Sunday, October 02, 2011
I am staying in Chicago with my brother Mark and his wife Sue. They have a very nice house in the suburbs which they have lived in for 33 years. Mark and Sue have been married for 41 years. That is amazing. They were only 21 years old at the time, so they had a lot of years to be married, but 41 years together is a remarkable accomplishment.
The year they got married the biggest hit record was by the still-together Beatles. Nixon was in his first term, Watergate years away. The war in Vietnam still raged; America lost over 2500 men. I Dream of Jeanne finished its final season, and Monday Night Football started a month after their wedding. Their marriage has outlasted All My Children which began in 1970 and, of course, was cancelled this year. Baseball’s designated hitter was two years in the future. Terry Bradshaw was the first pick in the NFL draft and Willie Mays still patrolled center field for the San Francisco Giants.
Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Phil Mickeslon, and both Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer were born in 1970; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Vince Lombardi, and Gypsy Rose Lee died. Russia was still part of the Soviet Union. Mainland China was known as “Red China” and we had no diplomatic relations with them. Music was played on vinyl records, primarily, although some people listened to Chicago Transit Authority on eight-track cassettes. The opening of Disney World was a year away, The World Trade Center two years, and the Boeing 747 was in its first year of service.
The first personal computer, the Datapoint 2200 was introduced that year, but real home computers like Commodore 64 was 12 years in the future. Mandatory use of zip codes on letters was only three years old. The minimum wage was $1.60. Gas was 36 cents a gallon, the average income in America was $8700 and a stamp cost six cents. The average home cost $27,000. Apollo astronauts would still be going to the moon for another two years, although Apollo 13 had just happened four months before the wedding. There no mulitplexes, newpapers published both morning and afternoon editions and Chicago had maybe six television stations. FM radio was only for strange classical music.
I still couldn’t drive, I wore big black glasses, and I had an acne problem. When they got married I still had not been on my first date or written my first newspaper article. I think I was about 5’5” tall and weighed 120 pounds although I was 15. I wanted to be a sportswriter, having rejected my earlier desire to be a lawyer. Our baby sister was 10. My mother, about seven months away from dying of her long battle with cancer, looked radiant.
Neither of our parents supported my brother’s marriage. He was 21, too young they said for the union to last. Now 41 years later I guess he has the last laugh.
The year they got married the biggest hit record was by the still-together Beatles. Nixon was in his first term, Watergate years away. The war in Vietnam still raged; America lost over 2500 men. I Dream of Jeanne finished its final season, and Monday Night Football started a month after their wedding. Their marriage has outlasted All My Children which began in 1970 and, of course, was cancelled this year. Baseball’s designated hitter was two years in the future. Terry Bradshaw was the first pick in the NFL draft and Willie Mays still patrolled center field for the San Francisco Giants.
Matt Damon, Tina Fey, Phil Mickeslon, and both Naomi Campbell and Claudia Schiffer were born in 1970; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Vince Lombardi, and Gypsy Rose Lee died. Russia was still part of the Soviet Union. Mainland China was known as “Red China” and we had no diplomatic relations with them. Music was played on vinyl records, primarily, although some people listened to Chicago Transit Authority on eight-track cassettes. The opening of Disney World was a year away, The World Trade Center two years, and the Boeing 747 was in its first year of service.
The first personal computer, the Datapoint 2200 was introduced that year, but real home computers like Commodore 64 was 12 years in the future. Mandatory use of zip codes on letters was only three years old. The minimum wage was $1.60. Gas was 36 cents a gallon, the average income in America was $8700 and a stamp cost six cents. The average home cost $27,000. Apollo astronauts would still be going to the moon for another two years, although Apollo 13 had just happened four months before the wedding. There no mulitplexes, newpapers published both morning and afternoon editions and Chicago had maybe six television stations. FM radio was only for strange classical music.
I still couldn’t drive, I wore big black glasses, and I had an acne problem. When they got married I still had not been on my first date or written my first newspaper article. I think I was about 5’5” tall and weighed 120 pounds although I was 15. I wanted to be a sportswriter, having rejected my earlier desire to be a lawyer. Our baby sister was 10. My mother, about seven months away from dying of her long battle with cancer, looked radiant.
Neither of our parents supported my brother’s marriage. He was 21, too young they said for the union to last. Now 41 years later I guess he has the last laugh.
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