Skip to main content

Building a Time Machine out of Blogspot (no, not a DeLorean)

A week from Monday, I'm going to be older. That's kind of how I look at my birthday these days. It doesn't have the kind of excitement it once did. I remember the days when I couldn't wait to be old enough to go to a rated-R movie by myself, or vote, or drink legally, or be technically old enough to be president of the United States (not that anyone would be much honored by that milestone these days . . . who would want THAT headache).

I guess the excitement for middle-aged birthday celebrants goes more like this: Hey, I'm way too old to be drafted! Can't wait to be old enough to get my first colonoscopy! Counting down the days until I can become an AARP member! How much longer until I get the Senior Citizens' Discount at Denny's?! Grand slam gets even grander, it seems. Woohoo, I'm still around for another birthday!

I thought I'd look back to the year of my birth and see what today's newsmakers were doing way back when. Time machine set to December 1971 . . .
  • According to RenewAmerica.com, our now-president Barack Obama was a fifth-grader at a prep school in Hawaii. He was the same age my son is now. 
  • Justin Bieber's DAD, my sources calculate, wouldn't be born for another three-and-a-half years.
  • Cher had just released her album "Gypsys, Tramps, and Thieves" and was starring in "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour" on CBS. Cher, now age 68, announced earlier this week cancellation of the last 24 dates on her current tour because of health problems. 
  • TMZ reported (in November 2014) that actress Louisa Moritz alleges Bill Cosby forced her to perform oral sex in her dressing room before an appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in 1971. Cosby's iconic cartoon series "Fat Albert" debuted the following year. Hey hey hey.
  • Hillary Rodham had just started dating Bill Clinton. The two were Yale Law School classmates at the time. 
  • Walt Disney World opened in Orlando in October '71. The latest Disney rumors, which popped up in mid-November 2014, suggest that the theme-park giant may be considering plans to build a Disneyland in the Middle East -- specifically, Egypt.
  • On November 24, 1971 (the night before Thanksgiving that year), the man known in the media as "D.B. Cooper," with $200,000 in ransom money, parachuted out of a Northwest Orient flight over Washington State that he had hijacked, and was never seen again. It remains the only unsolved skyjacking in U.S. history. 
  • Former pilot, engineer, astronaut, and United States Senator John Glenn celebrated his 50th birthday in 1971. He's still alive and kicking at age 93 (As of Nov. 22, 2014). He might feel the same way I do about birthdays. He once joked, "There is still no cure for the common birthday."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holy Separated-At-Birth, Batman!

Gary Oldman...meet Uncle Knit-Knots from Imagination Movers.
Post a Comment
Read more

Is it OK to own a Canadian?

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, written by a U.S. resident, and posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative: Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them. 1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexic...
4 comments
Read more

What's in a name? Everything.

I'm appalled. You can call it King or Duke or Princess or M'lady of Everloving Windsor. But you cannot call it Queen. It is not Queen. Will never be Queen again. Freddie Mercury was the heart and soul and voice and face and pianist and songwriter and co-founder of that '70s & '80s phenomenal English rock band. Yet, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor have trotted some singer named Paul Rodgers on stage, on tour, on a new album, and are calling themselves Queen. Technically, they're referring to themselves as Queen + Paul Rodgers. I'm sorry, but two washed-up has-been musicians and some former singer for Bad Company does not somehow magically make it OK to blaspheme Freddie like this. The band HE fronted was the one inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. MTV named Mercury the second greatest singer in the history of popular music. I realize that many bands suffer this fate as members retire or die and others t...
2 comments
Read more