Old Timers (those who remember the 60's)

[robivi3]

Just sitting and burning flicks, listening to my Burl Ives Christmas Album while "working".

It's 100 degrees here in SoFla so a Burl Ives Christmas in the AC is great!

Do you guys still remember ol Burl?

[HenriettaHen]

I remember Burl mostly from the TV special Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer (my favorite as a young anthropomorphist). Burl gently accompanied my early childhood indoctrination by our friends General Electric, so I still get "that Christmas feeling", whenever I even think about Burl. Even though Burl was a tool.



Oh don't get me started.

Did you know that Santa Claus, as we know him, (fat red-cheeked guy in red with curly beard,glasses) was ENTIRELY a creation of Coca-Cola? Leave a Coke for Santa! No relation whatsoever to those St.Nicks and elves who crop up in European heritage - no Winter elf THIS! (but I am sure he is an amalgamation of several such characters who appear around the solstice...)

This Santa Guy is now the Great God of Consumerism, Virginia! Oh, and he is very real!

As children in the Sixties, we were being groomed to consume.

UNREAL. Imagine being a kid now!




Sorry, was that unbelievably cynical and depressing, or WHAT?

[robivi3]

Burl had great Pirate Songs like "High Barbary" and host of other albums also. 'course I have Roger Whittaker on CD so I'm a bit dated.

[HenriettaHen]

Good to know I'm still considered a Spring Chicken by SOMEONE.

Kinda like being carded for the Last Time.

Sorry, didn't mean to be a drag. I'll look up the young Burl.

[AMISLANDER]

Burl had great Pirate Songs like "High Barbary" and host of other albums also. 'course I have Roger Whittaker on CD so I'm a bit dated.

I think my stepfather had 8-track tapes of him back in the late 70's...

I always watch Rudulph & have a cold when it comes on...something I continue from my childhood!

[Minnymouth]

Awwwww, Robivi3, yes we are getting "dated" and our age is showing......mine even more so than yours.....

Yes, Good ole Burl Ives, great Christmas music and others.....

And yes, I remember the 1ST TV'S - we had one..... only one on the street............... and then along come Ed Sullivan - then the guy (I'm drawing a blank senior moment on his name right now, lol)..... the one with the "bubble music".....

Oh, yes, the Beatles coming to the USA and ELVIS - his 1st TV appearance where they wouldn't show him below the waist.....

Those days are old history days...... fond memories....... just like the ole 57 chevy................

Personally I would have liked to lived during my grandparents days........ World War I and II....... first car, first airplane, the Titantic..... outside toilets, outside water wells, (I can remember drawing water from the wells on the old farm), everyone grew their own food and went to market, horse and buggy days -all the exciting years of historical events......

Even tho I've seen a few new things in my lifetime with the 1st TV's, first space ship going up, etc...... and all the new computerized stuff that now exist....... I feel like the generation before me REALLY MADE THINGS HAPPEN AND CHANGED HISTORY......

I love some of the old music, have lots of old 33's, 78's and 45's, 8-tracks -and still have something to play them all on. I can put on an old record or 8 track and GO BACK IN TIME for a few minutes. Fond memories pop up, things that I haven't thought of in YEARS....... Really it's nice to be able to do this at my age now.......to remember things that I had forgotten long ago.....

We forget the past - if we want too....... many just focus on now and the future....... but our past is what makes us what we are today...... so it's nice to go back in time for a few minutes and remember.......

Yeah, I'm pretty dated aren't I....... but I think on todays level..... I grew up and I grew older, and think very young at heart........

Minny

[Minnymouth]

My parents generation at Christmas was fruit in their stockings and new clothes made from flour sacks...... they got a new pair of shoes when school started each year...... Of course all the little ones got the "hand me downs".......

Got to give the older generation a "LOT OF CREDIT" - THEY WERE SURVIVORS......... in all sense of the word.....

Would like to see some of the kids now days DO IT............ how long would they last without the gameboys, Xboxes, bigscreen TV's, I-pods, cell phones, and name brand clothes..... and only get a soda pop once a month when they went to town by horseback or in the buggy......

Interesting thought, huh............

[BKOnce]

Yea!.. American-Debt-Nation...

[lrprn]

then the guy (I'm drawing a blank senior moment on his name right now, lol)..... the one with the "bubble music".....

That would be Lawrence Welk. How my grandmother loved him! She never missed a Saturday night show! I remember his "wunnerful, wunnerful" and "a one and a two" downbeat to start the orchestra

Yep, being a Baby Boomer myself, Burl and all the others mentioned on this thread are old and dear friends!

[Bandit]

I remember. He sang the vocals for the songs in a lot of Christmas movies and childrens Christmas shows. Good memories.

[robivi3]

lprn- Saturday or Friday depending at 8 o'clock. My grandfather loved him. Now when he is on PBS I watch just to remember my Grandfather. My mom ran a PR firm on miami Beach so we got to have him at our house one time. VERY much an absolute gentleman. WYSIWYG, that was my impression of him, what you saw on TV you saw in person. Another of those old time guys who was really nice was Kreskin, I got to go to dinner with him and my mom and dad and he paid special attention to me, a dumb kid. There were some folks who were just decent by nature. I met Vladimir Horowitz once and even found him really nice. Nicest of all, Ricardo Montalban and his wife (this was early 70's). My mom and dad went on a cruise with them and i got to use his Hotel suite at the Flamingo at 69 and Collins for three days. The guy exudes down to earth class, a true gentleman and his wife was a lady who complimented him beautifully, nice match as I remember.

I suppose that having met some of these entertainers i am stuck in those days to a point.

