This is a day after Christmas 2017 post:
The president was this bald man with a nice voice who used to be a general. The greatest invention ever was The Wonderful World Of Disney...and that whole television set built around it. Davy Crockett was the greatest American ever.....Mickey Mantle the greatest baseball player ever and Elvis Presley the greatest anything ever. The snow would fall by the foot and then the wind would blow it into these giant drifts where all you had to do to make a great igloo was dig into the side of them. Cars had these big fins and model cars had these moons that you could put on the wheels to make them look real cool. Bowling alleys were packed with people and the funnest place on earth. I lived in a mansion....six rooms on the second floor of a three floor red brick apartment building where everyone knew everyone else in the other mansions. This was my 1959 in Buffalo, New York.
OK I just did an experiment.....I can't remember what I had for supper two days ago....but I remember every minute to a tee of Friday evenings 58 years ago. We had to be home for Walt Disney Presents at 7:30....77 Sunset Strip with Kookie at 9....and The Twilight Zone at 10....but first there was the weekly trip to the Super Market. We had a car back then...it was the last year that we would have one. I would run into the super market and go directly to the checkout counter to see if the latest volume of The Golden Book (Children's) Encyclopedia was on the special cardboard stand.
I mentioned these wonderful books to my wife many times over the years....occasionally giving the hint that I sure would like a set. Her eyes would roll and she would say....."You'd put them in the living room!" Well, I got that set for a Christmas present this year! Immediately after exchanging presents and cleaning up all the Christmas wrappings I made a cup of coffee....sat in my favorite chair....pushed aside the books I was in the middle of.....Code Warriors, NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union....Soonish, Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything....and In The Garden Of The Beasts, Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin and read one volume through of this dated Children's encyclopedia.
I looked at the pictures....especially those all over the cover.....for they were all already stored in the back of my mind from almost six decades ago. I could almost feel the cold Buffalo chill and hear the wind outside the window.....actually it was very windy here in Western Pennsylvania.....and I could hear the wind. I'm not sure how much my mother paid for them....I'm thinking 99c maybe $1.99....but she paid it! I contend that no child today could get from their smart phone or extract the joy that I did from these simple books. Oh....and they're going on my living room bookshelf....at least for while!
The president was this bald man with a nice voice who used to be a general. The greatest invention ever was The Wonderful World Of Disney...and that whole television set built around it. Davy Crockett was the greatest American ever.....Mickey Mantle the greatest baseball player ever and Elvis Presley the greatest anything ever. The snow would fall by the foot and then the wind would blow it into these giant drifts where all you had to do to make a great igloo was dig into the side of them. Cars had these big fins and model cars had these moons that you could put on the wheels to make them look real cool. Bowling alleys were packed with people and the funnest place on earth. I lived in a mansion....six rooms on the second floor of a three floor red brick apartment building where everyone knew everyone else in the other mansions. This was my 1959 in Buffalo, New York.
OK I just did an experiment.....I can't remember what I had for supper two days ago....but I remember every minute to a tee of Friday evenings 58 years ago. We had to be home for Walt Disney Presents at 7:30....77 Sunset Strip with Kookie at 9....and The Twilight Zone at 10....but first there was the weekly trip to the Super Market. We had a car back then...it was the last year that we would have one. I would run into the super market and go directly to the checkout counter to see if the latest volume of The Golden Book (Children's) Encyclopedia was on the special cardboard stand.
I mentioned these wonderful books to my wife many times over the years....occasionally giving the hint that I sure would like a set. Her eyes would roll and she would say....."You'd put them in the living room!" Well, I got that set for a Christmas present this year! Immediately after exchanging presents and cleaning up all the Christmas wrappings I made a cup of coffee....sat in my favorite chair....pushed aside the books I was in the middle of.....Code Warriors, NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union....Soonish, Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything....and In The Garden Of The Beasts, Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin and read one volume through of this dated Children's encyclopedia.
I looked at the pictures....especially those all over the cover.....for they were all already stored in the back of my mind from almost six decades ago. I could almost feel the cold Buffalo chill and hear the wind outside the window.....actually it was very windy here in Western Pennsylvania.....and I could hear the wind. I'm not sure how much my mother paid for them....I'm thinking 99c maybe $1.99....but she paid it! I contend that no child today could get from their smart phone or extract the joy that I did from these simple books. Oh....and they're going on my living room bookshelf....at least for while!
