on the news Watch those third world countries deal out more abuse Remember the first man on the moon Kids of the baby boom (repeat chorus) As our lives become a capsule they send to the stars And our children look at us like we came from Mars As the farms disappear and the sky turns black We're a nation full of takers, never giving back We never stop to think what we consume Kids of the baby boom (repeat chorus) Our optimism mingles with the doom Kids of the baby boom Chicago - Old Days (1975) Old days Good times I remember Fun days Filled with simple pleasures Drive-in movies Comic books and blue jeans Howdy Doody Baseball cards and birthdays Take me back To a world gone away Memories Seem like yesterday Old days Good times I remember Gold days Days Ill always treasure Funny faces Full of love and laughter Funny places Summer nights and streetcars Take me back To a world gone away Boyhood memories Seem like yesterday Old days - in my mind and in my heart to stay Old days - darkened dreams of good times gone away Old days - days of love and feeling fancy free Old days - days of magic still so close to me Old days - in my mind and in my heart to stay Old days - darkened dreams of good times gone away Old days - days of love and feeling fancy free Old days - days of magic still so close to me

Ready for a brain cell workout? How many flipsides can YOU recall? While driving down the road the other day and listening to The Animals' Animalisms, the song "Cheating" came on. I hadn't heard that tune since I played it on a portable record player about 1970. What I vividly remember is that "Cheating" was the flip side of my favorite song as a child: "House of the Rising Sun." A seven-year-old kid was likely to play both sides of a record that his older brother only heard on the hit side. Such is the nature of a seven-year-old. Curiosity is high, a sense of what song is hot has not yet developed. Add that to a slightly-better-than-normal memory and you get factoids like the Beatles' "Thank You Girl" was backed by "Do You Want to Know a Secret." Those records, that red-plaid colored record player, and I spent many a rainy afternoon in my room. Thus, I can state, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the flipside of Freddie and the Dreamers' "I'm Telling You Now" is a forgettable (not to me, of course) ditty called "What Have I Done to You." Record companies have long put less-than-marketable-as-singles on the flipsides of 45's. Once in a while, a release like Hey Jude, backed with Revolution would sneak out, but by and large, the flipsides are thrown in as a freebie that the consumer would never buy on its own merit. Now, of course, the flipside is a thing of the past, as 45's, while not extinct (thanks in large part to the jukebox industry), are certainly not available all over town like they once were. Thus, today's kids are growing up without knowledge of trivial facts like Sgt. Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Berets" was backed with something called "Letter from Vietnam." A kid would enjoy the lesser-renowned tunes. "Hungry", by Paul Revere and the Raiders, was a great song, but then again so was "There She Goes." Crispian St. Peters' "Pied Piper" was a hit, but "Sweet Dawn, My true Love," the flip, would have been one too, had seven-year-olds determined the charts. In 1972, I made a very regrettable mistake. I bought my first 45. Such an occasion should be marked by joyous memories of walking out of the Gibson's Discount Store with a classic. American Pie? Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress? Rick Nelson's Garden Party? I bought the Osmond's "Down by the Lazy River." Oh, the shame. By the way, the flipside was called "He's the Light of the World." So now, readers, it's your turn. Dig deep in those memory banks and post your own flipside songs that you probably hadn't thought about in thirty or more years. AAARGH! I have forgotten one. For the life of me, the flipside of Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter by Herman's Hermits has escaped from my memory banks. Can anyone help me out?

