I don't miss:
The heinous downgrading of women. Examples: Gender-segregated Help Wanted ads; unequal pay; "That's a man's work,"; commercials that said, "So easy, a woman can do it,"; "the fair sex," etc. Yes, there's a long way to go.
Pabulum TV shows, especially "variety" programs such as Perry Como, Andy Williams. Numbing music and ersatz comedy.
Grown-ups who yelled at me. My folks were great. But school, drum corps, bosses. I stopped listening when I was ten.
Being hit by teachers. Lawsuit today.
Bullies. I got off easy with a few "shrimpie" comments. I knew kids whose everyday life was an ongoing Hades.
Getting new clothes, which were always baggy. "He'll grow into them, ma'am." I didn't grow. Fiction.
College. Four years was perfect. I was outta there. Angry Viet Vets, horrible food, stone-cold Catholic girls, warm beer, out-of-touch professors.
The whole anti-hippie thing. I saw two different teachers, armed with scissors, go after shaggy students. A replica of an actual billboard in my hometown:
Oppressed speech. Every Vietnam protester was a Commie, hippie, pinko freak. As dictated by adults.
Doo-wop music. Although I came of record-buying age at the tail end of this, I hated it.
Impossible-to-unfasten brassieres.
Overall censorship by prudes."Hell" was a curse. "Cover those knees with that skirt, missie." Mad magazine was evil. Stay on the straight-and-narrow. Balderdash.
Every grown-up was always right. Do not challenge anyone older, even when being mistreated. I knew a lot of parents, teachers, overseers, etc. who were total asshats.
Scrambled eggs other than my grandmother's.
Food in general: fatty, fried, gray, sickeningly-sweet crap.
Dressing up for church.
The Latin Mass.
Sitting in a gray cubicle, trying to write clever copy or come up with The Big Idea. Massive egos. Working for moribund-brained MBAs. Meetings. Churn-and-burn work environments.
Cars that broke every three years.
Marching in parades.
Not enough culture or creativity in my life. Such things were taboo.
The adults who tried to get me to quit music.
Playing four (or more) sets a night for greedy nightclub owners. I know: I fought for this life.
Performing at weddings. The musician's gulag.
I'm going to stop here before I begin to depress myself. Sweetness and light, tomorrow. Promise.
ACE, that's me Man! I agree with everything.....
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