Squanto Saved the Pilgrims...Who Saves Us?

Alas, when we are younger, we are often cocky and proud and think that all of the things we accomplish are because of our own smarts and coolness.  Now, looking back, I realize that I wasn't born knowing how to "hunt and fish," and that I had many guides who saved me from freezing winters (metaphorical ones, mostly, although there was the time when I had to be rescued off a mountain in Colorado by a ski patrol dude).

So, if I was assembling a feast of celebration and gratitude and could invite anyone (living or dead), the guest list would include (in no particular order):

1. My parents who gave me good genes and fueled my dreams.  My brothers who taught me how to hold my own against boys.
2. The hippie friends and drummers of my youth who gave me an appreciation of rock and roll and bad behavior. 
3. My daughters, who taught me not to take myself too seriously and always make me laugh.
4. Various bosses (even the quirky and borderline abusive ones). The great ones inspired vision and confidence and the bad ones taught me not to take anything personally in the business world.
5. The folks who supported my late-life decision to become an entrepreneur.  Many of them still keep me focused and boost my spirits in tough times.
6. The wonderful people I've worked with over the years.  I learned something from each one of you.
7. The people who serve as my left brain or right brain, when I need a whole brain.
8. Girlfriends.  Who else will tell you the truth AND keep secrets?
9. Well-trained doctors who fix various body parts and necessary organs. 
10. Writers, filmmakers and even reality TV producers who entertain me and help me relax.
11. People in my life who are vigilant about health, exercise, and spirituality.  Without them, I would be quite slothful.
12. The teachers from grade school through college (even the ones we made fun of) who gave me an appreciation of the English language.  Whether I'm writing a 1,000 word business article or a 140 character Tweet, I thank them for making me fearless and reasonably articulate in expressing myself.
13. My social media community.  They share cool new tricks and devices(some of which actually have real-world value).
14. Whoever actually invented in the Internet. If not for the power of the blog, how else could I possibly offer up so much universal gratitude in just a few bullet points?

 

Fresh Meadows, that is!

Although the photo hardly matches the name, it was a rather pleasant place to hang out in my youth.

Later this year, I'm attending a book launch party in my old 'hood.  Although the lavish steak house, Bloomies, the bowling alley, and the bookstore have been replaced by a Hooters, Daffy's and Five Guys, I'm jazzed to set foot in the old Century Meadows Movie Theater (now the AMC Loew's million-plex) where I first saw Sean Connery as James Bond and made out in the dark -- long before the term "hook-up" was coined.

I didn't technically live in Fresh Meadows...I lived in the small private homes on the other side of 73rd Avenue.  I always wanted to live in one of the apartments though...they seemed to have more of a community feel.  And now, both sides of the Avenue seem to be reuniting.

My classmates have grown up to be amazing and funny 50-something boys and girls -- including a TV producer, an optician, an actor, and a medical educator.  (Of course, we have a bunch of doctors and lawyers too.)  Our grade school is now 75% Asian, but it looks and smells exactly the same as it used to, and I'm happy to report that oak tag is still available in the corner store.  However, the 20-story building, which once appeared to be a luxury skyscraper, looks rather small and average.

Many of my classmates have raised sons and daughters of their own (who are probably sick of hearing our tales of assembly day, dixie mesh, shop classes, and Vietnam protests). 

Sadly, we have had some suicides and early deaths like all boomer graduates.  We will miss Ira and Fred.  And some of our coolest teachers (like the beloved Yvette Levy) cannot be found online and may be long gone.

But the miracle that is Facebook is bringing many of us back together.  The community's name of Fresh Meadows is actually appropriate now.  We will all roll around in our field of memories and dreams and breathe in our collective wisdom and wit.  Perhaps we will even imagine that we can smell that lingering scent of our first cigarettes and whiskey sours at Leonard's of Great Neck or that essence of school yard weed.

I grew up in a different era, for sure.

It was a time of "command and control," and school kids generally did what their teachers told them (not asked them) to do. Despite all the rules, we grew up to be a pretty creative generation, I think.