Orson Bean was born Dallas Frederick Burrows on July 22, 1928 in Burlington, Vermont. He had a cousin you may have heard of, Calvin Coolidge. But speaking from my own perspective, he is renowned for his quick comedic style and demonstrated on various episodes of the Johnny Carson Show which I viewed as a child. The original Mr. Bean was a huge influence on this particular class cutup who continues to practice his craft as he very rapidly nears the half-century mark. But interestingly, while I have found much in the way of biographical information on Orson Bean the stage and film actor and panelist on To Tell the Truth, information on his Tonight Show appearances was practically nonexistent. So today's I Remember JFK memory will recall the nights when I would light up like a Christmas tree, because (a) Orson Bean was on Carson and (b) it was either a summer night or a Friday, which meant that I could actually stay up and watch the funniest man in the world, apologies to Johnny himself. When he was a teen, Burrows dreamed of a career as a magician. He took on the first name of another famous prestidigitator, Orson Wells. I was unable to find the source of his adopted last name, maybe it just sounded good to the young man. His quick wit soon outshone his sleight-of-hand talents, and by the early 50's he had a successful New York nightclub act. Life was good for the young man, but he felt a strong calling to the footlights. From 1955 to 1961, he appeared in some likewise successful Broadway shows. He won Critics Choice awards for his performances in Mister Roberts and Say Darling. Bean continued to appear in Broadway plays throughout the mid 60's, but was better known in the early part of the decade for his gig as a panelist on To Tell the Truth. By the early 70's, his show business jobs consisted largely of guest appearances on talk shows. Must-see TV for me was when I would catch a commercial for that night's Carson show and among the guests was Orson Bean. Bean's gigs on the show exemplified his talents in delivering the quick quip, the good old-fashioned joke, and the hilarious true-life tale. One I recall involved his wife and himself stumbling into a crowded gay New York bar. They soon realized that they were in the wrong place, and began making their way to the front door through the throng. Orson felt a pinch on his rear end. He turned around to see a young man looking the other way. So he playfully pinched him back. The man gave him what Bean described as a "dazzling smile." Once his wife and himself made their escape, she said "I spotted a path to the door and pinched your butt to get your attention. Why did you ignore me?" I'm happy to report that Orson is still around and working. He was on How I Met Your Mother last year. He also had a fat recurring role as storekeeper Loren Bray on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as well as roles on some successful Norman Lear series of the 70's. Here's hoping he keeps working a long, long time. And here's also hoping that some of his Carson appearances turn up on YouTube soon. In the meantime, here's a spot from To Tell the Truth that you will enjoy.

The 94th edition of the BBC is up and running over at LifeTwo. Get thyself over there anon!

The Blogging Boomers Carnival is up and running at Don't Gel too Soon. Go have a look. Oh, and look for a new I Remember JFK memory later today.

One of the most sacred rituals that I recall from my childhood was that of getting into the car and driving, sometimes over an hour, to a favorite restaurant. The delicious saturated-fat laden food was a particular delight to my parents, who could remember the very lean times of the Great Depression. So perhaps once a month, we would pile into the Plymouth and head for locations like Chicken Annie's, or Wilder's, or the AQ Chicken House. All three of these fine eateries are still around, I'm happy to say. Perhaps they have altered their menus to provide more health-conscious options, perhaps not. But they are still plugging away, providing unique cuisine that flies in the face of the plethora of generic chains that have become a part of our lives. And Boomers, that should make you smile. After all, if I can quickly come up with three examples of local eateries that have survived since the 60's, I'll bet you can too. Now I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with chains like Applebee's, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, or Shogun. Indeed, there is much to love about the sameness and predictability of the franchise restaurant, especially when you are on the road and hungry. But the unique eating places of our youth were very much savored by our parents, who faithfully returned again and again, sometimes driving an hour or more to get there. After all, they found out by trial and error that they were worth visiting. Perhaps the grapevine at work or at the beauty shop revealed that there was a place in Springdale, Arkansas, accessible only by narrow, curvy Arkansas roads, that served the best fried chicken this side of Alabama. At any rate, our parents loved their favorite restaurants. And we kids loved it when they would take us along. This was a special treat for me, because it was much more common for them to leave me home on Saturday nights in the care of my older brother while they headed off to Joplin, thirty miles away, to feast at Wilder's. I also recall nice-looking eating spots that my parents avoided like the plague. Why was that? Was the food questionable? Was the staff less than pleasant? Was the atmosphere wrong? I doubt that the latter was the case, because many of the often-visited places featured undecorated white walls, or ugly faded art prints of cowboy scenes, or water-stained ceilings. Clearly, chic ambiance was NOT the thing that drew my parents back again and again.. I recall pulling into the AQ Chicken House driveway about 1967 and seeing a dilapidated-looking building, with old barn wood everywhere. But there was also hardly a place to park. My parents would feast on the chicken, but my favorite was the batter-dipped french fries. Oh, the decadent delight! Chicken Annie's was another humble-looking spot, a half-hour drive from home. Sitting out in the middle of nowhere, it too drew a crowd of commuters who couldn't care less about atmosphere, and who found its food too good to resist. Wilder's in Joplin was founded in the year that the stock market crashed, and has managed to survive lots of economic ups and downs since then. Sadly, such was not the case with Mickey Mantle's Steakhouse (although the late Mick still has his name on a trendy New York eatery) and Rafters, which featured a huge fire-breathing dragon sign. I was completely spellbound as that neon-lit beast would spew out flames from its mouth every minute or so, illuminating the black Joplin Saturday night and burning itself indelibly into the memory banks of a rapt seven-year-old. How about you? What favorite eating spots of your childhood are still around? Here's hoping you can still visit your own personal equivalent of Chicken Annie's, Wilder's, or the AQ Chicken House.

