Hello there. If you are like me, you enjoy modern technology, but your fondest memories are from an era that now seems absolutely stone-age. You wore bell bottom jeans, rode bikes with banana seats, had that green phone that mounted to the wall with a cord that would stretch 50 feet for those oh-so-private-conversations, and you thought that the talking computer from War Games was so cutting-edge technology.

                You put enough quarters into video games that you could have bought a car instead. Your fundamental days went from the Vietnam era to disco to home computers and foods made especially for microwaves. You may not remember who shot J.R., but you definitely recall that somebody did. Nobody wore seatbelts, even though car dashboards were comprised of solid steel and chrome. Summers lasted forever and you most likely suffered a heartbreak or two or twelve.

                I suppose that every generation longs for the days of their youth. My parents were older than most, so they grew up during the Great Depression and WWII. There is something about everyone losing their jobs and a nutcase in Germany setting the world on fire that doesn’t sound like it would generate a lot of great memories, but they did. My dad had to worry about getting Polio, but he still went swimming in stone quarries. (I guess drowning wasn’t a big concern back then.) My mom grew up in Detroit before it became a third world country, but she would tell us about taking the bus downtown to go shopping, and how it was so very metropolitan.

                This blog is going to be dedicated to the things my generation experienced. Sometimes I might stray into current events, but for the most part I’ll be writing about Reaganomics, The Miracle on Ice, forced square dancing, band camp, acne, Saturday cartoons, political incorrectness, movies that ranged from wars that took place in the stars to shark infested waters and people that went about busting up specters.

                To be sure, ours was not a perfect generation. Have you not noticed how we screwed up our kids? We were the last generation in which racist comments were publicly acceptable, where smoking was still cool, and where gays were still too frightened to come out of that closet. We had to have crying Indians tell us that throwing away trash on the highways was not cool, and that women were still valued for their childbearing hips over their opinions regarding foreign policy.

                That being said, we did have a lot of fun, and we grew up with the best music. Album covers were often works of art and usually as important as the music inside. The Dewey Decimal System was our Google, and having a full set of the Encyclopedia Britanica was a sure sign of sophistication. We had our times of limited gasoline, but when you finally did get to fuel up, it only cost a buck fifty. Moms stayed home and, more importantly, so did the dads, if you know what I’m saying.

                It may be possible that you are in you early 50’s and the thought of not having the internet makes you cringe. Maybe your childhood was painful, and everything associated with that time is one giant emotional scab. Maybe you were that one person who thinks that Scrappy actually added to the Scooby-Do gang. Maybe you think that the only thing better than a musical CD is a digital download. You might be disappointed that we don’t have flying cars by now, but you know that it will just be a matter of time before Musk crates one. And if you do, that’s okay. Everyone is entitled to form their own opinion.

                Except for liking Scrappy. Scrappy was like taking Oliver from The Brady Bunch, mixing him with the deputy who replaced Barney Fife and throwing in a pinch of Coy and Vance Duke for good measure. Like the E.T. video game for the Atari 2600, Scrappy is an evil that can never be undone or fully banished. My advice to you is, if you are lacking the common sense to hate everything about Scrappy, keep that to yourself., you big loser.

                But I digress.

                Hopefully my whimsical journeys down memory lane will put a smile on your face and a warm glow in your heart, which by this time is probably laden with plaque. My goal is to make a lot of money by getting enough readers that corporations will want to sponsor me. I also want to help my generation recall its triumphs and tragedies, its clothing peaks and its clothing lows. (Looking at you, maxi dress.) But mostly it’s about the money. So, if you like what you read, feel free to share it online.

                Shameless plug over.

                So, if the era of political assassinations, wildly unpopular wars, free love, drug overdoses, inflation, ugly clothes, toxic dumps, pay phones, smog, cola wars, race riots, and being afraid that the Soviets would finally drop the bomb, is what interests you, this is the blog for you.

                Kristen is the one who shot J.R., by the way.

                I had to Google it.