Tag: bell bottoms

Enough Already?

When is enough enough?

Like why do the Rolling Stones still tour? They are old. Rock and roll should not be performed by the AARP set. Charlie Watts looks like he has no teeth. Keith Richards looks like he has been embalmed. And no matter how good he looks FOR HIS AGE, we don’t need to see Mick strut around like a tough rooster. I have heard people say that they want to see them before they die.

Like why did Lucas-Spielberg-Ford do another Indiana Jones flick? Yeah, it was great to see the silhouetted Harrison Ford put on that famous hat, but a weak script, mediocre story and caricatures instead of characters couldn’t save this clunker of a movie.

Like what did the final two seasons with the Washington Wizards do for Michael Jordan, the Wizards or basketball? Not a thing. Coming off of his second retirement, His Airness was hurt and his step and shot had lost their zip. He did not take the team to the playoffs or burnish his image.

Like thinking that you should have cheaper gas so you can continue driving your anachronistic SUV–or a Lincoln Mark V? And Detroit, the home of the gas guzzler, wonders why it can’t sell cars. Unnecessarily large inefficient vehicles became a bad idea in the 70’s, why would anyone be surprised that the reprise would be a repeat?

Like listening exclusively to the oldies station and saying that they don’t make decent music anymore. Like complaining that teens on social network sites don’t have real relationships. Like trying to recreate your childhood for your children. Like doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

Me? I still gotta lot to learn. I’m not ready to stand still.

(c) 2005-2016 Doctor of Thinkology. Some rights reserved under Creative Commons License.
Posted on by docthink 0

That 70’s Feeling

Nostalgia for me meant the old people (parents of my friends, for example) who waxed about poodle skirts and hot rods. Our jr. high school had sock hops. Truman and Eisenhower were about as relevant to us as Garfield and Arthur–and not the cat or aardvark.

I found myself feeling a bit of the yearn for the kinder, gentler time of the 38th President, Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006). We went to the Capitol Rotunda to pay our respects. Me, the 12-year-old, and the 15-year-old.

12-year old: Why are we standing in this line?
Me: To pay our respects.
12-year old: Why?

I was stuck. Was it because he is a Michigan man? I ended up being weepy when we lost Bo, too. Was it because I remember him from my childhood, and he wasn’t Richard Nixon? Was it because he was an object of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players humor? Or the way that his brave wife made rehab into the modern penance for the rich and (in)famous? Or maybe because he shares my fondness for big yellow dogs?

Am I nostalgic for the time when there were such things as pro-choice, non-spinning republicans that oversaw the dismantling of a bad war? For a leader who used compromise as an agreement builder and integrity for his talisman? But was I making that up? I don’t remember the 70’s being as much fun as the show.

So as we snaked through the House side of the Capitol, and as we were rushed through the Rotunda and were denied a pause before the awesome statue of Sacajawea, I told the 12-year-old “All of the above.”

And he looked at me like it was 1976, and there were bell bottoms and Gran Torinos.

(c) 2005-2016 Doctor of Thinkology. Some rights reserved under Creative Commons License.
Posted on by docthink 0