[lrprn]

It is so that your family actually got to meet and spend time with these famous people in person, Robivi3! So many stars of all ages these days are spoiled. self-centereed brats. It's refreshing to know that these stars didn't let their fame and money to go to their heads - they remained honest and caring to others when the cameras weren't rolling. Thanks for sharing!

[robivi3]

When I discuss my life it is divided into several compartments.

1959-1969 Born, my real mother dies of ovarian cancer in 1969. She was a Bell Tel. Supervisor for the Operators. My Dad was a Bell Engineer for 38 years.

1970-1975 1st stepmother, Reporter for the Nashville Banner, Miami beach Sun and owned a PR Companay from 1971 -1975 on Miami Beach. We lived in Forest Hills before near nashville and knew alot of famous people there but she had interviewed alot more famous folks and the perks with her nice, that sounds weird, i can't think of another way to say it. I would prefer my mother to be alive. This stepmother drowned in an "Auto accident" at the Boat Ramp at Haulover, some will know where that is. It was likely a suicide, the witnesses said she smoked a cigarette while the car sank. It was pitch dark there in those days, so there is no blame to attach to those folks inaction. Knowing the place they must have been utterly confused at the event. she was manic, very creative, but manic.

1976- today
My Colombian mother, normal susburban life, thank God for her, she has been a Godsend.

So, when i say I've had this odd, compacted life, showered years ago with lots of famous people, even got to go to the Playboy Club on Collins as a kid, used to deliver copy to Pepi Fields who lived in The Vendome on the Beach and that Tex Ritters wife actually baked me cookies once (I met the son with CP at a fund raiser I don't remember meeting John Ritter, maybe I did) it isn't a brag, it just happened that way. So if I ever drop names don't think it's for that sake, I have some nice and not nice memmories and a love of old entertainers.

On the one hand I have this old Country family in Tennessee, on the other hand i have relatives by step in Colombia and on the other I have this thing where I met Lily Tomlin (1972 she ordered my best friend and i "eclairs" up to her room at the Bal Harbor Hilton and then my "Mom" took us for sandwiches at "Shrafts" in Bal Harbor Shops which was some big deal at the time. I even got to meet Sammy Davis, Sandler & Young and my parents were good, really good friends with Steve and Edie, they were actually real nice people. Later on because of work on Maimi Beach in my teens I met alot of the 70's and early 80's rich and famous also, also some rich and infamous like "Brother Love" from the Zion Coptic mansion on Star Island, those guys tipped BIG, BIIIIIIG.

Just an odd, compacted early life that resulted in afew stories that are sometimes fun to recount. What am I doing now, as far from that life as can be imagined. You go back and see your old homes and that life is foreign, new people live in your old one acre home on Indian Creek that don't know you from Adam and that is fine, there were aspects of the PR business that were fake, phony and while the folks above were all decent except a couple (Brother Love), some others were nasty and debauched and i wouldn't leave my kids with them ever. You overheard the debauchery issues from your parents, especially when they had to deal with scumbags, alot were.

As for the Lawrence Welks, Montalbans and Steve and Edies they just bring back good memmories of nice people that were in the public eye for a living.

The most fond memmory of the 70's to me is copy/paste when it literally was copy/paste. I remember seeing the ad layouts pinned, pasted and covered in onion paper laying on the big bed in the extra bedroom/office and hearing my stepmother's typewriter bang away at all hours. In spite of her manner of demise she was for the most part a good person and an excellent writer and one hell of an adventurer, she did things around the world then that folks just did not do. The funniest thing was when she climbed the Temple of the Sun in Chichen Iza and came down all 365 steps on her butt one...at...a...time. Or the time she went up a mountain to visit an orphanage in Haiti and on the way the Nuns told her NOT to stick her feet in the stream and she did and had to walk MILES with blisters flaming away. The paper would literally slap a camera in her hand (she gave me my love of Minolta's, I just had my "new" 30 year old Minolta rebuilt) and send her. She would go anywhere up until she started the PR business.

sorry for the long post, this churned up afew laughs for me.thanks

[Minnymouth]

Yes, Robivi3, we've talked about some of this before.....you and I, all the things in our past.....

Tending bar part-time at nite in a club on the Nashville circuit gave me many opportunities to meet different folks also..... me mostly entertainers. Statler Brothers (super nice), Loretta and Conway (really nice) also run into Conway when I was in Ga. working as a nite auditor at Holiday Inn. His group spent the nite there. 3Am he called down, said "Hello Darlin", you got any coffee down there. He came downstairs, sat down, had a cup of coffee with me and I mentioned that I had met him many years earlier. I named the club and he named the Owner and some of the bouncers for me. Cal Smith (nice guy) Little Johnny Paycheck, just to mention a few over the 8 year span I tended bar. Loretta/Conway did a show that Dayton arena, then came to the club afterwards. They did get up and sing song for all of us. Crowd at the club went wild....... then left them in peace so they too could enjoy themselves.

Lots of interesting people, lots of fond memories, a step back in time. Those days may be over - but never forgotten.

[robivi3]

I've got Conway and Loretta singing "you're the reason our kids are ugly". I laugh so hard at this song! I did see Johnny paycheck at the Dade County Youth Fair years ago, when it was safe to go.

I loved living in Nashville, the place is full of good childhood memmories. It was dry until 1965. Today at lunch we sat in the E350 and blaired Johnny Cash loud as he could go, "Walk the Line" got me hooked again. That Joaquin Phoenix did one hell of an acting job, lovrd it. I thought Robert Patrick played the father well and just happen to see him in Bridge to Taribithia again this weekend on PPV. Another actor that hasn't had the roles he deserved, that Terminator 2 might have damaged his career somewhat.