Hot Wheels were on the shelf on the small toy store where my dad got his supplies for building scale balsa wood airplanes. I never got a new one but years later my cousin sent a box of used ones with bent wheels and faded paint. I still have some that my granddaughter played with.

Laugh In with Rowen and Martin .....I used to watch a little with dad. Mom was disgusted with the girls and their painted bodies, dancing.

I don’t know if Dan Rather was hosting CBS news yet but I remember the body count and thinking, I’m not going over there. No way. I also remember watching the Wide, Wide World of Sports and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

My dad was paying attention to something called the My Lai Massacre and the war in Vietnam was starting to get him down....I learned a few years later that over there innocent kids much like me were running naked away from fire from the sky called napalm. And that my country dropped that shit from the sky on their heads.

A black preacher by the name of Martin Luther King was causing quite a stir. My dad called him a trouble maker and a rebel rouser. Also said he cheated on his wife and was a hypocrite. Then somebody shot him dead with a rifle and all that name calling stopped.

Throughout those years of the late 60s I went to my grandmas house on Sunday evening and once a year watched, “The Wizard of Oz”. I learned that my favorite song was and always will be Somewhere over the Rainbow. I never liked bicycles with baskets.

I began my infatuation with Beatles music and John Lennon. With my round glasses, I kind of looked like him later in life. Most people would describe me as a cross between John Lennon and an ESPN sportscaster named Kenny Mayne.

The Indianapolis 500 races were really interesting. My brother would go see one in person. I never did, but I thought Al Unser was pretty cool in his jump suit.

Bobby Kennedy got shot to death right before every ones eyes just like his brother and our President did a few years earlier. There was a lot a killing and hatred and I didn’t know why. Still don’t.

I didn’t know it yet but abortion and birth control would be a hot hot religious and political topic. My catholic friends would seem to struggle more with it. I never understood the reason the Pope existed and how he was infallible. I was taught to talk straight to Jesus. So that’s what I did. Usually when I wanted something or didn’t want something.

My dad liked to watch Hawaii Five O. He raves about the theme song to me and I can still see him imitating the drum beat with his mouth. And 60 minutes was showing also. I never missed the last five minutes of Andy Rooney. That guy always made sense in a sarcastic way. “Did you ever notice.....?”

Richard Nixon began his rise to fame as President and a few years later my dad had delivered to the house a stack of blue bound books that looked really important. It was the tape transcripts of the watergate debacle. I read through some of it and learned that (expletive deleted) meant my President was talking like an asshat. Not only that, he was acting like one too.

The Women’s Liberation movement was becoming a thing. It wasn’t a good thing according to lots of folks. Later in life, I had to get used to the idea of a woman being my superior. I got used it.

Some astronauts orbit the moon and read from the Bible, passages from Genesis. I remember being moved by it.

On Saturday mornings...I watched cartoons and ate sugary cereal. Life was good.