Rumors of only one nostalgic journey this week are greatly exaggerated. My internet connection is doing much better, thank you. The living room of the 1960's was a warm, friendly place. True, times had changed since our parents might have first purchased our modest homes fifteen of twenty years prior. Most living rooms in the US had a new center of attention: the television set. That one-eyed monster changed the purpose of the home's central location from a place of casual conversation, or possibly listening to the radio, to the spot where our parents unwound after a long day at work, accompanied by a cocktail, Walter Cronkite, a cigarette, and a TV dinner. That piping hot little aluminum dish required special accommodation. It was certainly too hot to sit on one's lap. Enter the aluminum folding TV tray. Evidence exists that the TV tray actually preceded the TV dinner by a year. I traced the much-maligned meal back to possibly 1953. But In her book As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s, author Karal Ann Marling states that national advertising for TV tray tables first appeared in 1952. By 1967, there was scarcely a home in the suburbs that didn't have a stash of neatly folded TV trays placed inobtrusively away in a corner somewhere, ready for instant deployment at around 5:30 in the evening. The earliest examples of TV trays have legs that are constructed lengthwise in the shape of an X that prevented you from placing your human legs comfortably under the tiny table surface. Manufacturers soon reworked the design so that the tubular legs folded along the shorter axes, with the tray top itself dropping down to create a tiny little piece of furniture that fit perfectly out of sight into a space of just a few inches. Sheer engineering genius! Thus did millions of the diminutive home accessories change hands at various stores and find themselves in our childhood homes. The flimsy trays were just sturdy enough to support a TV dinner and a drink. and possibly an ash tray. Add anything else to the load, and you did so at your own risk. Thus did I learn a valuable life lesson at the age of thirteen: Don't attempt to assemble a model sailing ship on a TV tray that might possibly collapse, taking paint, glue, rigging string, and various plastic parts with it to the floor. TV trays sold moderately well in the early 50's, but as TV dinners themselves began to be marketed, and more and more US homes began sporting shiny new television sets, their sales went through the roof. And the best thing about them is their sheer indestructible nature. Thus, fifty-year-old trays may well be in service, having been passed down from parents and grandparents, and now holding a nouveau chic status in this world gone retro-crazy. The legs might become bent, plastic clips may break, but the metal itself is impervious to rust. Thus, even badly scratched up examples that saw action when Bonanza was on Sunday nights are likely still serving, possibly holding small pots populated by African violets on a screened-in porch somewhere. And someday, hundreds or thousands of years hence, perfectly functional examples will likely be recovered from landfills by future archaeologists. Overall, a pretty cool legacy for a cheap, yet brilliant invention.

The glamorous gals over at Fabulous After 40 are hosting the Blogging Boomers Carnival, installment #92. Please join them as they present this week's tasty assortment of all things Boomer.

