Epistle 28 – Spring Break

Did you go to Florida on Spring Break? Nah, me neither. I always had to work, or at least I thought I did. About the only thing Boomer parents knew how to do was work so that’s all they taught their kids. All in all, not a bad plan unless you wanted a little joy in life, and once in awhile the idea would occur to me at which time I would sneak off in pursuit of some guilty pleasure—like a comic book when I was a tender lad or a Playboy magazine when I was a suave college student (just for the jokes, mind you).

Anyway, now I am on the Florida Gulf coast marveling at all the blue, half-naked kids shivering on the beach and pretending to have a grand old time. The temperature is down in the 60’s, but the sun is bright so they can at least get a great burn. And a new t-shirt with the image of some alien being or rock star (which is the same thing), that I never heard of but which must be cool because they buy them up by the millions.

The Redneck Riviera has more surf shops per capita than anywhere on earth, but I have never gone in one. Why? Fear I suppose. What if I find a dreadfully ugly shirt that I simply must have for $25? I would put in on right in the store, wander out to the street and blend into the crowd, mistaken for just one more student on Spring Break. What a blow that would be to whatever dignity I have left. And my wife would worry that I’d be overcome with emotion at the rock concert and damage my new hip jumping around. Not to worry. I can’t hear much, let alone jump.

Perhaps it was best that I never came here while I was in college, especially since the partying back then was in Ft. Lauderdale and I would have missed it. But seriously, wasn’t I a better person for drinking beer up north in the frozen tundra than drinking beer down here where it is warm and beautiful? Of course I was. I got in an extra snow storm or two and was able to improve my academic standing by spending the extra time studying. Yes, I was the lucky one all right. But if she was alive, I’d still have my mother arrested for child abuse.

Gotta go now. The surf shop just got in a new stock of Chad and Jeremy t-shirts. The kids will be green with envy, which, when combined with the blue from the cold, are perfect Florida colors.

We Will Win

Epistle 3 – Elvis

I don’t know if Elvis is in the building, but even if he’s gone, I’m surprised he lived as long as he did. Adults in the 50’s believed he was the anti-Christ, sent here to corrupt their fledgling Boomers with his long hair and swiveling hips that actually moved to the music. Can you imagine? Moving your hips to the music? Well, I never!

A guy named Ed Sullivan who had a live variety show for about fifty years on Sunday nights booked Elvis on the show. It was beamed out to millions on black and white TV’s (yes, children, black and white, it’s true!). Ed only televised Elvis from the waist up. Thank you, Ed. I’m a better person for it.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Elvis mumbled! After decades of teaching kids proper grammar and enunciation by whacking them on the head with a ruler, their hero mumbled! The youth of America was going straight to hell.

I’m not talking about the Las Vegas Elvis with the sequined white jumpsuits here. I’m talking about the real Hound Dog, side-burned, pre-army Elvis. The Elvis who deftly lead my brother’s crowd right down the drain, a rather short trip. The Elvis who challenged the Generation of Sacrifice with his rebellion . . . and WON! In a rout!

They could beat Hitler but they couldn’t beat Elvis. In short order they even started saying “I’m all shook up”, and wearing little belts on the back of their pants. I never understood the belts since they didn’t connect to anything—my first lesson that fashion doesn’t have to make sense.

In any event, Elvis was the first Boomer superhero. That’s why Boomers still park their overweight, high blood pressure bodies in overpriced seats to see some doofus impersonate him . . . sort of. You just can’t let your heroes die.

Need I now explain how pimply, awkward, prototype Boomers evolved into the bomb-throwing, revolutionary radicals or the flower power, long-hair, psychedelic hippies of the 60’s? Elvis taught us. If one man could stand up to our parents, surely the rest of us could reform the world, right?

Wrong. Nobody pointed out to us that Elvis also had charisma and talent. By the time we got to the 60’s, he had gone over to the dark side with his inane movies and Vegas act that met the establishment half way. We were forced to stumble forward on our own and tried to cover up our lack of talent, and good sense for that matter, with drugs.

For some reason that never seemed to quite work. I don’t understand how the world could fail to see our genius. Maybe we were just too far off the ground. My wife still has to yank me back out of the ozone now and then.

But the 60’s weren’t our fault. It was Elvis. And he’s still in the building . . . thank God.