Back In The Day...

Yours Truly, The Olde Vermonter, my Grampa Ray, my Dad. and Gramp's dogs Bimmie and Tippie (well the back end of Tippie anyway!)

The other day, I watched a video of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America". I'm sure it was at one of those places along the starboard rail. But the older I get, the less I seem to pay attention to nitnoy details. It's all one big swirling kaleidoscope. Or something like that. (Stuff runs together, The Missus Herself gets sore annoyed when the maple syrup runs into her eggs. Not me, besides which, it has to get to the bacon somehow. Right?)

Anyhow, the video, here 'tis...

1938. Before my time. But not before my folks time. Dad was 10, Mom was 8. This is the kind of stuff they grew up. With a global war raging in the background. So to speak.

I tell you what, watching that video took me back in time. Back to the '50s and the early '60s back before things went to "Hell in a hand-basket" (as The Olde Vermonter and I like to say). We would listen to music like this back in those days. The stuff my parents listened to when they were young.

Another artist I didn't appreciate until much later in life.

(In the movie Glenn Miller was played by an Air Force general. Well, Jimmy Stewart in later years was an actual Air Force general. We'll speak of this again.)

So the '50s and early '60s I recall fondly. Things were great.

Now I know what some of you might be thinking. That time period was certainly a great one to be in the white middle class in these here United States. The Korean War was over, the Vietnam War was still hull down way out on the far horizon, life was sweet. But not all folks in America had it so good. Discrimination was rampant and a lot of folks suffered for it.

If you were a person of non-Northern European descent, things might not have been so good. But you have to remember, I saw this time period through a pair of Northern European blue eyes. That's my frame of reference and I'll not apologize for it. But I will, most emphatically, agree that some folks had it nowhere good as I did.

And everyday I thank God that I had it so well back then. Things ain't too bad for me now either, thank the Lord.