Humor

Talkin”Bout My Generation

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(My newspaper column from The Beach Reporter 8/17/89.)

It’s only natural. We’ve had our fill of ‘50s nostalgia, and now it’s time to move on to the ‘60s. Those of you who saved your peace-sign necklaces, fringed suede vests, platform shoes, Nehru jackets, tie-dyed granny gowns, and hip-hugging bell bottom jeans are in luck.

Of course the ‘60s and early ‘70s weren’t just about fashion and men having long hair and women not wearing bras. Our outward appearance merely reflected what was happening in the real world. It was a time of great political and social upheaval. In one decade, we had the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Beatles, President Johnson’s Great Society, Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique, Woodstock, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Kent State, the Students for a Democratic Society, and the war in Vietnam.

This was a frightening time to be a parent. Either your child was experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs, protesting the war in Vietnam, in Vietnam, or all three. It was the time that the terms “generation gap” and “the establishment” came into usage. The youth of America took a serious look at the way things were and came together in a massive upheaval, the likes of which our country had never seen. Continue reading →

Confronting One’s Inner Fogey

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(Published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on 10/26/2005)

At the age of fifty-three, suddenly I am an old fogey. Seemingly overnight, I have been catapulted from the generation that set the trends, to one that is lagging further and further behind in its perception of what is cool.

The first sign of this came a few years ago when I found myself trying to explain the phenomenon of the Beatles to my children. “When I was your age the Beatles were considered to be cutting edge,” I told them, thinking of the lipstick kisses I had once so lovingly planted on Paul’s Tiger Beat photo. They see Paul as an old guy with gray hair who writes hopelessly boring melodies.

Another sign of old fogeydom came soon after when my son handed me a list of CDs he wanted for his birthday. None of the bands sounded remotely familiar, and they mostly had names that seemed like they might be related to criminal activity. Continue reading →

Bowling – Still A Great American Tradition

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(An essay from my Beach Reporter column 4/23/92.)

If you want to experience life the way it was before Evian water and no-smoking sections, try a visit to your local bowling alley. In a world where trends appear and disappear in a nanosecond, and technology changes at warp speed, bowling alleys remain locked in time.

I probably wouldn’t be hanging around bowling alleys if it weren’t for my children. I do a lot of things I wouldn’t normally do because of them. That is the wonderful thing and the terrible thing about being a parent.

My little boy joined a bowling league last September with his best friend Jack, and they bowl every Thursday afternoon. The league is called Bumper Kids, and they put these inflatable blue bumpers in the alleys, so the ball stays more or less in the lane. It’s a very good thing they put bumpers there because when a six year-old throws a bowling ball you never know where it’s going to end up. Continue reading →

Building a Better Refrigerator

Kathy StevensonLeave a comment

(This was one of my columns from 11/5/92. Eerily prescient…)

It’s probably too late for me to get in on the $30 million prize being offered by a group of the nation’s utilities to groups of inventors to build a better refrigerator. But I’ll tell you what – if they want my suggestions, I will only charge them a cool million. I have very simple needs.

The first mistake the utilities are making is in asking a group of scientists to design a better refrigerator. What are they going to do – sit around in a windowless room with their atom and molecule models and talk in numerical equations?

I’ve given this a lot of thought. Refrigerators have occupied a very special place in my life. I figure I’ve spent thousands of hours staring into their vast coldness trying to figure out the mysteries of life and whether or not you can scrape the fur off a piece of bologna, eat it, and still live. Continue reading →