
                 From the '50s to the '80s -- That's Progress?
                                 by Dave Barry


	  Because of  scheduling  problems,  the  '50s  did not officially
     begin until 1952.    This,  coincidentally,  was the year of the 1952
     presidential election campaign, in  which  both  parties, recognizing
     that the nation was locked  into a deadly Cold War struggle, when the
     slightest mistake could mean the destruction  of  the  entire planet,
     nominated bald men with silly names.   The  Democrats went with Adlai
     Stevenson,  a  suspected intellectual, and the Republicans went  with
     Dwight  "David"  Eisenhower,  who  was  extremely popular for winning
     World War II and for having the likable nickname "Ike,"  which he got
     from  a sound that his friend Sir Winston Churchill made just  before
     pitching face-first into his food at a dinner party.

	  The '50s  were an extremely important cultural era, because this
     was the phase when the postwar "Baby Boom" generation grew up, and we
     Boomers  are  quite  frankly    fascinated  with  anything  involving
     ourselves.  Like, when we  started  having our own babies, it was all
     we  could  talk about for years.    We  went  around  describing  our
     child-having and child-rearing experiences in breathtaking detail, as
     though the rest of you had no experience whatsoever in these fields.

	  The  best  archival  source for accurate information about  life
     during  this  era is the brilliant TV documentary series  "Ozzie  and
     Harriet." From this we learn that the '50s were a  time  when  once a
     week some kind of epochal crisis would occur, such as Ricky borrowing
     David's  sweater  without  asking,  and it would take half an hour to
     resolve  this  crisis,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  male head of
     household had  the  IQ  of  dirt.  But other than that, life was very
     good, considering it was filmed in black and white.

	  But the most  truly  wonderful  '50s show was "Queen for a Day,"
     starring Your Host, Jack  Bailey.   This was a kind of Game Show from
     Hell where three women competed  to  see  who  had the most miserable
     life.  We are not making  this  show up.  Contestant No.  1 would say
     something like, "Well, I have terminal cancer,  of course, and little
     Billy's iron lung was destroyed in the fire,  and  ..."  and  so  on.
     Everybody in the audience would be weeping, and then  Contestant  No.
     2 would tell a story that was even worse.  And then Contestant No.  3
     would make the other two sound like Mary Poppins.  After  which  Jack
     Bailey  would  have  the  members  of the audience clap to show which
     woman  they thought was the most wretched, and she would receive some
     very nice gifts including (always) an Amana freezer.  It was fabulous
     television, and a  nice  freezer,  and  it remained unsurpassed until
     three decades later, with  the  emergence  -- probably as a result of
     toxic waste in the water supply -- of Geraldo Rivera.

	  But the significant cultural innovation  of the '50s was musical
     -- a new "sound" called "rock  'n'  roll,"  an  exciting, high-energy
     style   of  music  that  reflected  the  young    people's    growing
     disillusionment    with   the  stultifying,  numbing,  bourgeois  and
     materialistic values  of  an increasingly homogeneous society through
     such lyrics as:

		Bomp ba ba bomp
		Ba Bomp ba bomp bomp
		A dang a dang dang
		A ding a dong ding.
		Blue moon.

	  The '60s were  a  unique  era  in American history.  Mention the
     '60s  to any middle-aged  urban  professional,  and  he'll  transform
     himself into something worse that  those Depressionites, droning away
     about his memories until you think  up  an  excuse to leave.  Such is
     the  impact  that  this  exciting  era  still  has  on  the  American
     consciousness.  Because it was a time of truth, but also of lies;  of
     love, but also of hate;  of peace, but also of war;  of Otis Redding,
     but  also  of Sonny Bono.  There was a "new  feeling"  in  the  land,
     especially  among  the young people, who joined the "hippie movement"
     to express their need to be free, to challenge the traditional values
     of American culture,  to  order  some  pizza  *RIGHT  NOW*.  Yes, the
     "times they were a-changin',"  and nobody expressed the spirit of the
     '60s        better        than        the      brilliant        young
     poet-songwriter-irritatingly-nasal-whiner  Bob  Dylan, when, with his
     usual insightfulness, he sang:

		How many times can a man be a man
		Before a man is a man?

