The Because I Said So Generation

There are differences between generations. I think it is important to pass down important information about those differences. I thought I would take some time to explain my generation to those who want to know what makes us tick. I know there are names for each generation. The Baby Boomers, Generation X, and the Millennial generation are just a few. While technically I am a member of the Baby Boom generation, I like to refer to my generation as the “Because I said So Generation”.

Until I was five years old I thought that my parents could say only three things. “No”, “Because I said so”, and “It’s fair because I said it’s fair”. When I was six “The teacher is always right” and “Did I ask if you if you started it? And “Who said life was fair?” made their appearance in my life.

We drank wine before we drank soda. In all fairness, the drinking of wine was an Italian thing more than a generational thing. We drank it only at Sunday dinner, only at my Grandmother's house and only one glass. We did not drink out of wine glasses. They were glasses that my Grandmother got at the Acme. She got the glasses with her S & H Green stamps. The green stamps were a generational thing. Green stamps were actual stamps that were green that you got for buying things at the store, which you would collect, put in a book and redeem for stuff at Acme.

We had the bug man. In my childhood, we had a guy who drove around a jeep and sprayed fog from the the back of his truck. This was done to kill the mosquitoes. Every kid in the neighborhood, including yours truly, chased the bug truck We literally ran in the fog. Our parents didn't stop us. The assumed that the government knew that whatever they were spraying out of the back of the truck was not going to kill us. Turns out the fog was DDT which was banned for public use in 1972. How's that working out for you?

We drank Tang. For those not familiar with Tang it was an orange powder that you mix with water and drank. It was “what the astronauts drank” and if it was good enough for the astronauts it is good enough for you. We had nothing but milk, tang, water and ice tea in our house right up until the day the plumber came to fix our dishwasher. When he opened it, he noticed the discoloration on the inside. He informed my Mom that she could remove that by running one cycle of the dishwasher but instead of detergent she should use Tang and it would shine it right up. That was the end of our Tang. We went from Tang to Tab. Tab was a diet soda. Another good choice. It was better for us than regular soda which were no longer allowed to drink. Apparently my Mother was told by the plumber that he used coke to remove rust as well, so soda was off the list. I'm not sure how she got to the conclusion that sugar was the culprit. I think she should have stopped talking to the plumber.

We had a party line. That was a shared phone line. When the phone rang, we answered it. Sometimes it was for us and sometimes it was for the other family who shared our number. Yes, you could listen to another persons phone call and they could listen to yours. You had to dial the phone. You had to actually put your finger in a hole and circle the dial. If you called someone and they were on the phone you got a busy signal. Phone books were books with phone numbers in them.

In every movie that you watch from the sixties and seventies there are brightly colored rooms. Pink and olive green were big. Every house in my neighborhood had a least one room with a pink and olive green color scheme. We had two. Our bathroom was one. The wallpaper was pink with flowers and we had the green love beads hanging down in front of the shower curtain. My bedroom was the other. It was hot pink everywhere you looked. It had pink shag carpeting which got raked. The plates on my bureau and desk that were behind the knobs were pink, I had a canopy bed for about twenty minutes. It had a pink canopy and bedspread. I was a gymnast as a young child. I saw the canopy and the wooden frame that held it up. It bore a striking resemblance to the uneven bars. Like I said, twenty minutes. I had a large double window in my room. When my parents added an addition on to our house my window became a bookshelf covered with pink contact paper. I have no pink in my house. Anywhere. Or green.

We had no seat belts in our car. As children we use to climb over the front seat to the back and back again. When we were confined to the back seat we spent our time in the car asking “Are we there yet?” My parents spent my childhood responding “If you don't stop, I am going to turn this car around right now.”
That was a big deal. We used to go for rides on Sunday afternoon. Our television only got three channels and there was no internet. In 1969 we got channel our fourth channel, public television.

The television went off the air at two am. Literally. The goodnight message came up then the screen went to snow.

I rode my bike without a helmet. So did every kid in my neighborhood. We also rode our bikes all over town and knew to come home at dinner or when the sun went down. My parents, and every other parent on our block, rang bells at dinner. When the bells started ringing it was time to go home.

