Fizzies! Clackers! Tom Terrific! Food Sticks! Wow, this is fun stuff!
My own memory of the JFK assassination was hopelessly entwined with an incident later that day. Mary Elizabeth Williams took a bunch of us girls into the bathroom with a toy baby bottle to show us all how boys peed.
When we got our first TV, I remember Dad watching baseball on it. I suppose it was for the World Series. Later, there was a kid’s show called Winky Dink, where kids would apply a special plastic sheet on the screen and draw over pictures on the TV.
In 1957 or so, Dad had a new Buick, and Mom had a 1-year old Chevy Nomad station wagon. Both had doors in the taillights to get to the gas filler. I ran into the back of a neighbor’s '55 Chevy on my bike, and I broke my two front teeth on the trunk lid. We had a fairly small lawn, and my older brother mowed it with a boy-powered reel mower. We had a wire-basket thing out by the alley where we burned the paper trash.
When JFK was killed, I was sick that day. I was half-asleep when the first reports came in. I thought I was dreaming it. Later, when Oswald was caught, I imagined somebody shooting him. (I was extrapolating from the trial of Rudolf Eichmann, the Nazi prison camp guy, who was shielded by bulletproof glass during his trial.) Sure enough, Jack Ruby shot him.
When the Beatles played at the Indiana State Fairgrounds grandstand, on the one-mile dirt track, a close friend of mine went to the show, and he took his 8mm movie camera. He showed me the film. There was no sound, but he assured me he couldn’t hear the band for all the screaming anyway. The picture was blurry, and shot from a distance. I couldn’t clearly indentify the band members, but I knew who played what, and so I knew the blurry drummer was Ringo, the lead singer was John, the guy with the fiddle bass was Paul, and the other cat with the bigger guitar was George. I could see, on the grainy film, when they shook their hair and sang, “Ooooooo,” and the helpless crowd went craaaaaaaazy. We didn’t know it, but we were watching the baby steps of what is now the modern arena rock show.
-I remember the ice man coming to the house;
-when there was no TV and we used to huddle around the radio after dinner and listen to the “The Lone Ranger” and in the afternoon my mother used to listen to “My Gal Sal” while she was darning a sock with a light bulb stick inside;
-When we got an orange and nuts in our Christmas stockings;
-When I used to get all excited about watching “Science Fiction Theater” and how beautiful Loretta Young was when she glided down the staris to introduce Loretta Young Theater.
-Halloween was fun and safe; we went out by ourselves for hours and only came home to dump our sacks of candy; the neighboor showed scary movies on a sheet in his back yard for the whole neighboorhood;
-Using the operator to connect to a local number; and later, phone numbers with letters in front. Our was "Midway3-2661.
-In high school, our socks and sweaters matched and we wore our boyfriend’s ring around our neck on a chain and were “going steady”.
-My dad’s car had a running board.
-In high school my dad bought a Chrysler Imperial with huge fins and everybody envied me when I cruised “Eat N’ Run”.
-My dad had an absolutely fit the first time I plucked my eyebrows at age 15; ditto shaving my legs.
-In high school only sluts slept with boys; and later, most women didn’t sleep with someone they weren’t married to. Hard to believe I know.
-45 RPM records were the latest thing
-When TV dinners, hair spray and hair conditioner (Tame) first became available
-We weren’t allowed to wear pants in high school except on the day before graduation
-The Ice Cream man selling popsicles for five cents.
-Pay phone calls were five cents
-I impressed the kids on the monkey bars in second grade by knowing the words to “Has Anybody Seen my Gal?”
-I remember when frozen lemonade first came out and it was a special treat
-Once I drove across the Bay Bridge in San Francisco at midnight and there were no cars the entire way
-I remember the ice man coming to the house;
-when there was no TV and we used to huddle around the radio after dinner and listen to the “The Lone Ranger” and in the afternoon my mother used to listen to “My Gal Sal” while she was darning a sock with a light bulb stick inside;
-When we got an orange and nuts in our Christmas stockings;
-When I used to get all excited about watching “Science Fiction Theater” and how beautiful Loretta Young was when she glided down the staris to introduce Loretta Young Theater.
-Halloween was fun and safe; we went out by ourselves for hours and only came home to dump our sacks of candy; the neighboor showed scary movies on a sheet in his back yard for the whole neighboorhood;
-Using the operator to connect to a local number; and later, phone numbers with letters in front. Our was "Midway3-2661.
-In high school, our socks and sweaters matched and we wore our boyfriend’s ring around our neck on a chain and were “going steady”.
-My dad’s car had a running board. In high school my dad bought a Chrysler Imperial with huge fins and everybody envied me when I cruised “Eat N’ Run”.
-My dad had an absolutely fit the first time I plucked my eyebrows at age 15; ditto shaving my legs.
-In high school only sluts slept with boys; and later, most women didn’t sleep with someone they weren’t married to. Hard to believe I know.
-45 RPM records were the latest thing
-When TV dinners, frozen lemonade, hair spray and hair conditioner (Tame) first became available
-We weren’t allowed to wear pants in high school except on the day before graduation
-The Ice Cream man selling popsicles for five cents.
