Is Nostalgia All it's Cracked up to Be?

What is it about the 1960s and '70s that so many of today's children find so attractive? When I hear 16-year-olds start correcting their parents about events that took place in that era, it causes me to suffer a rapid ascent of my eyeballs to somewhere in the upper reaches of my cranium.

"American Graffiti" and "Grease" and all those unbelievably silly movies of the rip-roaring days of yore that followed and are available on the Internet and "On Demand" and all those other outlets of the electronic age, have had a ghastly effect on the cadre of reincarnated boppers of today—and they think they know more about the era and do their parents, or even grandparents. Amazing!

A friend, Phil Oliver, keeps Facebook loaded with the musics of the '60s and '70s—daily!

In the 1960s, I was I was just beginning to appreciate girls (who then wore terribly long skirts, argyle socks and funny shoes) and I was busy discovering that just maybe those gum-chewing gigglers who actually studied at school might not be so bad after all. A revelation!

It was the era of the drive-in movie (the "passion pits" to those you hovering around my age) and sock hops at the YMCA, after which everyone crowded into an ancient Ford and set off for the "parking spots." Teen-aged pregnancy in those days wasn't all that prevalent because when you shoe-horned 10 people into an old car there wasn't much room to in which to make lascivious maneuvers.

I recall reading a magazine piece in which the reason for fewer births in "those days" was a garment, or maybe instrument, known as the girdle, or the roll-on as it was called in the U.K. I really wouldn't care to continue on with any further details on that subject, but I'm sure a lot of you out there with greying hair (no, just grey) know exactly what I mean.

There were, of course, problems. Greasy-haired nincompoops used to do battle with bespectacled biology students, and ungodly looking cars would drag down the road, often resulting in fatalities because the drivers had guzzled far too much beer and their brains became fogged.. Well, I guess some things haven't changed over the decades.

Politics was simpler then, too. I was recently castigated for being too critical of politiicians. Oh, please. We have a , along with other Pee Gee pols and, of all things, police. It seems our elected officials lie through their teeth and are about as truthful as a telephone solicitor or an e-mail (have to upgrade to the current era) that you have won a free vacation in the Bahamas.

Back in the hazy, lazy days of the '60s, all politicians were afraid of being called commies (I think the tea-baggers stole that one from them) so they wouldn't do anything as daring as asserting themselves. I don't have a lot of personal experience with that, but I've seen the McCarthy hearings (on tape). And let us not forget the gutless pols of the era when it came to integration. Now politicians rank below telemarketers and computer spammers in the polls. Phew!

And besides, how could anyone gets mad at a president who spent all his time on the golf course (Eisenhower) or JFK? And state legislators spent all their time at Dinty's Bar and Grill discussing the latest political affairs in Ireland or Italy.  And if one of those politicians of  the 1960s had the audacity cheat on the "Little Woman at Home in the Kitchen," the brigade of the Ladies' Sodality would be hot on his (there weren't many female legislators) heels to do him in with umbrellas  and religious tracts. Today's pols dump wives for younger ones and no one seems to care.  Again, how times have changed, and politically not for the better.

I recall a visit to a seat of government one sunny fall afternoon decades ago. I was brightly attired in a Nehru jacket (who remembers them?), slacks that clung  tenaciously to my ankles, red and purple shoes and a full head of hair (well, I almost remember that) that would easily have greased all the cars on .

Rep. Someone-or-Other, with eyes the color of raspberries and breath more in tune with the smell of a surgical ward, harped on about the glories of his job and the power at his disposal and so forth. Oops, I think that scenario is still possible in Annapolis or Upper Marlboro.

What do you think? Seems like yesterday, that one. Maybe it was. But I caught the cad trying to pinch a comely young intern in the hall, and it has jaundiced my view of legislators ever since. A teen-age trauma, you might say, that has made me distrustful of politicians ever since. Actually, it has been useful to me as a journalist. Look at Upper Marlboro!

And again, there was the music of that era—music, by the way—I sit back and listen to constantly. My DJ son, the musical snob, calls it elevator music.

I remember executing strange and complicated maneuvers back in those day with Sally, my heart-throb in blue jeans (non-designer), after a football game or bouncing about to the discordant sounds of Buddy Holly. Elvis, by the way, made me gag. Never could take him. And then there were those morbid tunes—"Throw Irma my Class Ring as I Lay Dying after being Run Over by a Train." Remember them? The guy in a pick-up truck confesses his love for Mary Beth after a steam roller pressed him into the pavement. They don't make songs like that anymore.

Thank heavens.

Then there were all those groups with funny names who couldn't sing. The Four Pistons, The Six Sausages, The 4 Kitchen Counters. One should be able to say we don't have musically untalented groups like that, but, alas, we do, like Lady Gaga and some kid called Bieber who looks to be about 9 years old.

Those old days weren't quite like our children visualize in 2011, but the era had one redeeming value—it wasn't as frenetic as today, and we didn't have children overdosing on lethal, illegal drugs, though we did have an occasional beer. More than occasional, in truth. And we weren't particularly affluent—we only had one car in the family, for goodness sake.

Those of us who lived back then can, I suppose, smile a little when the kids tell what it was like. Fall over laughing would probably be more apt.

But, I still love the '60s.