~ 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.

~*~

Oh, there was truth and goodness
In that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges
And Peyton Place was porn.

For Ike was in the White House
And Hoss was on TV,
And God was in His heaven
In the Land That Made Me Me.

~*~

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

And they could hear us coming
All the way to Tennessee,
All starched and sprayed and rumbling
in the Land That Made Me Me.

~*~

We longed for love and romance
And waited for the 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 That Made Me Me.

~*~

Only girls wore earrings then
And three 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 and 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 weren't Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then
And Monkees in a tree,
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.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out
And "gay" meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-ed
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.

~*~

Buicks came with portholes
And side show came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
To cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles
And skirts 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 Street 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 Perriers to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda
And cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was thirty-five
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've 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.

~*~

~Author Unknown~