For you millennials who may read this post I’m giving you fair warning. I’m a eighty year old man who wants to tell you a story that will be a little sappy and hopefully a little funny but everything will be true. And before you start reading and rolling your eyes at what I say remember that I was much like you (a millennial) in the wild and wacky 1960’s when almost everything was always out of control. At that time I perfected that eye roll you’re probably still using today. Being alive in the sixties was a “trip” to say the least. Free love, an over abundance of drugs, with Rock & Roll as our mantra. My best friend and I were in constant trouble from stealing booze and cigarettes from our parents to the occasional visits from state and local police. We thought we had all the answers but were kept from getting really crazy by my ever so vigilant parents. I had my first official date and fell in love immediately until we were sidetracked by both her parents and mine who squashed our love like a bug. Then I crashed my fathers new car resulting in more eye rolling and some serious ass kicking. I decided then that maybe college would be a good change to let me live my life my way. I mean, how right could my parents be, they were over forty years old and obviously had no clue about things. So, I headed off to college to start my next millennial adventure . . .
College wasn’t an adventure but it was very strange. I was just one knucklehead in a rather large group of other knuckleheads trying to adjust to a life of freedom without parents. My biggest problem was adjusting from my father’s strict rules for everything to having no rules at all. I drank way too much and chased young ladies way too much, and learned almost nothing. I cut classes, constantly overslept and was a miserable failure as a student. In my third year I dropped out without alerting my parents and spent the remainder of the money I’d saved entertaining roommates and other friends (mainly females). But the damn college just had to go and notify my parents that I was a no-show and OMG were they irate (another huge parental eye roll). I returned home as a failed millennial with no money, no job, and two parents who would never let me forget what an ass I’d become.
Lets skip ahead to my enlistment in the Army, my time as a state police officer in Pennsylvania , getting married, finishing my bachelors degree, to getting an upper level management job with a national corporation, and finally retiring from the State of Maine’s Judicial Branch. My point is that if I can survive my millennial years, so can you. Truthfully, if you think about it everyone has a millennial period at some time in their life. It’s also true that human beings seem compelled to give everyone and everything a nickname (usually derogatory). There’s the Boomers (that’s me), the Gen X’ers, Gen Y’ers, and hundreds of others. It’s all just so much bullshit. Just remember this important fact. In a few years many of you will marry and have children. What will their nicknames be when they hit their millennial years and begin to drive you absolutely crazy? Some thing you can look forward to. It’s called the “Circle of Life”. LOL
I want introduce you today to a few limericks which have been laundered. I guess laundered means a lot of the truly vulgar language has been cleaned out and made more readable to entertain a larger group of people. I discovered these limericks in a very small little book published in 1960. They were newly written at the time but they’re still just as enjoyable as they were then.
💥
A herder who hailed from Terre Haute Fell in love with a young nanny goat. The daughter he sired Was greatly admired For her beautiful angora coat.
💥💥
There was the young laundress named Singer Whose bust was a round pink humdinger. But flat, black and blue It emerged into view The day it got caught in the wringer.
💥💥💥
A merchant addressing a debtor Remarked in the course of his letter. That he chose to suppose A man knows what he owes And the sooner he pays it the better.
💥💥💥💥
The bashful young bachelor Cleary Of girls was exceedingly leery. Then a lady named Lou Showed him how and with who He could render his evenings more cheery.
😍😍😍😍😍
And here’s a tongue twister for you.
Drew drew Lulu in a tutu, Lulu in a tutu Drew drew, Lulu drew Drew, too, Drew drew a few anew, Till who knew who in the hell drew who.
I’m an avid reader and have been one for as long as I can remember. I was able to use that reading skill over the years to learn a lot of things about a lot of things. Subjects that were important when I was in school were English, History, and Science and were meant to give us a good start with important information needed to learn and build upon in the future. After reading the hundreds of complaints online from parents disgusted with and in total disagreement with the present education systems rules, I feel confident in saying that it seems my educational experience was better. Try this 1960’s Science Quiz and see how you do. The answers will be listed at the end of the post.
What was the brand name of the first publicly available birth control pill?
What was the number of the Apollo mission that landed on the moon?
The world’s most powerful earthquake happened in what country?
In _________ Kevlar was invented.
Dr. ________ performed the first human-to-human heart transplant.
Dr. Benjamin Spock was known for what field of science?
In _________ Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.
The world’s first heart transplant involved putting the heart of what animal into a person?
In scientific terms, Kevlar is a __________.
Who said: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind?”
How did you do? Give this test to your kids, your friends, your neighbors, and anyone else you can think of and see how you compare.
🔬🔭🧪
(Answers)
Enovid, 11, Chile, 1965, Christian Barnard, Child Psychology, 1961, Chimpanzee, Polymer, Neil Armstrong
As I worked my way slowly through the public school system back in the 1960’s I received little or no information or exposure to poetry. It was mentioned in passing in some classes but there never was any serious time devoted to it. It just seems to me that making some poetry (not just the classics) available to younger students might just motivate them to either read more poetry or to write their own. A gentlemen named Richard Lewis, a lecturer on children’s literature and creative writing, apparently agreed with me. In cooperation with UNESCO, he traveled through eighteen English speaking countries around the world collecting poetry written by children between the ages of five and thirteen. Three thousand poems were collected with the best 200 published in his book, “Miracles” published in 1966. I’ve picked out two samples to give you some idea of just how talented many of the youngsters can be when expressing their thoughts in a poetic fashion.
THUNDER
by Glenys Van Every, Age 9, Australia
I hear
the drummers
strike
the sky.
***
SUMMER
by Margaret Bendig, Age 10, United States
Inviting, rippling waters
Waiting for little toes
Hurry, go get changed!
***
After reading a few pages of these poems I had a minor epiphany. These children were not trained in poetry but as they wrote their poems many of them began to look very much like free-verse haiku’s. Having no set restrictions on the length of lines and syllable counting allows the young poets freedom to truly express themselves.
Of course, being the irreverent SOB that I am I decided to write this haiku of mine and take it down a road not normally traveled. It contains some reference to nature but also just a touch of my humor. It’s a poetic mortal sin to write them this way and I’m sure it will tweak the noses of a few people. It’s always fun at times to make some people a little crazy.
A few months ago, while I was surfing on eBay, I purchased a number of books on a whim. In one of those books, I discovered it was a library book from the North Side School Library in Rogers, Arkansas dated 1965. The book contains limericks written by quite a variety of people, some well-known some not so much. They’re funny and cute and dated. I hope they bring a smile to your face as you read them. Here we go . . .
Edward Lear
There was an old man in a tree,
Who was horribly bored by a bee.
When they said, “Does it buzz?”
He replied, “Yes, it does!
It’s a regular brute of a bee.”
😁😁😁
Ogden Nash
There was an old man of Calcutta,
Who coated his tonsils with butta,
Thus, converting his snore
From a thunderous roar
To a soft, only oleaginous mutta.
😛😛😛
Lewis Carroll
His sister named Lucy O’Finner,
Grew constantly thinner and thinner,
The reason was plain,
She slept out in the rain,
And was never allowed any dinner.
😉😉😉
Rudyard Kipling
There once was a small boy in Québec
Stood buried in snow to his neck.
When asked: “Are you friz?”
He said: “Yes I is,
But we don’t call this cold in Québec.”
😋😋😋
Carolyn Wells
A canner, exceedingly canny,
One morning he remarked to his granny,
“A canner can can
Anything that he can,
But a canner can’t can a can, can he?”
As you can see, some of these people were famous but that was 57 years ago. The limericks were mostly written in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.
everyuselessthing.com 