It also comes up in the 'where were you then?' conversations. Our parents all remember where they were when JFK was shot (I was exactly six months old on that day). My generation talks about the Challenger disaster. I suppose younger folks will have Monica Lewinsky, 9/11 and other terror events to think back on.
Television programming can put distance between the generations as quickly as anything. From Sid Caesar to Ernie Kovacs in the 50s, to Hogan’s Heroes and Batman in the 60s, to Welcome Back Kotter and That’s Incredible in the 70s, to Dallas and Hill Street Blues in the 80s, to Seinfeld and Friends in the 90s, and so on (can’t believe I didn’t squeeze NYPD Blue and the Sopranos in there somewhere...).
So I say all this because when we walked into Ian’s classroom back before his first day, here’s what we saw.
Now of course there's nothing at all funny about the names themselves (they're lovely kids), but Julie and I both laughed out loud at seeing them together. We waited for Ian's teacher to get the reference, but instead she looked at us as though we were, well, just another pair of crazy Americans. Of course, she's in her mid-20s, and had never seen Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.
When we were done laughing, we realized just how old we'd become.
I liked this story. I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle. I had a co-worker at HUD who married a woman from Russia named Natasha. I told him he would have to change his name to Boris and they could chase "moose and squirrel".
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Linda Paugh
I thought Rocky and Bullwinkle were the dumbest cartoons ever. When you compare them to Bugs Bunny, they look like Kazakh gypsys with no game.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I was in junior high school in homeroom (I believe) when the Challenger Exploded. We all cried.
But Rev, I think you have it all wrong. MY generation (you're close enough) is defined by whether or not you saw Star Wars in the theater the first time around, and HOW MANY TIMES.