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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (28177)	6/8/1999 1:01:00 AM
From: jbe	Respond to of 71178

These things are all subjective, nihil. Now I am really showing my age. My father was both a socially-conscious poet (remember when we had those?) and a New Deal activist, so that the 30's, in my childish imagination, were a time of crusade, a crusade against social evils...Crusades are exciting. The '40s, same thing. My dad went off to war -- as a merchant mariner, serving on one of the first integrated ships. (Another crusade!) And the war against Nazism! War was exciting, getting rid of the bad guys! (Remember, none of those bombs were falling on me.) That petered out into the fifties, which for me was a period of hideously uncomfortable, but obligatory, clothes; of oppressive domesticity (The girls in my philosophy class at Bryn Mawr knitted! In class!); of fear both of Communism (the anti-Communism crusade, unlike the earlier ones I had seen, was just no fun); and of the threat of nuclear war. I'll never forget one special issue of The Partisan Review, devoted to the topic: "Should We Use the Atom Bomb To Save Western Civilization?" I found that hysterically funny, and depressing. Of course, working in the Soviet field was not the best thing for me to have done, if I wanted to avoid being depressed. <g> Then, towards the end of the 50s, things started perking up. The Civil Rights movement was the first sign. Then came the change in women's clothes -- they became comfortable again!!! (Do NOT underestimate the importance of this social indicator.) Vietnam was hardly a great experience, but it at least it was more of an experience for everyone than the Korean War. which hardly anyone now even remembers. There was excitement in the air. I like that. And so on. Then there are the personal memories that color one's perceptions of the decades. Successes, failures, deaths, births.. As I said, it's subjective. It is also late, and I'm sleepy and babbling. Good night. Joan