-Pay phone calls were five cents
-I impressed the kids on the monkey bars in second grade by knowing the words to “Has Anybody Seen my Gal?”
–Once I drove across the Bay Bridge in San Francisco at midnight and there were no cars the entire way
“I want my MTV!” I can still hum the guitar riff from the clip of the astronaut planting the MTV flag on the moon.
Being almost the only girl in my school whose hair wasn’t feathered. I still don’t regret that.
Being forbidden to see Alien.
Being grudgingly allowed to see Aliens.
Challenger blowing up…over and over and over and over…
The ball rolling between Bill Buckner’s feet…over and over and over and over…
New school rule: No jackets in class because someone might be hiding a gun. (1987)
The suicide phenomenon.
The PMRC (Parents Musical Resource…??? I forget. The point is, Tipper Gore wanted heavy metal to be banned, but settled for warning labels on albums.)
“Ban the Box”. (CDs were originally packaged in long rectangular boxes so they would be visible in the deep bins that had previously held 12-inch LPs. Waste of cardboard and landfill, sure, but it was never meant to be permanent.)
“Gimme a Lite…No, Bud Lite.”
Characters on Dallas, LA Law, and St. Elsewhere always in and out of bed with each other. Meanwhile, the idea of condom ads on TV was dismissed out of hand.
Casting my very first vote. '88 primary: Senator Paul Simon (D-IL).
OJ Simpson lighting the Olympic torch in LA, 1984.
Rubber bracelets up to the elbow.
Hi-top sneakers.
Going to SuperCuts and telling them to cut off what I didn’t know was called a mullet; I just knew I hated it. Then dyeing my hair red to look like Molly Ringwald. (I know, I know…)
Big, clunky cordless phones.
Gary Hart and Donna Rice.
Oliver North: “I don’t recall.”
Jim and Tammy Bakker.
“We’re…uh…” “Doing what we can.” “We’re doing what we can.”
Pssst! That was actually Rafer Johnson.
I remember:
News reports from the ragged tail end of the Cold War.
The election and re-election of President Clinton.
Gasoline being cheaper than a dollar a gallon.
SimCity Classic and Wolfenstein 3D being the hottest games on the market.
Computer games that asked you upon startup your monitor specifications–CGA, EGA, VGA, Tandy.
Watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Saved by the Bell, Full House and Family Matters.
Hearing about Kurt Cobain’s suicide–back then, of course, I didn’t even know who Nirvana was, but I was still kinda bummed, since all the cool kids were.
MC Hammer being cool–at least among kids my age.
So, in summary, what you people consider recent events, I consider the formative happenings of my early childhood. Now, where’re my Magic Cards and college applications…
-Space Food Sticks… yum!
getting out of school for a week or two during the great Power Shortage, going to my mom’s office at grad school, and playing with the IBM Selectric hedgehog-shaped type wheels in the secretary’s desk
wondering whether the world was ending and we were all going to die when St Helens blew up (we were in eastern Washington) and the ash cloud made everything darker than night at 3 in the afternoon, and then started raining ash on us… but wearing dust masks a few days later with a “Jimmy Carter smile” drawn on them, with almond or lemon extract splashed on the inside to drown out the nasty smell of your own breath
Dressing up like a pilgrim to march in the bicentennial parade.
Not quite understanding where Saigon was, but knowing we had problems there, big big problems.
The entire set of Funny Face™ mugs we had in my house… little plastic mugs shaped like cartoony fruit faces.
The Challenger disaster.
Selling greeting cards door to door to get a Tyco Nite-Glow slot car set.
My first girlfriend, one year younger than I was, who was so adorably cute I learned to bake chocolate chip cookies just because she liked them (I was nine, she was eight… scandal city).
Walking to the neighborhood pool on hot summer days. Nearly a mile, and of course I was barefoot. 
The ice-cream man driving around the neighborhood.
Tuning in with my sisters to watch Donnie and Marie.
Wearing a brown polyester suit with a paisely shirt at age seven, and thinking I was the king of hip.
Playing doctor in the basement. (That’s all you need to know).
Monkey bars made of metal which get so hot in the summer sun as to burn your hands into blisters, swing-sets embedded in concrete, and other things on my school’s playground that, today, we’d think were designed to kill children.
Speaking of… lawn darts.
Waking up to watch Hong Kong Phooey while eating Crunchberries.
Sea Monkeys. I bought some, once.
Watching “Land Of The Lost”
Pixie Sticks and Pez, oh my. No wonder I’m diabetic now.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes” video on MTV, with the freaky Spitting Image puppets.
Elvis dying. And I’d never been a fan…
Mothers uniting against the rock band KISS, and protesting. Not a fan of them while growing up, either.
Sneaking up to my sister’s room when she was a teenager to listen to her records. I’m talking about LP’s… people like Fleetwood Mac, Linda Rondstadt, Billy Joel, and the Eagles.
Jiffy Pop in the foil pan.
Blue Horse (paper supplies) “coupons”
Bonus Gift coupons (back in the early 70s, they were on just about every product)
:smack: But OJ carried the torch at some point in the proceedings; I’m sure of it.