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Fresh out of R.A. Mitchell elementary school I was transferred to serve three years (71-74) of my public education sentence at General Forrest Junior High School. Junior high was a traumatic difference from being a little kid in elementary school. It was living in the seventies and I was no longer in my Leave It To Beaver world I knew on Lookout Mountain. Sure my school experience wasn't great at Mitchell, but someone had turned the Hades heat up to 11 during the time I arrived at Forrest.
The world was no longer an innocent place. The junior high world was determined that I not leave that place an innocent. It was Junior High school that I learned that the world wasn't a safe place. Down the mountain most teachers didn't seem to care if a student passed or failed. In junior high students were expected and treated as the herd we were supposed to be.
We were also herded through the time of Desegregation and a lot of blacks were pretty vicious toward whites in our school. There were a lot of whites that didn't like blacks. There were fights and rumors of fights. We heard stories that the tension was worse in the high schools (Emma Sansom and Gadsden High) at that time. There were reports of racial fights - stabbings and such. Knowing that gave me something to look forward to. Crazy times.
Another thing that seemed strange was all the talk of drugs. I heard that there were people in our town that got something called 'high' on drugs. I remember from time to time being herded into dark classrooms to be shown old movies from the 60's about the dangers of drugs. The educational films were supposed to scare the heck out of youngsters like myself. Most of these films had lots of hippies and funky rock music. I don't know if those films scared kids or made us more curious about the subject.
Usually the anti-dope film would be hosted on screen by a clean cut square looking guy who would point out all the different kinds of drugs, uppers, downers and in between - details regarding shapes and colors names and the various slang street names of all the dope. Almost every film had dramatizations with young people getting high and always doing something really stupid in the end like walking off a high rise saying something like, "Look at me baby, I can fly!" After the inevitable shocking senseless death scene at end of each film, it would cut back to the host who would say something somber to the viewers about how foolish, pointless and dangerous it is to do dope.
I don't know where they shot those films. I could only guess that they were produced in California in the land of the hippies. I couldn't relate to the whole scene man. Even by that time, the rags those hippie dudes were wearing were way-outdated. I grew up in Alabama and we didn't have many hippies in our neck of the woods even in the 60's. When I did see a hippie, it was a rarity. The films seemed to be directed to another audiences - another time and another place.
I only saw drugs passing hands once and that was in high school...in art class. I knew the smell of pot from going to concerts on into the seventies. It smells like somebody learned how to burn poop. I guess it's where they got the name. Most of the kids that I knew who got into drugs in their formative years lived through their stupidity. I can hear Jack Webb reply in the back of my mind, "Yeah, and you know some that didn't!" That's right Jack. That's right.
To this day I don't know if those old propaganda films helped or hurt my generation. I imagine that those films unintentionally introduce many innocents into that culture.
This old baby-boomer remembers a time before satellite dishes and before cable. I remember our household able to only get thirteen channels ~ and not all of those stations very clear. With hopes of getting what channels we could get and get them clearer, we had to install an UHF/VHF antenna. Ours ran from the ground and attached to the eve of the house. I think my brother Brook installed it back in the early seventies. I'm thinking our old antenna was purchased from Radio Shack.
Though we get more channels and can see almost everything in High Def these days - most of what is shown isn't worth viewing. Out of all the hundreds of channels we have access to today - I'd be satisfied to have just five or ten of them.
My dad liked Dragnet. Having polio, dad would often ask me to massage his atrophied legs with rubbing alcohol on a Sunday evening as we watched FBI (IN COLOR!) or Dragnet. Dragnet was for squares. My dad was a square and Jack Webb was a square. I sat there on the edge of his bed and watched it with him.
You know what?
I guess that made me a square too.
Jack Webb played Sergeant Joe Friday on Dragnet. You could tell that Jack was a man of convictions just like the character he portrayed. The bad guy was always apprehended on Dragnet and you could bet that Friday would have the last word. Friday shot from the hip and didn't mince words. You could always count on the perpetrator to be on the receiving end of one of Friday's righteous diatribes. You tell'm Joe!
I haven't watched a Dragnet in decades. I've been watching them back to back on Netflix the past few weeks. Each Dragnet episode was a drama with little to no humor added. Each episode was a sermon about law and order and crime and punishment. Jack Webb's straight and narrow sermons were black and white and wrong and right.
The world has changed a great deal since Dragnet 1967. Jack Webb, if he were still alive today, would be considered more square today than even in his day. Jack Webb would never fit in the politically correct moral relative world we seem to be stuck in today. What might have seemed a gritty crime drama show then, would seem campy and old fashioned by today's vague standards. Hollywood would have nothing to do with Webb's like today.
I watch these shows and saddened how the world has changed. I like Dragnet - camp and all. I like Joe Friday. I appreciate the efforts of Jack Webb now more than ever. Joe Friday was the standard bearer for all things decent and just. Good show!
Life changed at our house when Trouble (1965) came along. We ignored all other board games for years after discovering how much fun a Pop-O-Matic was to PoP! As soon as we would wear one out, which took some doing, another Trouble game would soon appear on our kitchen table. My mother loved Trouble. I never saw my mother enjoy a game as much as she enjoyed Trouble. She was very serious about popping that Pop-O-Matic. She'd squint a little and her tongue would roll out the side of her mouth as she'd pop it! Her pops were real quick, but very intentional, as if there were some skill involved in it.
I am already being asked what I want for Christmas this year. This is a rather large item so I decided to go ahead and post it now so you can have time to save up for it. I have been wanting my very own 1974 Dodge Monaco Bluesmobile for quite sometime now. I would like the speaker on top just like the picture shown above so I can plug my Shure Bullet mic into it and howl on my harps as I driver her around. In fact, it's my intention to trick out this ride so it will be a rolling sound system. This way the band rides in comfort, with no need for roadies, just park and play. This is definitely what I want for Christmas. Not to worry, I won't complain if this gift comes without a cigarette lighter.
