A Hollywood Republican

This blog is for an open discussion on politics. My views will be to the right as will be most of the posters. But, we are willing to post alternative viewpoints as lons as they are well thought out. I started this in response to the Obama election and will continue it as long as it feeds a need.

Dec 11, 2009

Those were the Days by Ira Schwartz


I know I promised not to do this but in a way this is keeping with the holiday spirit….sort of. It deals with reflection, something that is an important thing to do every so often. I, like a fair amount of you, grew up in the late fifties and sixties. From our perspective at that age it seemed like a simpler more easy going time. We never really knew about the stress and anxiety our parents were going through, we were happy playing with our friends, reading books or watching TV, secure in the fact we always had a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. For some of us TOO much food in our stomachs. It wasn’t till we got much older that some of us learned that even though the world appeared to be more secure and simpler it really wasn’t. Our parents, trying to protect us, shielded us from the everyday problems, the everyday stress and anxiety that is simply life. It’s a trap every generation growing up falls in to.

About 20 years ago I had a long talk with my Mom about it. She laughed and filled me in on what was really going on. Money was tight then too. My Dad was a Bridge and Tunnel Police Officer in NYC and it was just as dangerous for Cops then as it is now. Woman weren’t any safer either. My Mom told me whenever she would go out she always carried a sharp scissor in her purse just in case. Houses were cheaper but unaffordable for most just like today and most could not afford going out to dinner more than twice a month. Pornography was readily available if you knew where to look but not as accessible as it is now thanks to the internet. And kids disappeared back then too but reporters didn’t hound the grieving parents like they do today. Those were the days when the nightly news was just that “News” not entertainment. Where newscasters actually researched and wrote the stories they reported on and those stories lasted more than a 30 second sound bite.

Homosexuals were around but still in the closet and drug abuse and alcoholism were just as bad as today. People were out of work and homeless and cancer killed more people than any other disease; we just didn’t know it at the time. There was no air conditioning except in the movie theater and for me that in itself is a deal breaker. Growing up in New York, where the mercury in the summer danced around 98 degrees with 99% humidity, made me really, really, really appreciate AIR CONDITIONING. To this day I still feel we need to make the day air conditioning was invented a national holiday and its inventor given the Nobel Prize for anything.

Back then the family doctor was just that and house calls were common place. But medicine was still in the dark ages compared to today. If it wasn’t for today’s medical advances millions of people who are now alive wouldn’t be; me included.

And if all of you out there think Pelosi and Reid are bad we had a Republican Senator Name Joe McCarthey. During his reign of terror in the early 50’s thousands of lives were ruined by his unsubstantiated statements branding half of Hollywood as communists.

TV and movies were much more innocent and more unbelievable. And nobody but Robert Young and Hugh Beaumont ever wore a jacket and tie to dinner. “Swell” was the word of the decade and everyone was either clean shaven or just home from the beauty parlor. It was Hollywood’s fantasy world at its best but you know what? It worked. We all bought into it and some still do today. Those times weren’t any better or any worse, they were just different.

If we as adults and parents did our jobs right, our kids will fall into the same trap. Unfortunately their childhood was a lot shorter than ours. The change in the way news is presented on TV, the advent of computers, cell phones and the internet has forced our kids to grow up a bit quicker than our generation had to. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Only time will tell.

Each generation will have its “Good old Days” and that is as it should be but go back to those days……no thanks they are where they belong, in our hearts and in the past. That’s why they’re call the “Good OLD days”.

Woody Allen’s closing narrative in “Radio Days”.

“I never forgot that New Year's Eve when Aunt Bea awakened me to watch 1944 come in. I've never forgotten any of those people or any of the voices we would hear on the radio. Though the truth is, with the passing of each New Year's Eve, those voices do seem to grow dimmer and dimmer.”
© 2009 by Ira Schwartz. Used with permission. All Rights Reserved

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6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow Ira...what can I say but...I guess those times were ours and we can't expect any other generation to fully understand it. It sure was good though..huh.
I wouldn't want to go back either. That time came and went and it's ours to hold in our memories until we no longer have a place for it. Sure was good though...it really was.

Thanks!

Bruce Carson

December 11, 2009 at 12:27 PM  
Anonymous Ira said...

It sure was Bruce. I will always remember those days fondly.

December 11, 2009 at 2:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I enjoyed reading it Ira. There's so much more to touch on in our own family. Your Mom grew up with eight brothers and sisters and there is a wealth of information that would interest other people.
So glad your talent is out in the open.....Love from Aunt "Betty"

December 12, 2009 at 3:52 AM  
Blogger preech7 said...

Don't laugh bro, but while reading this very nostalgic post, one thing "jumped" into my always racing mind..."Gorilla Man" and y'all tying up Jeff Gray, I think, and covering him with mustard and lots of other nasty things up on the fieds of Mt. Vernon HS at night...Remember our elementary schools teaching us to "hide" under our desks in case of nuclear attacks? Sheesh.

Marty

December 12, 2009 at 8:36 AM  
Anonymous Ira said...

Yeah Mart...that was so they knew exactly where to find the bodies.

December 12, 2009 at 2:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The lies, misinformation, distraction, lack of transparency and propaganda continue unabated throughout the last several decades, exploding recently, in spite of those who promised ‘Hope and Change” and do “protest too much”, from both parties, as they continue to “game” the electorate with their survival interests flagrantly ignoring that treasured but weak, sometimes destroyed voice of conscience, drowned by their egocentric dark souls.

The LAT A28 12/11/09 reports “House OKs billions in earmarks.” Does anyone wonder why this is buried on page A28? A PR firm associated with Hillary Clinton pollster Mark Penn is awarded $6 million from the Stimulus Bill to save three jobs. Mark Penn is the operative who Hillary was indebted too to the tune of $5.97 million, according to The Hill Newspaper. If Hillary paid off that debt personally, please tell us, then she is only guilty of the perception of a quid pro quo? Daniel Hannon, a British politician, lectures us from the reality of experience, pointing out that he thought America learned its lesson when it escaped Europe and formed the United States of America. He ponders, “And, you know, at a time when the American state is expanding so much because of stimulus and the bailouts and the nationalizations (all of which he feels was wrong), the idea that in the middle of all of this you can also afford this massive takeover of health care, that has got to be bad news for, obviously for the U.S. citizens but also the world economy more generally.”

Conservatives could sound the death knell to their ownership of “earmarks” in the bills they vote for. It would be a beginning they have total control over. Do they have the courage? There must be disdain for the liberal collective. The secular agnosticism of capitalism is at the root of the Cloward/Piven strategy. Entitlements are at the heart of the remaking of America. We wax poetic about those were the days. Don’t linger too long. And the ostrich sticks its head in the sand.

December 13, 2009 at 11:17 PM  

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