HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED

WHAT MADE ME ME

Long ago and far away,
In a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan,
Or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents,
And they were you and me,
Long ago and far away
In the Land That Made Me Me.

For Ike was in the White House
In that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges
And Peyton Place was porn.

We learned to gut a muffler,
We washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry
In circles on the lawn.

We longed for love & romance,
And waited for our Prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
And no one's seen him since.

We danced to "Little Darlin"
And sang to "Stagger Lee"
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land Than Made Me Me.

Only girls wore earrings then,
And 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts,
Except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams
Did we expect to see
A boy named George with lipstick,
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon,
Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
They never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five,
Or Psycho Two & Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty
In the Land That Made Me Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,
And Chester had a limp
And Reagan was a Democrat
Whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr. Wizard,
But not a Mr. T
And Oprah couldn't talk yet
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We had our share of heroes
We never thought they'd go.
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal,
And life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We'd never seen the rock band
That was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson,
And Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then,
And Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was a virgin
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We'd never heard of microwaves,
Or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed,
But they weren't grown in jars.

An pumping iron got wrinkles out,
And "gay" meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never coed
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We hadn't seen enough of jets
To talk about the lag.
And microchips were what was left
At the bottom of the bag.

And hardware was a box of nails,
And bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
In the Land That Made Me Me.

Buick's came with portholes,
And side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
To cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles,
And shirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride,
We had no Hill Stree Blues,
We all wore superstructure bras
Designed by Howard Hughes.

We had no patterned pantyhose
Or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms
In the Land That Made Me Me.

There were no golden arches,
No Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
And cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was 35
And old was forty-three,
And ancient was our parents
In the Land That Made Me Me.

But all things have a season
Or so we'ver heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline
We swear by Retin-A.

And they send us invitations
To join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby,
From the Land That Made Me Me.

So now we face a brave new world
In slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using
Smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children
Of the way it used to be.
Long ago and far away.
In the Land That Made Me Me.

GB - After reading this
Would I go back???
You bet ya ! ! !

Echo