Voices of Bullwinkle and Rocky
See, it’s bigger than Howdy Doody.
It’s also Rocky and Bullwinkle.
It’s bigger than Howdy Doody September 13, 2008
I was born in 1949, so I did grow up on Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, and I Love Lucy.
Those are the memories I cherish.
But of course there’s more, folks.
When I was very young, we had two sources of news: newspapers and the 6 o’clock news.
There was no cable television, no cell phones, and no Blackberries.
And no internet, of course.
At my house we got morning and afternoon newspapers, and we watched Walter Cronkite in the evening.
Things started changing the day that President Kennedy was assassinated.
For four days, television networks televised the ongoing story of Kennedy’s murder, including his funeral.
As the years went by, we watched the horror of the Kent State shootings, Viet Nam, Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, then Robert Kennedy’s murder.
My parents were blue collar workers, and they owned a home, had a new car every few years, and furnished us with 3 square meals a day.
A visit to the doctor cost a few bucks.
On Sunday, after a nice dinner, we (me, my brother, and our parents) got in the car and took a ride out to “the country” where we enjoyed the scenery. During the summer, we stopped at fruit stands, then got an ice cream cone before going home to bath and bed.
The pipeline of news and information was slower and not always in living color.
It was a different time, and I think that as humans we were able to live, work, and love with a marvelous sense of detachment from the horrors that life can inflict.
Things like wars and reports of missing children always happened to “other people,” or so we told ourselves.
Being a Baby Boomer is about more than being born after World War II and watching Howdy Doody.
It’s about growing up in a world that has changed with a speed that is at times exciting (when considering technology), and at times absolutely frightening (e.g., watching an airplane fly, on purpose, into buildings occupied by thousands of people).
This Baby Boomer is a disaster junkie September 1, 2008
I’m a disaster jinkie, and I’ve been glued to the television, and my laptop, as Gustav tears through Louisiana.
Here’s a neat blog: Feisty Side of Fifty/Baby boomer Women.
And here’s a blogger, FortRight, who defines a Baby boomer as “anyone born after the war who watched the original Howdy Doody show. Period. End of discussion.”
What a hoot!
I’m going to get back to my drug right now.
Between Gustav and Sarah Palin’s pregnant teenager daughter, there’s a lot to keep up with.
Sorry, Howdy Doody, you are so yesterday 
Winds of War miniseries August 27, 2008
Winds Of War – Opening
It was eight years ago that my mother and I moved to Seattle.
I wasn’t working that first summer, so I went to the library a lot, in order to catch up on my reading, and to enjoy some movies.
Mom and I had both seen this 1983 miniseries when it, and we enjoyed it all over again during our first summer in Seattle.
Thanks to Netflix, I’m going to watch this again, think of my mom, and enjoy a good story.
Me & t.v. August 23, 2008
Howdy Doody 50’s Television Show Opening Sequence
As a child, I watched Howdy Doody every day.
Oh gosh, the memories!
Dick Martin has died May 25, 2008
Dick Martin died in a Santa Monica hospital today.
He was 86 years old.
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In ran on television from 1968-1973.
What a hoot this show was!
For its time, Laugh-In was shocking, irreverent, and at times in really bad taste.
But it was always very funny.
Dick Martin is the guy on the right.
My thoughts and prayers are with his family this evening.
Newfangled entertainment May 23, 2008
Enough with the serious stuff.
When I was a kid, we had a black and white television, and I thought that was really something.
Now, at the age of 58, I enjoy cable television, “On Demand” movies and Netflix, but there’s something even cooler.
Watching television via the internet.
I just finished watching the last episode of Bones, I’ve enjoyed many episodes of Medium, and I watch Ghost Hunters on the SciFi Channel.
I feel like a kid again.
Twitter as a ‘911′ call April 26, 2008
James Karl Buck used his cell phone to send a message, via Twitter, that he was being held in an Egyptian jail.
The message was one word: Arrested.