First of all, my DSL internet connection is dying fast. Next Friday, I get on cable, along with screaming 15 MB speed. but in the meantime, since working on the web under present conditions is pure torture, today's column will be it for Boomer memories this week. Things should be back to normal by next Monday. One of the reasons that we Boomers are so tough and resilient despite the various curve balls that life throws at us is because we had to endure multiple rounds of epidemic ailments when we were kids. These diseases were expected, even welcomed, as rites of passage that provided evidence that we were, indeed, growing up. The goods news about mumps, chicken pox, and rubella measles was that once we went through the agony, that was it. We were provided with lifetime protection against future infections by our wondrous immune systems. So we knew, as we sat there in agony from itching, fever, and overall pain that once it was over, it was OVER! But that didn't provide any short-term relief. No, the only solace we received was that at least we were getting out of school. The very unlucky among us got infected in the summer. There was absolutely no good news about that. I remember having chicken pox. The evidence of the latter is found in occasional scars located on my 49-year-old physique. Why are they there? Because I didn't listen to my mom, of course. She told me not to scratch, but I just couldn't help it. Obviously, most of us couldn't help it. The majority of Baby Boomers have chicken pox scars. There is really nothing unattractive about them. I remember having some heart-rending crushes on a young lady or two who had the telltale marks of a chicken pox infection of the 1960's. The infection lasted about a week, as I recall. Mom was working as a schoolteacher, and dad had his own job, of course, so I spent the week over at Terry Michael Browning's house. Such were the easygoing arrangements our parents had with each other. If one mother was unable to stay home with a sick child, she would trade out with other moms who would have sick kids of their own someday that needed watching. Mumps were another agony that I recall having. My salivary glands swelled to the size of baseballs, or so it seemed. Any sort of movement was sheer agony, and the only relief that was available was orange-flavored Bayer Children's Aspirin, which, as we all know today, will instantly kill any child who takes it. At least I was led to believe such when my own kids were small in the 80's. Interesting, though, that we were given the little white pills by the millions in the 50's and 60's and survived. The relief that aspirin provided was negligible, and my only alternative was to suffer. The good news was that the suffering didn't last as that with chicken pox. It was a couple of days, as I recall. Then there were the three-day measles. Also known as German measles and rubella, as much as a fourth of my second-grade class was out at once with the ailment. As far as I know, I never contracted it. Rubella was bad news for pregnant mothers who had never had the disease as kids. Their babies were born with defects, or were miscarried. Thus, this disease was aggresively fought by the medical research community in the 60's. The first rubella vaccine was made available in 1969, and I can recall many posters at school announcing the need for us to get vaccinated. Maybe that's why I never got the three-day-measles. Vaccines against chicken pox and the mumps were developed later, with the result that our own kids and grandkids may have never experienced any of the big three rites of passage that we Boomer kids faced. Obviously, not EVERY memory we had as kids was one we that want to relive.

The communities that we live in have been evolving since time immemorial. No facet of American culture has undergone more transformations than the downtown business district. Every town with more than a couple hundred residents has one. And the odds are that it has seen its share of ups and downs over the years. And I'm not just talking Boomer years, either. In the area where I grew up, there was a boom in the formation and growth of communities about the turn of the 20th century. In Oklahoma, many of these were given the names of Indian tribes that had been forcefully relocated there during the Trail of Tears era. In Arkansas, where I currently reside, communities are often named after railroad executives, who were often responsible for their formation at key points along the routes. Stroll along the downtown sidewalks of these communities, and you will likely see durable old buildings dating from this era, from the late 1800's to the early 1900's. Those buildings have probably seen much in the way of both glory and ignominy. When we grew up in the 50's and 60's, downtowns were on the rebound. They started off strong, but when the Great Depression hit, many of the businesses that had originally inhabited the buildings dropped out of sight. Many downtown structures were unoccupied while the country 's economy convulsed. However, the economy eventually woke up and began roaring during WWII, and once again downtown buildings became inhabited by thriving businesses. After the war, prosperity was in the air, and every downtown was filled with shoppes run by returned vets who were doing a brisk business. Many a downtown of this era sported a business or two selling the Next Great Invention, television. A big store window might feature several powered-up models, and it was a popular place for the less fortunate who could not yet afford one to enjoy the hypnotic effects of the one-eyed monster. Then there were the dime stores. We all fondly remember the downtowns of our youth containing at least one Woolworths, or TG&Y, or Kress, or Ben Franklin. There would also be banks, a hardware store, a shoe store, and a single-screen movie theater. Thus ended the sweet 60's. The next two decades would lead us to believe that the downtown business district was dead.