Our televisions had no remote. You had to get up to change the channel. I was the original channel surfer. My Dad would tell whichever one of us was in the room to stand next to the television and change the channel. If he liked what was on we could sit down. If not we kept changing. This didn't take very long because there were only three channels.

I grew up with the “Cone of Silence”, This came from a television show called Get Smart. This was a show about a spy named Maxwell Smart. When Max was talking to his boss, whose name was “Chief” they talked under the cone of silence. It was a big plastic half bubble that came down over their heads. It wasn't a cone. The entire bottom was open. This was supposed to stop others from listening to their conversations. Brought to you by the folks who are now expected to understand the internet.

We watched such classic TV shows as Green Acres about folks from New York who buy a farm, Mister Ed about a talking horse, the Munsters about a family of folks who looked like Frankenstein and Dracula and had their outcast niece living with them who happened to be a beautiful blonde. They lived at 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

We had Batman first. He did not look like George Clooney or Ben Affleck. The Batman I grew up with was Adam West in a brightly colored stretch costume and his sidekick, Robin also in a brightly colored stretch costume. Both wore masks that only covered their eyes. They also used phrases like “Golly Gee Batman, and “Holy Houses Robin.” When they threw a punch the words “POW” or “BAM” would appear on the screen. I tried to explain this to my children when they were entering their teenage years. I thought it would help them if they understood the level of cinematic sophistication that their Father and I grew up with. I made them watch the episode where Batman is captured and the villain puts him in a snake charmer basket. To counteract this evil villain Batman does his multiplication tables backward. HA! That will teach them. They were laughing so hard they had tears running down their faces.

There were very few sports for girls. Title 9 passed the year I went to high school which was also the year DDT was banned. 1972 was a very busy year.

We had a typewriter. It used carbon paper to make copies.

We had a Polaroid Instamatic camera. You took a picture and it came out of the camera. In 60 seconds it developed while you waited.

We had Super eight home movies. We showed them with a projector. You would wind the film around the spool. The most fun part was listening to the folks while Dad was trying to wind the film on the spool and Mom was waiting to see the moving pictures and smoking. Everyone in my family smoked. They smoked in the house. As kids we got bubblegum cigarettes with pink ends. As a young adult, I got a pink and green ashtray from my parents in case I was going to smoke in the house. It was important that the ashtray match the room.

There were charm schools. They were not actual schools. They evolved into modeling schools. They were the place Mothers sent their daughters to learn how to walk in high heels with a book on your head. I did and I can. I forgot to list it on my college application. Miss America was a big deal then. I tried to explain that there had never been a Miss America who was 4'8'. Mom was having none of it. I can do an appropriate Miss America Wave. Another unbelievably useful skill. It is all in the wrist.

My first protest was in 1972. I organized the protest. We were protesting because girls were not allowed to wear pants to my grade school. I wore pink bell bottoms to the protest. My Mother told me there was no need to look bad just because you are going to a protest. She bought me the pink bell bottoms. This was the same woman who sent me to charm school. She also bought me my first set of cleats. I wore them with my pink bell bottoms to the protest.

There were computers when I went to college. The computer that I studied on in my college classes took up one wall of an entire room and used punch cards. I still have my cards. They are in my attic. I am keeping them for my children or grandchildren. One day they may be in a museum and the kids can sell them, along with my books on eBay.

I was the first woman in my family to graduate from college.

My first car was a 1967 Chevrolet. It had an AM radio. My boyfriend installed a cassette deck in it.

We had records. They were small (a single song) or large (an entire album). We played those records on our stereos. The stereos had an arm with a needle that would eventually scratch the album and force you to buy another copy. My generation invented economic obsolescence.

We bought our first house while Reagan was president. The interest rates were 15-16 %. We camped overnight, in a tent, in line at the local bank, which has since gone out of business, to get a low interest loan called first time homebuyers funding. The interest rate was 10.5%. We thought it was a bargain.

I can answer the question…. Where were you when Kennedy was shot? I was in kindergarten. The school was closed, we were sent home and all the adults were crying.

I was in grade school during the cold war. We had nuclear bomb drills. The bell went off and the announcement was made that we were having a drill. We all got under our desks. This was going to save us from nuclear fallout. Brought to you by the same folks driving the DDT jeep.