Blog Carnival-- growing up in the 60's

One of the challenges presented to the members of the Humorbloggers group that I belong to was to participate in a Blog Carnival. I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do other than write about growing up and, of course, to use the expression uber sucktacular . Well, uber sucktacular was something I read on Sandy's blog ( www.witsbitch.blogspot.com/ ) today, and it is her contribution to the English language, so I just decided to fit it into my post today. It truly does enrich my vocabulary, and it pretty much describes my early years.

I grew up in the 1960's, in a small city in central NJ, though many of my friends and relatives would debate whether or not I have actually grown up. A few years ago, my spawn and her friends all got together and decided which of their parents fit different catagories like smartest, coolest, and so forth. I was voted most childish, so that's a good thing, isn't it?

Anyway, my city was a multi-cultural one, which means I got beat up by kids of various ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds.

I lived across the street from an open sewer a babbling brook, and the Pennsylvania Railroad East Coast main line we were conveniently located near public transportation, according to the real estate agent.

The winters were pretty crappy, because my father worked in the heating business, but the summers were exciting. We often went to Florida to visit my uncle, and no trip to Florida was complete without encountering nature, which usually turned out badly.

http://crotchety-old-man-yells-at-cars.blogspot.com/2008/06/malevolent-monkeys-of-miami.html

The trips to Florida were extra thrilling, because my father decided that it was possible to drive the 1200+ miles to Fort Lauderdale in less than 20 hours. This was his goal in life because one cousin stated it was possible to do it in 18 hours, and the best Dad ever did was just under 21. Anyone with a calculator can tell that Dad's cousin was full of sh*t, but this was before calculators were invented, so Dad fired up the Mercury after plotting the best possible time to avoid Washington D.C. traffic.

By the way, there were long discussions in the corner garage a few days before the trip, as everyone in the neighborhood weighed in on what was the optimal departure time and route. Somehow, it always wound up to be 3 a.m. Every family outing always began at 3 a.m. I wasn't sure exactly how dangerous or tricky traffic was, but it had to be beaten, and apparently, no matter where we were going-- Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Jersey Shore--we always had to leave at 3 a.m. It wasn't until the Crotchety Old Lady and I had several discussions
and I decided she was right, we didn't have to leave at 3 a.m.

TV in the 1960's was pretty awesome, and I wouldn't be here without it. My family didn't have a remote, so it was my duty to carefully turn the knob to the correct station. Just as I started to get old enough that my father realized I only had a few more years of channel changing ahead of me, my sister was born. Dad bought a TV with a remote early in the 1970's, so he didn't need any more kids.

TV was such a big part of our lives. We got our first color TV in the mid 60's, and it was such a novelty, when anyone came to visit, we would have to try to find a show in color, so they could see it. Generally, only game shows were in color during the day, so we watched a lot of Concentration with a slightly green tinted Hugh Downs. It wasn't until many years later I realized most people were not, in fact, green hued.

My grammar school class often had nuclear attack drills, because everyone knows that nothing provides greater safety during an atomic bomb blast than a wooden school desk. And nothing instills a sense of well being in kids than explaining just how many missiles are aimed right at New Jersey. I suppose some may have taken comfort in Nike Missile bases in the towns I psssed every day, but it wasn't all that reassuring to me.

By the way, Humorbloggers are having a Humor Blogger of the Year contest.

Your old pal Crotchety would be pretty happy if he were to get a few votes. Just click here: http://www.humorbloggers.com/ and look for my name. I'm getting my butt kicked by "other," and that's just not right.

There may be chocolate. Just sayin'

http://www.humorbloggers.com/