Now Main Street's whitewashed windows, and vacant stores Seems like nobody ever wants to go down there no more

In 1984's My Hometown, Bruce Springsteen summed up downtown's plight in that era. The 70's were brutal on the economy. Things were turning around in the 80's, but the effect had not yet reached downtown, and many of us remember the thriving Main Streets of our youth had become depressing places, indeed. Family-owned dime stores, hardware stores, and shoe stores were being attacked on all fronts by suburban shopping malls, massive retail chains, and tight dollars. But our venerable downtowns showed that they still had life left in them. Today, many communities proudly tout their "historical districts." The downtown buildings that we knew and loved have new tenants. Upscale coffee shops, restaurants, and clothiers are often found in formerly run-down buildings that have been the beneficiaries of downtown renewal projects. Of course, not every community has been able to afford to resurrect their downtowns. But enough have that we Boomer kids can smile with satisfaction that not every up-and-down story has to end down.

Perhaps the name of the gadget featured in today's I Remember JFK memory will ring a bell, perhaps not. But I'll bet that one glance at the graphic will make you go "Oh, yeah!" I wish I had my usual researched piece to offer you as far as where the Magic Brain Calculator came from, and its manufacturer, Chadwick. But there just wasn't a whole lot I could find out. But what little I did glean, I hereby share with you. A Boomer kid's options for help in making mathematical calculations on the go in the 50's and 60's were pretty few. There were slide rules, which were only for the geeky. My oldest brother, who was in college, had one, but I had no idea how it operated. Then there was the Addiator, manufactured by Addiator Gesellschaft in Berlin, beginning in 1920. They were sophisticated little hand-held mechanical calculators, but not terribly cheap, and once that nasty Nazi uprising took place, not freely available. But by the time WWII was over, they were back on the market, but still not real cheap. But in the 1950's, the Japanese factories began cranking out a low-priced version of the mechanical adding machine. Chadwick was the name of the enigmatic company that manufactured them, and they appear to have slid out of sight without leaving a trace behind. But they did leave a legacy of thousands of Magic Brain Calculators. Durably made from high-impact plastic and aluminum, probably every one of them still exist in their original form, although many are now buried in landfills, awaiting future archaeological discovery. The little calculators sold for a couple of bucks in dime stores, and were found in many a Boomer home in the 50's and 60's. For that matter, many are still buried in various present-day junk drawers, as they were virtually indestructible, and flat enough to live quietly buried by pens, pencils, and paper clips. I know that we had one in our house. Seven-year-old I was baffled by its actual usage. Did I mention that math is NOT my strong suit? But that didn't stop me from enjoying playing with the gizmo for hours nonetheless, inserting numerical values, running mysterious calculations, and pulling the wire handle up to clear everything. If you too were stumped by how to make the Magic Brain Calculator do addition, subtraction, and even multiplication and division, this site has the original scanned instructions. Very cool! The sheer indestructibleness of the Magic Brain Calculator, combined with its inobtrusive nature, ensures that many thousands still exist. At presstime, there were several on eBay with $9.95 opening bids, and one particularly nice model, with stylus intact, was going for $4.99 with just over a day left. So if you Boomers still employed in an office want to impress the young punks you work with, pick up a Magic Brain Calculator from eBay, or possibly just dig your own out of the junk drawer. Read the linked instructions and practice making actual calculations, Then, at the next staff meeting, whip out a few figure faster than the youth can get their calculator-equipped cell phones to wake up!

It's hard to believe that the BBC, aka Blogging Boomers Carnival, is already up to edition 91! But it's true, and it's being held over at Contemporary Retirement Coaching. By the way, it has come to our attention that the British Broadcasting Company also goes by the initials BBC. Hmmm, perhaps our attorneys should contact them about that...

