Memories of the 60's.

Thanks to "Mad Men".  I just recently began watching this.  I don't know why I wasn't before.  I guess I didn't notice it in my program lineup because AMC is not a channel I watch regularly.  Then it began reruns from the beginning on Sunday mornings so I began catching up with the DVR.  Then Dish Network dropped the channel for a while.  That angered "Walking Dead" fans more than anything, but I'm not one of those.  I don't get the current fascination with zombies.  They're gross and I don't enjoy being grossed out.  I have started other new series and immediately stopped when they grossed me out in the first episode.  But I was annoyed I was missing Mad Men after getting into it.  Then AMC and Mad Men were back again on a different channel number.  I think I'm mostly caught up.  At least as far as where the reruns are at.

I was a kid in the 60's.  I was 10 and in school when Kennedy was shot and remember the announcement over the PA, and later watching the funeral on tv.  I vaguely remember the racial riots in Detroit because it slightly affected my family.  You see, my dad was a boater.  We had a boat all my kid life and spent every weekend and week-long vacations on it, traveling the waterways around Michigan.  I remember we had to cut a vacation short or change plans or something to avoid being near Detroit at that time.  I really can't remember that well, but I think we may have even been at a marina there and had to leave quickly when it began.  But I don't really remember most of the major events of the 60's because I was just a kid.

Mad Men has made me remember the little things about that era.  The clothes, the furniture, the attitudes.  Smoking for instance.  The first thing I noticed when I began watching was that almost everybody smoked and they did it EVERYWHERE.  At work, in stores and restaurants.  Even hospitals.  I was really surprised to see a doctor smoking in his exam room.  Did they really do that?  At least he put down his cigarette in an ashtray when he began the exam, but it was there burning the whole time.  Pregnant women smoked (and drank alcohol), too, including my mother.  Attitudes about drinking were also pretty liberal.  They did it freely while driving and at work.  There was an episode where the Drapers had a picnic at a roadside park and just left their trash on the ground when they left.  I think people really did that kind of thing back then!  People just didn't give a shit about any of that stuff.

Many things on the Mad Men sets were in my parents' house.  The decor and artwork.  Danish Modern furniture was the trend and my folks had it.   Olive green or gold kitchen appliances, ugly wallpaper, knotty pine woodwork and paneling.  My parents had the exact same inlaid wood tribal dancers framed art on the wall.  I wanted to include the image here but I couldn't find it.  It's not been that long ago I saw the exact same pieces in a roadside antique shop so I can't believe it isn't online somewhere.  I'm sure it was cheap mass-produced art as my folks didn't have the money for finer things, and it was about keeping up with the Jones back then.  No, I wasn't tempted to buy that art when I saw it in that little shop...it's ugly and it was ugly when I was a kid.

Another memory revived by Mad Men was the total eclipse.  That was in the episode I saw this week, and the spark for this blog entry.  This also was in 1963, according to the date on a document that was shown on the episode.  I remember this vividly because I was so scared.  The other kids in school went around saying don't look or you'll go blind.  In the MM episode, a teacher was helping her students make viewing boxes.  I had to think about this memory as my teachers were no help in this, and I remember spending the weekend worrying about it.  Then I recalled how that day went for me.  I woke up that morning afraid to even look AT the window, let alone go outside.  Now I know it was a Sunday and I wasn't in school that day.  In MM, it was apparently an after-school field trip project.  I remember because it was the Sunday paper that had instructions on how to make the viewing box.  I remember how excited I was when I saw it in the comics section of the paper.  My dad helped me whip up the box in time for the eclipse, and once I had it, I was ok.  I knew I could look outside, just not at the sun directly, and I could see the eclipse reflected in the box.  Now, of course, we know we can watch an eclipse as long as we wear very dark glasses.  I had a pair of those odd little tanning eye shields the next time a total eclipse happened in my adult life and was able to watch it that way.  Don Draper on MM simply put his sunglasses on and looked up, and we saw it reflected in his shades.

Mad Men is sort of strange in the acting and characters, but I think the reason we watch is for the history of that time.  It's pretty damn accurate.


Good morning.