Thanks for the memories
Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan, or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a Race of innocents, and they were you and me,
For Ike was in the White House in that Land where
we were born, Where navels were for oranges, and
Peyton Place was porn.
We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn.
We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since.
We danced to 'Little Darlin,' and sang to 'Stagger Lee'
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me Me.
Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.
And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me Me.
We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie, they never made it twice.
We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me Me.
Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.
We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,
And Oprah couldn't talk, yet, in the Land That Made Me Me.
We had our share of heroes, we never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin or Marilyn Monroe.
For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made me Me.
We'd never seen the rock band that was Grateful to
be Dead, And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson,
and Zeppelins were not Lead.
And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkeys lived in trees,
Madonna was a virgin in the Land That Made Me Me.
We'd never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they weren't grown i
in jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant
fancy-free, And dorms were never coed in the Land That Made Me Me.
We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at the bottom
of the bag.
And Hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me Me.
Buicks came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.
And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me Me.
We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms in the Land That Made Me Me.
There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill.
And middle-aged was 35 and old was 43,
And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me Me.
But all things have a season, or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.
They send us invitations to join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me Me.
So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children's children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me Me.
For all of you tooyoung to remember Bob Hope, ask your Parents!!! And.....thanks for the memories...!
I HOPE THIS WILL PUT A SMILE ON YOUR FACE AND IN YOUR HEART...!
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Comments: 5
"And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me Me."
One of my favorite early childhood stories was a Little Golden Book tale about taking a rocket ship (does anybody use that term any more?) to the moon, and the children looking out their bedroom window at the moon they wanted to visit and then had visited. I remember my mother and I talking about how it wasn't going to happen in our lifetimes.