I Remember JFK proudly presents a new feature: Boomer Reviews! The purpose is to present my own opinions on releases (TV, movies, music) that will be of interest to Boomers who like to wax nostalgic. And of course, your own opinions are strongly encouraged as well! We'll start off with ABC TV's Life on Mars. It airs on Thursday nights at 9:00 Central time. Its competition is NBC's ER, which I stopped watching after its transition from medical drama to soap opera about 2003. If LOM can survive the season, its future looks bright, with NBC's ratings horse stumbling to a series finale this year. On to the show itself. Its premise is that detective Sam Tyler, a modern-day cop (played by Jason O'Mara), gets hit by a car, waking up to find himself in 1973. He wanders around in a daze until he stumbles into a New York precinct police station, where, presumably, he is given a job. Okay, all a bit unbelievable, but it's just entertainment, right? Besides, what comes next makes it a worthwhile viewing for the nostalgic amongst us of the Boomer generation. What comes next is a sepia-toned, smoky, polyester-clad view of 1973 New York, complete with big cars, decent music, and perps getting whacked with chairs during interrogations. Doors are kicked down without warrants, gays are called queers, and hair is grown trashily long, just like we remember. Of course, political correctness must be injected, and Tyler is frequently seen chiding his vintage teammates for their insensibility. If that tendency is kept in check, this show has a chance to shine brightly. Michael Imperioli, brilliant as Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos, plays detective Ray Carling. He instantly steals any scene he walks in on. If you're looking for an underhanded cop character for your next series, Imperioli should fill the bill for the foreseeable future. The precinct chief is played by Harvey Keitel, Ready for another Sopranos reference? He was married for eleven years to Lorraine Bracco, who played psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi. Keitel is a familiar face who has been nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in Bugsy. He has the get-er-done police chief role down pat, with trivial things like warrants, Miranda readings, or requests for lawyers not deterring him a bit from busting bad guys. With the streets full of slimeballs running free because someone forgot to dot an i somewhere, that alone makes you long for the old days just a bit, doesn't it? Tyler's mission is to figure out why he was thrust into the past and get back home. Right there I have my differences with the title character. I would invest in Wal-Mart and Apple IPO's, buy myself a nice $20,000 house, and enjoy what comes next. The plotline for episode three was believable. A Vietnam vet was beaten to death, the "Unwelcoming Committee" (radicals who would spit on Vietnam returnees and call them baby burners) were blamed until savvy-but-ignored-because-she's-a-woman Annie Morris (Gretchen Mol) lets Tyler know her suspicion that the witnesses they are talking to seem to be homosexual. Women and their gay-dar! Eventually, the crime is solved as a lover's quarrel, with a topping of political correctness sprinkled on just enough. If the show sticks with its immaculate period look, and the preachiness is kept to a minimum, look for a long-term hit. In the meantime, the bald guy's DVR is set for an automatic Thursday night recording.

As I have stated repeatedly here, my first coherent memory was the death of JFK. However, many slightly older Boomers have have a similar photographic recollection of the death of renowned tortured soul Marilyn Monroe. Starlets have handled their fame with various degrees of aptitude. Some, like Mae West, reveled in the attention, and couldn't get enough of it. Others, like Greta Garbo, felt the need to withdraw completely from public life. Then there are the tortured souls, who simply can't find a way to cope with stardom's steep cost. Norma Jeane Mortensen never knew her father. She barely knew her mother, who spent her own tortured life in mental institutions. Her childhood homes consisted of California foster care facilities. And, sadly typical of foster homes, her young life was scarred by episodes of abuse. In 1942, at the age of sixteen, she entered into an arranged marriage with James Dougherty. The plan was cooked up by her then-current foster mother, Grace Goddard, in order to keep Norma Jeane from yet another foster move, as Grace was about to move out of the state. Predictably, the marriage didn't last. In the beginning, Norma Jeane enjoyed playing with the neighborhood children until her husband would call her home. As she matured into adulthood, she decided that she wanted more out of life. By 1946, she struck out on her own. By then, she had dyed her brown hair platinum blonde, and was now successfully employed as a model. Ben Lyon, a 20th Century Fox executive, spotted her and offered her a screen test. She did well, and went to work under a six month, $125-per-week contract. She also changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. Real stardom followed, and by 1952, she made her first appearance on the cover of Life magazine. She was now the toast of Hollywood, but marital happiness proved elusive to the superstar. The Joe DiMaggio marriage lasted a mere nine months, and steely, intense Arthur Miller provided no emotional support for the fragile actress. She turned to prescription drugs to ease the pain, and her personality began to be adversely affected. Her moods largely depended on what medications were coursing through her bloodstream at the moment. Suffering from a severe sinus headache, Marilyn took some prescribed antibiotics and amphetamines shortly before an invited performance at the White House to wish President Kennedy a happy birthday. Appearing to be drunk, she caused a spectacle by half-whispering a seductive version of the song. As had happened so many times in her life, the public perception of events didn't tell the whole story. A couple of months later, Marilyn was found dead in her hotel room. The death was ruled to be an overdose of barbiturates. Soon, the conspiracy theories flew through the air like filthy starlings heading for their sundown roost. What killed Marilyn? Was it a suicide? Cubans? Russians? Jimmy Hoffa? Marilyn and Joe were to have been remarried. The despondent once-and-future groom had fresh roses placed at Marilyn's crypt thrice-weekly for the next twenty years. Thus ended the tortured life of Norma Jeane Mortensen, aka Norma Jeane Baker, Norma Jeane Dougherty, and Marilyn Monroe. Her death, as depicted on the AMC series Mad Men, was a cause for deep national mourning. Many point to JFK's assassination as the end of innocence for the 60's. However, a case could certainly be made that the demise of this fragile starlet over a year earlier was the real death knell for the carefree times that our prosperous parents had enjoyed after the end of WWII.

