I doubt I saw the Wizard of Oz when it first hit the small screen, which was on November 3, 1956. I was a too young to be watching something that scary, and I’m not sure how much TV watching we did back in those days, anyway.
I do remember my surprise when I realized that the Land of Oz was so danged colorful! I believe that was in the 70s. I’d seen the movie a bunch of times as a youngster, but I’m guessing I just didn’t watch it after we got our first color television sometime in the latter half of the 1960s. It really seemed like a whole new movie to me after that.
I still love that movie. Don’t you?
Check out this Dorothy/Scarecrow/Tin Man mashup I found on YouTube:
The original meter was invented by the French in the 1780s, and it’s been regularly made a more precise measurement, most recently at the CGPM (Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures or, in English, the General Conference on Weights & Measures) on October 21, 1983, where it was defined in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
Not that it makes much difference to the vast majority of us Boomers, or any other American, for that matter. We’d much rather cling to our traditional inches, feet and yards than kowtow to those French (and just about everyone else in the world) by changing to the metric system of measurements.
And here’s the reason given by a huge number of people I’ve asked: It’s too hard to figure out how long a meter is, how heavy a kilo is, how many liters of gas it will take to fill a gas tank (and here’s the kicker) compared to yards, pounds and gallons! And here’s my answer to that: WHAT? It’s just however many meters, kilos or liters it is, and you don’t have to convert it in your head. Just get used to the metrics! Having lived in a “developing” nation that has already somehow figured out how to convert its local measurements to metric, I can honestly say that they are a LOT easier to use. Everything is based on 10s (rather than 12s, for heaven’s sake!), so addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are all a lot easier. Think about it.
While we didn’t much care what kind of waves were used to define the meter, we sure got behind another kind of wave, that being the microwave.
It was in 1955 that Raytheon’s homestyle microwave hit the U.S. market with Tappan as its distributor. Raytheon had come up with a commercial model in 1947, a refrigerator-sized unit costing between $2,000 and $3,000. Tappan’s home model was more the size of a conventional oven, but had a less powerful microwave generating system. It had two cooking speeds (500 or 800 watts), stainless steel exterior, glass shelf, top browning element and a recipe card drawer. Still, at $1300 a pop, it wasn’t snapped up too quickly.
Even when the prices finally came down, my husband refused to buy one, citing questions about those “unmonitored microwaves.” In reality, the FDA had set safety standards for the darn things in the early 1970s. So, the only way I got a microwave oven was to buy one for myself as a Mother’s Day present sometime in the late 1980s. My husband loves it, though he keeps his distance and insists that our sons do so as well. Ongoing research leads me to believe he’s hit on a pretty wise policy—but don’t tell him I said so!
We used to throw our pennies, nickels and dimes into a small container in the car. When we’d saved up a buck, we could put three gallons of gas into the tank. That was in my early driving days, for sure! Then those danged OPEC Arabs refused to heed our demands that they give us all the oil we wanted—imagine that!—and prices soared. In today’s market, we’d be grateful if we only had to pay a dollar for a gallon of
gas, but keep in mind that the prices had actually gone up about 300% in about a year. If that happened between October 2006 and October 2007, we’d be paying a lot more than $3.25 a gallon!
The good part of OPEC’s oil embargo was that we began to learn to conserve, cars sizes started to decrease, mileage ratings improved.
Note that those things seemed to be put on the back burner in the first half decade of the 21st century, so maybe the $90 per barrel oil prices are just the nudge we need to put us back in the ecology driver’s seat.
This week we Boomers remember the end of a revolutionary fighter, the change of heart of a revolutionary scientist, the tactics of a revolutionary organization and the commencement of a cultural revolution.
You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out?
Few names might spring to mind immediately if I ask you to name people who are true revolutionaries. Some of
the Founding Fathers, Mao, Castro, and of course, Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Most were patriots whose main concern was freeing their own country from literal or figurative colonial status—at least that was their original intent. Che was more of a professional revolutionary, but boy was he ever inspiring! Even today, his name evokes a sort of romantic revolutionary spirit. It was on October 8, 1967 that Che was captured in Bolivia. He was executed the following day.
You say you've got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We are doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is, brother, you'll have to wait
In 1975, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In their citation, the Nobel Committee called him "the conscience of mankind" saying he "has fought not only against the abuse of power and violations of human dignity in all its forms, but has in equal vigor fought for the ideal of a state founded on the principle of justice for all."
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You'd better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow
The FLQ (Front de libération du Québec or Quebec Liberation Front) was a separatist organization established in the 1960s to fight for Quebec’s independence from Canada. The group used terrorist-style tactics to try to achieve its goals and was responsible for more than 200 bombings and the deaths of at least five people. The climax came in the October Crisis of 1970 as the group ratcheted up their activities, kidnapping a British diplomat earlier in the month, then seizing Canada’s Labour and Immigration Minister Pierre Laporte, who was eventually killed by the group. These actions proved to be their downfall, as the government invoked the War Powers Act, leading to Quebec’s separatist movement shifting toward a political solution.
But don't you know it's gonna be
Alright?
Eventually the stress of guns and bombs gets to be too much, and the best relief for that is to just call in the
Samurai Librarian! It was this week in 1975 when "Saturday Night Live" debuted on NBC with George Carlin as host and really changed how humor was delivered on TV. I first saw the show about midway through the first season and was a fairly faithful viewer until the late 1980s.
Who can forget the Blues Brothers; the Coneheads, Gumby, Buckwheat and Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood; Gilda Radner and Bill Murray’s nerd couple, Pat/Chris, Wayne’s World, the Church Lady; or the Spartan Cheerleaders. I couldn’t possibly name all the cast members who not only made an impact on SNL but also became stars in other genres. The list just goes on and on—I don’t even know most of them these days.*
Some of the most memorable lines ever came out of that show:
Miss Emily Latella’s “What’s all this I hear about youth in Asia?”
One of our favorite advertisements “It’s a floor wax, it’s a dessert topping.”
And Dan Akroyd’s debate line: “Jane, you ignorant slut.”
Of course, without fail the best part of the show has always been the Weekend Update. Starting with Chevy Chase, the anchor desk has been a stepping stone to superstardom.
Still, it seems like every generation outgrows the updated cast. Along with many others, I’ve said, “This show just isn’t as good as it used to be.” The likelihood is that the writing has always been inconsistent, the hosts not always at the top of their game, the music not always universally applauded. Even the cast has uneven. But almost all of can remember at least one cast member, sketch, musician, line, host, or full-on troupe of those originally known as the Not-Ready-for-Prime Time Players that has made us feel like we’re part of the revolution—and somehow it really feels like it’s gonna be alright.
*Fortunately for us, memories old and new are now available via the Internet. Here are some places to start:
