What Happened?

It is finally here.

That's right, I am officially the big SIX-OH. Sixty (60) years old.

It is time to start thinking about retirement. Then it is time to think about where you are going to get money for your retirement. 

Fortunately, both my wife and I had the gray matter to contribute to our  401k plans so we may not have to rob a liquor store on a daily basis in our old age. ("Stick 'em up sonny and put some cash in this bag. Bless your heart, here's a piece of butterscotch candy and a nice shiny quarter for your trouble")

Of course, I've been thinking about my life and all of the changes that have occurred since 1959.

The day I was born, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the President of The United States.  He was the guy who came up with the strategy that basically saved Western Civilization in World War II. Everybody liked him. In fact, that was his campaign slogan, "I LIKE IKE".  It was called that because 'I LIKE DWIGHT" sounded clunky.

The current President is Donald J. Trump who used to host a game show called "The Apprentice". He was famous for being famous.  We are at almost full employment for only the second time of my lifetime. The economy actually grew for the first time in eight years. Despite this, nobody likes him. If Trump had a (D) beside his name, he would be a hands-on favorite to win re-election and people would be writing songs about him.

How did that happen?  How did we go from Eisenhower to Trump?  How did we go from a Congress being filled with people like Wilbur Mills (Google him) to people like "The Squad"?  It's like the kids from the unpopular table took control of the Student Government Association and then you realized why they were unpopular in the first place.

The top three television shows in 1959 were "Gunsmoke", "Wagon Train", and"Have Gun, Will Travel".   The top three television shows in 2019 were "The Big Bang Theory",  "NCIS", and  "This Is Us".  In sixty years we went from cowboys to nerds. 


Back in 1959, we had only three stations in Atlanta: 2. 5, and 11.  We had a fourth channel: 8, which was the "educational channel", which meant nobody watched it.


Now there are a billion channels and there's still nothing on to watch except episodes of  "The Office"  How did this happen?

The top three popular movies in 1959 were "Ben-Hur", "Operation Petticoat", and "Some Like It Hot".

I can say with confidence that the F-word was not said in any of those three motion pictures.  I'm pretty sure there was no nudity and certainly nobody from The Marvel Cinematic Universe was in any of the films mainly because there was no Marvel Comics.

The average movie ticket price in 1959 was fifty cents.  There is nothing you can buy at a movie theatre now for fifty cents.   Even if you go in the afternoon for the matinee, you have to take out a reverse mortgage.

Music. Wow, music has changed a lot in sixty years.

The top three hit songs of 1959: "The Battle of New Orleans", "Mack The Knife", and "Personality".

So far, the only hit song of 2019 is "Old Town Road" which is by a gay African-American twenty-one-year-old who somehow convinced Billy Ray Cyrus to record a rap song with him. I didn't know any twenty-one year old had ever heard of Billy Ray Cyrus.

These are some lyrics from "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton: "We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down/So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round/We filled his head with cannonballs and powdered his behind/And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind"

Can you imagine a hit song in 2019 using an alligator for a cannon?  It would be taken off the air.

Here are some lyrics from "Old Town Road" by Lil' Nas X: "Ridin' on a tractor, lean all in my bladder, cheated on my baby, you can go and ask her, my life is a movie, bull ridin' and boobies, cowboy hat from Gucci, Wrangler on my booty" ?

I didn't know Gucci sold cowboy hats.
      
I was born in an era in which everybody smoked cigarettes. There was this crazy theory which said sucking nicotine into your lungs might be bad for you. When I was in high school, you could smoke between classes. Now you can't smoke on earth no more.

The cost of a pack of cigarettes in 1959 was fifty cents.  In 2019, the average cost for a pack of cigarettes in Georgia is $4.92.  It costs a lot to give yourself lung cancer.

Back in 1959, there was this crazy thought that there were two sexes (male/female) and you could use the word "gender" interchangeably with the word "sex". Freaky, huh? There were not any arguments about which pronouns to use in any type of social setting.

In 2019, um, there are more than two genders. In fact, you can identify with a gender even if you were not born with the equipment of that gender.  I don't understand how this happened or why it even happened.

After I reflected on all of this, I came to a conclusion. Some people make things happen. Some people just wonder what happened.  After sixty years, I am in that second group.