Sunday, May 1, 2011

One of the Lucky Ones

I used to lie in bed when I was a little girl and think about my place in the world. I remember being grateful and slightly awed that I had the enormous good fortune of being who, where, and what I was and, in particular, when. What that was was an American in a secure home during the most exciting time in history.

Now, looking back I see how wise I was. As a 50-year old, I have seen so much revolution and change. Born in 1959 on the tailcoat of the baby boomers, I passed my childhood in the sixties. Everything was groovy and classic in the classic-rock sense. All the teachers played music, the kids read books and rode bikes, most moms stayed home, and the neighborhood was a giant block party with barbecues, hide-and-go seek, freeze tag, and swimming parties. We'd listen to the Jackson Five, the Osmonds, sing along to Mr. Big Stuff, Cherokee People, and Band of Gold. And we had heroes. Real ones. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to the world and taught us what equality was. Ghandi changed the world with peace. Neal Armstrong took a giant step for us. Gloria Steinem, Camilia Paglia, and Miss Piggy built on the foundation laid by Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, and Abigail Adams. On Saturdays, we watched, the Flintstones, the Monkees, and Johnny Quest;  afternoons after school were old-time musicals and cowboy-and-Indian movies; at night, we watched Batman, the Avengers, That Girl, the Carole Burnett show, Ed Sullivan, the Smothers Brothers, and Laugh-in. And always there was the Vietnam War. We hated that war. Our young adults protested it, Walter Cronkite counted the bodies every evening, and we felt shame. This is the time when we were raised to call the police cops or pigs, flowers were power, war was bad, bras were to be burnt, and you were to never trust anyone over 30. I looked up to hippies and radicals but I remained afraid of them. Charles Manson was pure evil. Pot and LSD could kill you. The hills were alive with music, Harold and Maude were in love and Billy Jack kicked everybody's butt who wasn't an Indian. This was a great time to be a kid.

A teenager in the seventies, Nixon and Watergate taught me to not trust the Man. The Beatles broke up. Girls were good at English, boys at Math. The war was over. Brooke Shields was close with her Calvin Klein's. We were in the middle of the sexual revolution and everyone was horny. Magazine covers discussed orgasms and g-spots, women smoked Virginia Slims, and love was free. Cocaine wasn't addictive, pot had names like vacation spots, love was free, and the music was even better. Led Zeppelin, the Doobie Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, and the Eagles. I was embarrassed to be a virgin so I hid it from by friends who were keeping the same secrets themselves. We dreamt of surfing, boys, Karmen Ghias, going to Hollywood clubs but all we got was Rocky, King Kong, and Grease. At least we had Annie Hall, Cabaret, and . At night we drank wine coolers and beer, danced at parties, listened to the comedy albums of Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams, watched Saturday Night Live in packs, and cruised Whittier Boulevard. Strange, but blow-jobs were considered sex and was the most intimate and forbidden act. It was okay to have sex because the worse thing was getting pregnant and Roe vs. Wade had taken care of that.

Rolling into the eighties I was in college and the party was going strong. We danced and drank and felt like adults. Doctors were handing out the pill and diet pills. Nights we'd drink and dance to Lionel Ritchie, the Gap Band, and....who cares there was no AIDS! What a miracle. I was attractive, young, a product of the sexual revolution, and I couldn't die from sex. The only people ostracized were the ones who weren't having sex...or at least claiming to.

But the AIDS virus changed it all and we were in shock. Then came technology and we were at least entertained. The internet, emailing and work became our new obsession. All done while wine-tasting, reading Harry Potter, blackening some poor fish, and smoking a cigar. Which of course brings me to Lewinsky. Clinton shocked even my generation when he said he didn't think blow jobs were sex acts. So, with one blow (pun intended), they changed oral sex to hooking up. And you can't get pregnant or AIDS from head.

Now it's all about blogging, texting, and Botox. We used to discuss music and sex and our heroes, now we talk about who is having what done and where you can get it cheapest.

I wonder what we will obsess about in the next couple decades? I just hope it is not Soylent Green. Which is not a vacation spot or a type of pot.

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