Three talented entertainers and two opportunistic wannabes banded together in the 1950s and 1960s to drink, womanize and suck up to the Mafia and JFK.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The Interstate Highway "Snow Job"
In the 1960s federal and state lawmakers, whose palms were regularly greased by special interest groups representing the American trucking industry, paved the way for the nation's first “Interstate Highway System”.
The first step in this ill-conceived program of greed and avarice was the government seizure of private land by “condemning it” and invoking the “right of eminent domain”. These corrupt and vision-less bureaucrats put thousands of productive family farms out of business with reckless abandon and cut small-town America in half so that trucks could begin hauling the goods that America’s railroads once hauled. These were the goods that the railroads delivered without endangering motorists by sharing the same road with them and at one-fourth the cost of trucking those same goods. But no one seemed to care about any of that.
Built for trucks, but showcased as modern highways for family travel, America’s interstate highways soon turned small towns all over America into empty “bedroom communities” while turning America the Beautiful into a giant concrete scar littered with unsightly billboards.
And only Lady Bird Johnson seemed to give a hoot about that.
The first step in this ill-conceived program of greed and avarice was the government seizure of private land by “condemning it” and invoking the “right of eminent domain”. These corrupt and vision-less bureaucrats put thousands of productive family farms out of business with reckless abandon and cut small-town America in half so that trucks could begin hauling the goods that America’s railroads once hauled. These were the goods that the railroads delivered without endangering motorists by sharing the same road with them and at one-fourth the cost of trucking those same goods. But no one seemed to care about any of that.
Built for trucks, but showcased as modern highways for family travel, America’s interstate highways soon turned small towns all over America into empty “bedroom communities” while turning America the Beautiful into a giant concrete scar littered with unsightly billboards.
And only Lady Bird Johnson seemed to give a hoot about that.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Ponytails & Puppy Love
The first girl I ever had a crush on back in the mid-20th Century wore her hair in a "ponytail", a hairdo that instantly gave any girl or young woman that "All-American Girl" look. And, when the girl wearing the ponytail was a high school cheerleader, it was even better. And it was even better than that if she had just the right amount of freckles on her face and in just the right places.
Back in the 1950s I was still in elementary school but that didn't keep me from being fascinated by swinging, bouncing ponytails on neighborhood girls and on women in the movies. Even the mannish Katherine Hepburn took on a whole new feminine look when she pulled back that beautiful mane of long, dark hair into a ponytail.
When the "Peace & Love" movement came along in the late 1960s, the ponytails started to disappear. They were replaced by Indian braids and long hair parted in the middle. I was the young guy on campus who longed for Sandra Dee in a ponytail and who had to settle for Janis Joplin's greasy mop instead. What a bummer. But the bummer eventually became just a bad memory. After all, what guy in the mid-1970s could resist rubbernecking when an attractive coed jogged past you with that athletic ponytail bouncing and swaying? Thank heavens for the "Me Generation" and their resurrection of the ponytail.
I'm way too old now for "Puppy Love" to strike and I long ago stopped wishing I weren't immune to its temporary effects. But whenever I see a woman of any age sporting a ponytail, whether it's on her bare head or protruding from the back of a baseball cap, you can bet I'm discreetly watching and thoroughly enjoying.
Back in the 1950s I was still in elementary school but that didn't keep me from being fascinated by swinging, bouncing ponytails on neighborhood girls and on women in the movies. Even the mannish Katherine Hepburn took on a whole new feminine look when she pulled back that beautiful mane of long, dark hair into a ponytail.
When the "Peace & Love" movement came along in the late 1960s, the ponytails started to disappear. They were replaced by Indian braids and long hair parted in the middle. I was the young guy on campus who longed for Sandra Dee in a ponytail and who had to settle for Janis Joplin's greasy mop instead. What a bummer. But the bummer eventually became just a bad memory. After all, what guy in the mid-1970s could resist rubbernecking when an attractive coed jogged past you with that athletic ponytail bouncing and swaying? Thank heavens for the "Me Generation" and their resurrection of the ponytail.
I'm way too old now for "Puppy Love" to strike and I long ago stopped wishing I weren't immune to its temporary effects. But whenever I see a woman of any age sporting a ponytail, whether it's on her bare head or protruding from the back of a baseball cap, you can bet I'm discreetly watching and thoroughly enjoying.
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