In
Grandma Lucille's autobiography, she notes
"In my lifetime many things have taken place. Phonograph, radio, stereo, TV, airplanes, electric and gas stoves, electric irons, inside plumbing, push button phones, gas and electric heating, coal furnaces, electric and gas water heaters, blenders, fry pans, mixmasters, and polyester materials." I loved that she included this!
For every generation there will be iconic items, innovations and events. Many inventions and memorable moments will be experienced by more than one generation, but many newsworthy matters will only be learned of after the fact once time has passed.
Have you heard the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel? It is a great recap of many of the top events from 1949-1989, so likely many things that Grandma/Mom (Margie) and Grandpa/Dad (LaMar) would remember ... and things that the grandkids will learn about in U.S. History class ;)
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana, goodbye
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkweather homicide, children of thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, mafia
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex
JFK – blown away, what else do I have to say?
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law
Rock and roller, cola wars, I can't take it anymore
Cooper had an assignment for school to showcase 10 things that he felt has impacted him and his generation. One of the options was to follow the rhythm of the song above, changing the words and to sing/record it for submission ... he elected to go with the more simple slideshow option.
For ME (Jen) ... I remember the Tylenol Murders happening (1982) and it scared me so much. It changed packaging, everything now is sealed and safe. I remember the flooding in Utah in 1983, and even "helped" with sandbags (I'm sure I wasn't much help at 13 years old). The Challenger explosion impacted many in my age group, although I must admit I only have a vague recollection. I also feel like I should have more of a memory of the fall of the Berlin Wall ... although in my college dorm we didn't have a TV and it was my birthday (the day after) so I'm sure I had other things on my mind. I remember telling Grayson when the verdict in the OJ Simpson trial came in. I have a record of my very first email ... sent to Wendy on July 27, 1997. I had to dial up, using Juno. I recall tying up the phone line for hours downloading music from Napster. Music Evolution ... Records/Tapes/8-Track/Stereo Systems/CDs then digital. Also in 1997, we were on vacation in Vegas when we heard Princess Diana had been killed. 2000/Y2K ... it was all anticipation. 9-11 of course. When Elizabeth Smart was found after being kidnapped. Columbia. Facebook. Google. Hurricane Katrina. Recession. Obama. Bin Laden. Sandy Hook. Boston Marathon. Proposition8. BLM. Trump. Covid.
Our first Apple Computer ... transitioning from Microsoft 8 (using shift keys) to Windows. Laptops. From film to digital cameras. Physical books to e-books and audio. VCR, to DVD, to TIVO to streaming. Our old yellow rotary phone ... to push button, then cordless, then brick cell phones and pre-digital cell phones. Ah iphones! Texting, Blogging, easy Amazon shopping.
Mom(Margie) added ... The
world is changing soooo fast! It is just amazing. When LaMar graduated
from the U. of U., there were NO degrees in computer. When he worked in
computers later on, they were big mainframe computers that took up whole
rooms. He'll have to write about it.
I remember roller skates that expanded in length to fit different size
kids, and you adjusted them with a "skate key" that you hung around
your neck on a ribbon so it wouldn't get lost. A couple days ago (May 2021), I watched an
interesting documentary on PBS on the development of medicine. It
started with the accidental discovery of penicillin about the time LaMar
was born. Then nothing happened with it for about 10 years, when another
doctor researcher came across Fleming's research notes in a medical
book/library. The life expectancy was only about age 42 back then.
People died from infections that we easily cure now. Penicillin raised
the life expectancy by a lot. He
started experimenting with it on mice and found it really worked and was
amazing! It took his lab 7 months to produce enough to try it on a human.
Again, amazing results! Then how they had to learn to make large amounts
of it about the time I was born and how it helped the enlisted men in
World War 2. Then tells how they
developed other antibiotics and how medicine has multiplied and
developed since then. I remember growing up---no air-conditioning in the church buildings. They would have the stiff cardboard fans along with the song books in the holders for people to fan themselves to keep cool.
Think about it. What would make YOUR list?
If you had to come up with a TOP 10 ...
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