One of the great societal changes that took place during the 60's was the banding together of the nation's youth under a common shared cause. That cause was protesting the war in Vietnam. The war itself was a drawn-out affair that was mired in red tape and bureaucratic rules of engagement, and the only sure thing that was coming out of it was lots of young men in the primes of their lives being sent home in bodybags. By the end of the decade, protesting had reached its acme, as students at universities all over the nation staged protests, some peaceful, some, like that at Kent State University in 1970, tragically violent. Four students gave their lives on may 4, 1970. Another suffered permanent paralysis. But one can't simply point a finger at the Ohio National Guard and cry villainy. There is more to the story than that. Sometime around 1990, I read James Michener's book Kent State: What happened and Why. It was a real eye-opener to me, and I recommend you search your own local library to see if a copy is available. Michener painted a picture that is far from that described by those who would decry the incident as a case of trigger-happy Guardsmen who decided to take out students in an act of murder. The protests at the university were caused by Nixon's April 30th speech announcing his plans to accelerate the war by invading Cambodia. A noisy protest took place the next day on the campus's commons area. Plans were made for a further demonstration on May 4. That evening (May1), large groups of students were gathering at downtown bars, still seething over the latest news from Washington. By now, according to Michener's account, professional rabblerousers were strategically whipping the students into an uncontrolled frenzy. A fire was lit in the middle of Kent's Main Street, windows of businesses were broken, and the cops showed up to close down the bars. The next day, a Saturday, the mayor of Kent called in the Ohio National Guard to help maintain order. Students held another protest on the campus, and someone torched the ROTC building. Incidentally, the building itself had been boarded up and was soon to be demolished. Again, Michener presented evidence that outside entities set the building on fire, making it appear that the students were behind it. Then, there are the Guardsmen themselves. Some of them were, indeed, patriotic WWII vets who despised the fact that the students were defying Uncle Sam. But many of them were youngsters themselves, the same age range as the kids on campus, and many Guardsmen of all ages were sympathetic to the students' cause. But the overwhelming emotion that the troops felt was fear. An unruly, angry mob is a frightening thing indeed, especially when driven by those whose business it is to stir up trouble. On Monday, May 4, students gathered to attend the rally which the school itself had announced had been canceled. About 2,000 students gathered anyway, and attempts were made to break up the assembly. This climaxed with a thirteen-second volley of shots being fired, causing the four deaths and nine injuries. Much investigation took place afterwards, with officials at the school being given the primary blame for what had happened. Two of the dead students had never participated in the protests, one of them being an ROTC member. The injured and dead were all a goodly distance away from the troops when shot. All in all, it was a tragic, terrible mess. And, according to Michener's book, the ones that were most responsible all got away scot-free. Hey, that theory holds a lot more water than the average Oliver Stone fantasy.