Alright all you hippies, yippies and beatniks. This Saturday nights the coffee house features "Oldies." You gotta come and sing along with us. 7:00 pm this Saturday night. Be there or be square.
This got me thinking, just what is an "Oldie?" Last month we did Beatles; wasn't that Oldies? No, that was Beatles. It kind of goes back to an argument I was making in a previous blog entry. The Beatles were too serious. The Turtles, now that's Oldies. All those animal names. In case you didn't know the Beatles decided to make a play on words from Buddy Hollly's "Crickets" so the came up with Beatles spelled with the BEAT.
So, we're going to do some Turtles, Monkees, Drifters, Hermits and maybe a little Elvis.
Here's some '50's lingo for all you beatniks: Wowsville, daddy-o, cool daddy, good time, voodoosville, big daddy, wow, dig, crazy, hep, string me, allie oop, like way out man, coffee pad, bug me, hep cat, square, squaresville, man, kookie, swingin' , itsy bitsy, crazy pop.
Can you think of any more? Don't make me embarass you, I wasn't born until 1959. Here's some more trivia for you:
In 1954 (50 years ago!!) a House cost $22,000, our average income was $3,960, a new Ford cost $1548-$2415, a gallon of milk cost $.92, gas was $.21 a gallon, a loaf of bread was $.17, a Postage stamp was $.03, Swiss Cheese was $ .69 lb., American Cheese was $.55 lb., a T-Bone steak was $.95 lb., Del Monte Catsup (2) 14.oz bottles cost $.25, Post Grape Nuts cereal - 10 .oz pkg cost $.19, Clorox Bleach - 1/2 gal. was $.19, 20 gallon gas water heater would cost you $75 and a Semi-automatic Kenmore washer would run you $154.95.
If you're cool enough: Rosemary Clooney had two hits in 1954 besides "Hey There." What were they?
Relatively Speaking
The term "relativism" gets thrown around too much these days. In the days following the election, relativism, as it relates to "values," was blamed for the liberals' loss. I think that's what some of them would like to think, but I, for one, don't buy it. This election was about security and terrorism and not much more.
Generally speaking we mean relativism to describe the lack of any absolute truth in reality. To generalize even more, I mean it to describe a large number of Americans who's grandparents believed in God and had a very clear notion of right and wrong, but they no longer do. Scientism and pantheism have crept into the psyche of modern Americans and Truth has become a quaint idea that only unenlightened folks hold on to. If your Grandmother believes the Bible is Truth, well that's fine, she's old and they didn't know any better in her day. Today, we know things that they didn't know back then; right?
Yes, that's...