	  Moved by the power of this message,  tens  of thousands of young
     people rejected the trappings of a grasping greedy  society  to  live
     simple,  uncluttered  lives.  As a result of these  experiences,  the
     "Flower  Children"  of the '60s developed a unique set of  values,  a
     strong  sense  of  idealism  and social awareness that still exerts a
     powerful influence over  their  decisions in such philosophical areas
     as what radio stations  to  listen  to  when driving their Jaguars to
     their brokerage firms.

	  The '70s dawned with "Dick"  Nixon  riding high.  The nation had
     surged  ahead  in  the space race  through  a  series  of  courageous
     accomplishments  by astronauts such as Donald "Deke"  Slayton,  Edwin
     "Buzz"  Aldrin,  Scott  "Scotty"  Carpenter, and Nicholas "Nicky  the
     Squid" Calamari, climaxing with the historic moment on Oct.    8 when
     Neil  "Satchmo" Armstrong became the first human to set foot  on  the
     moon.

	  On the  foreign-policy  front,  Nixon  continued  to protect the
     national security by  not  telling anybody, not even his secret wife,
     Pat, what his secret  plan  to  end the Vietnam War was.  At the same
     time, he undertook a major  clandestine  foreign-policy initiative by
     sending  chocolates  and  long-stemmed roses to  legendary  Communist
     Chinese revolutionary leader Mao ("Mo the Dong") Zedong.  Helping him
     with  this initiative was the brilliant, avocado-shaped genius  Henry
     Kissinger, who became the nation's top foreign-policy strategist.

	  The  1980s will be remembered as a time when  the  nation  broke
     free  of  the  confining  chains  of  the left-leaning bleeding-heart
     gutless namby-pamby  Mister  Pouty  Pants Liberal school of political
     thought that had  dominated  the  American  political  landscape ever
     since the New Deal.

	  Who was responsible for  this  sweeping  change  in the national
     mood?  Amazingly, it was almost entirely the work of a single person,
     a strong, dominant individual who was  able  to  change the course of
     history  through  steely  determination,  unflinching  toughness, and
     sheer force of will:  Nancy Reagan.   But you also have to give a lot
     of  credit  to her husband, Ron, a distinguished war-movie  hero  who
     served,  off  and on, as President of the United States  during  this
     era,  and  whose    administration  made  many  historically  crucial
     decisions, several of which he was aware of personally.

	  Coinciding with this national  mode change was the emergence and
     rapid cholera-like spreading of young urban professionals, also known
     as "yuppies," a new breed of seriously ambitious humanoids whose idea
     of  a  really  wild  evening  was to  get  drunk  and  restructure  a
     corporation.    The role models for the '80s  were  men  like  Donald
     Trump, who had made several jillion dollars in the lucrative field of
     amassing wealth.

	  But all was not peaches and light on the 1980s  economic  front.
     After  a  lengthy  investigation,  crack agents of the Securities and
     Exchange Commission  discovered  that  top  Wall  Street figures were
     using "inside information" to make money, a revelation that came as a
     shock to those members  of  the  public who had mince pie for brains.
     Investor confidence was further shaken  by  the stock-market crash of
     Oct.  8, 1987, caused by  a herd of computers that were panicked into
     the worst international electronic stampede in history  when  a woman
     in Akron, Ohio, got angry and punched an automatic bank teller.  (See
     footnote 1.)

	  That   is  where  we  stand  today.    And  what  lies    ahead?
     Unfortunately, we cannot know what will happen in the future.

	  But we do know this:  America is a strong and great country, and
     her people  have withstood many trials and tribulations (see footnote
     2).  And  whatever  problems  lie ahead, we may be sure of one thing:
     that if we all  work together and "hang tough," there will come a day
     when this nation -- maybe  not in the next few years;  maybe not even
     in our lifetimes;  but someday  -- will see the end of "Dick" Nixon's
     political career.

	  But we wouldn't bet on it.

________
Footnotes:
1.	Charging it later with sexual harassment.
2.	More tribulations, actually, because many never went to trial.
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