Although we didn't invent Facebook and we pretty much made a mess of the economy, we (not me personally) discovered cures for diseases, manufactured small smart devices, and wrote some epic screenplays. And many of us have awesome penmanship and phone and interpersonal skills which come in handy during hurricanes and when the servers go down.

Hard as it may be to believe, boys and girls, here are some of the realities of life in the 1960s: We couldn't call teachers by their first names (ever) and they never gave us the "rubric" they were using to grade tests. In fact, rubric back then would be translated to "give a massage to someone named Richard." The girls had to wear skirts to school every day. When it was below freezing, we could wear pants under our skirts. We also had to take "Home Ec," Sewing and Childccare rather than Wood Shop, Electrical Shop, or Auto Shop. I always wanted to build a lamp with popsicle sticks (like my guy friends did) but it was forbidden.

We had to do math in our heads. No calculators were permitted in class. Slide rules were allowed later on, I suppose. We got to play in the street, without fear of drive-by shootings, kidnapping, or disease-carrying mosquitos. A visit from Good Humor was as exciting as the release of a new iPhone app. We engaged in "Spin the Bottle" and the term "hook-up" was a term only uttered in electrical shop, when the popsicle stick lamp was plugged into a wall outlet.

We had to do lots of stuff on our own -- get to the library (a physical building) to do research, figure out how to apply to college and make our own beds when we got there, and create fake IDs without the benefit of personal copier machines. We had to listen to music in groups. We had no iPods or earbuds. And because we had vinyl rather than mixes, we had to stand up and move to "change the record." We didn't play many competitive sports, so that was exercise for us.

And yeah, we were restless and bored and impatient and angry. But we never thought of ourselves as depressed or hyperactive. "It was the best of times...it was the worst of times," to quote one of my favorite tomes about revolution. And I read it in paperback, not as a download or Sparknotes. Revolution and evolution are great in many ways, but so is nostalgia.

I wonder if Charles Dickens had an iPad if he'd have penned his masterpiece while sitting in a foreign country (like I am as I'm writing this post). Or whether he just would have posted "It is a far better thing that I do #frenchrevolution #FF @madamedefarge" on his Twitter feed.

Let's bring back good penmanship!  Click here!

How to make a popsicle stick lamp

Yearbook yourself! and travel back in time.

I just saw the preview for the Charlie's Angels TV series.

Wait a minute...wasn't there already a Charlie's Angels TV series?  And a movie?  (Or maybe two movies...I can't remember.)  And yesterday, I went to see the new Planet of the Apes movie.  It was not really like the original.  Except there were apes.  And Caesar could talk.  But it was much more violent and I'm sure the budget was much bigger. 

Have we simply reached a point in our evolution where the only new inventions relate to technology?  Perhaps we have simply run out of new ideas for film and literature. 

And although I'm not sure it really counts as culture, the staying power of Jeopardy is truly fascinating to me.  The show first aired in 1964 and now has 9 million viewers, 292K Facebook fans, and lots of apps. 

So, what can one conclude from all this?  Despite our many cultural and scientific advances, we still like women with weapons, talking animals, and quiz games.  But we can now watch them all on small devices on  airplanes instead of simply carrying their images on metal lunchboxes.  Now that's progress!

My younger daughter goes off to college on August 20th.  The assumption is that all parents these days will accompany their kids to campus, help them make their beds, drive them to Target to fill in the empty spaces and ensure ample creature comforts, and attend special "parent orientations."

In 1974, my parents waved goodbye at LaGuardia and I arrived in Ann Arbor solo, with a clumsy big trunk, a funky granny square afghan that I crocheted for myself, a bunch of jeans, tee shirts, boots, and a turntable and albums.

My daughter also already has new "friends" at school, thanks to the great connector that is Facebook.  I needed to start from scratch, striking up conversations in my dorm, at class, and at parties. 

Is this generation better off than mine?  Are we giving our kids a sense of support, reassurance, and acceptance or are we destroying their spirit of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness.  Only time will tell.  But truthfully, I still like making my daughter's bed.  And an iPod is much lighter than 100 vinyls!

Dorm room essentials, according to Real Simple

How to make a granny square (in case you're wondering)

Yes, the College Board even has a quiz to determine if you are a "helicopter parent!"