It seems like a different century

Growing up in rural New Hampshire seems idyllic

There’s a wonderful sketch by the British comedy troupe Monty Python called “Four Yorkshiremen” where four stuffy old English gents reflect on the difficulties of their lives with an exaggerated can-you-top-this escalating conversation that is just delightful. “When I was a lad…”

When you get to be my age — my oldest friend Mark Fountain turns 71 today! — those conversations start happening.

Early this morning, I was thinking about a conversation I once had with my late father-in-law, about all the remarkable changes he’d seen in his lifetime: airline travel, the telephone, not everybody had one when he grew up. When Sun Records producer Sam Phillips wanted to call Elvis Presley, for example, they had to call a neighbor. Then television. Then color television. Then rock music. The Beatles. Then the Internet. Cell phones.

I remember my late mother-in-law once handing my son the TV remote control, telling him to go ahead and call his friends if he wanted. They had seen so much of the world change before their eyes.

Then I started thinking about my own experiences and I can remember our black and white TV. I remember going to some friends of my parents on New Year’s Day who had a color television set and they were all excited about watching the damn Rose Bowl parade. I wanted to watch the Rose Bowl!

Growing up in a rural New Hampshire town, it seems like such a different, innocent time, so simple compared with the complexities of today. My very important assignment in fourth grade, for example, was reporting to one and all what Three Stooges’ short they showed that morning before school, since I lived within walking distance, could see the whole show, and everybody else had to ride the bus.

In fifth grade, we had a great big dictionary in the back of the classroom and somebody came up with this gem of an idea. You’d get a note, “Page 145” and you’d raise your hand and ask if you could go look up a word. Then you’d get there and the dictionary would be opened to “penis” or “vagina.”

That’s me. 5th grade, on the left, hands folded. Teacher’s Pet Gary Young, to the right.

I mentioned this one time before but our introduction to sex was so innocent. There was a guy at the top of Mark’s road who ran a company that did something with the roads, graders or whatever. And they had a small bathroom at the back of their building with a window that looked out on the place where the heavy equipment, the dump trucks and road graders were kept. And on the walls, some enterprising young person — my guess is Mark’s younger brother Bubba (nobody called him Grant, his real name) — discovered there were pinup calendars of topless models on the walls.

Standing on tiptoes, we could peek into the window and see “Arvo’s Baving Beauties.” Mark or Bubba, I forget which, couldn’t pronounce the “th” so “baving” it was. We made it a regular stop.

There was no air conditioning so on a hot day, we might go swim in a quarry filled with ice-cold spring water, sometimes, even skinny dipping. Or we might walk a mile or two to go to Punky Corey’s Gulf Station where he had 16 oz. Coca-Cola bottles for a quarter. I am not a drinker of alcohol and only an occasional beer. But I say there is no drink ever invented by man that tastes better than an ice cold Coke in a glass bottle.

When it came to TV, cable hadn’t been invented yet so you had your choice of three stations - NBC, ABC, CBS. And sports? There was a Game of The Week. ONE GAME. And on Sunday mornings, if you didn’t have to go to church, there were “Notre Dame Highlights with Lindsey Nelson.” “After a break in the action, we move to the third quarter.” There was no ESPN. You couldn’t spin the dial and find 15 sports events, ranging from basketball to hockey to bowling to whatever.

It was such a precious, innocent time, I remember one of my classmates rushing in to tell our teacher, Mrs. Varney, that he or she’d seen Jimbo Searles sneaking a cigarette under the Bond Street bridge. Think of that the next time you see a stupid vaping or cannabis store which are EVERYWHERE now. You can’t walk into a hotel without smelling that crap. Disgusting.

Going to the Bookmobile in those days was a big deal. It would arrive once a week or maybe every other week and we were all in a rush to walk down the cramped aisles to see what new books they had for us. Compare that to what a kid now can open up on his laptop or phone or IPad.

Or think of swearing. As kids, none of us swore very often. Well, except Mark, though usually it was a “son of a bitch” or a “God damn it,” nothing too heavy. Turn on the TV and you might hear someone say “That’s bullshit.” Heard it yesterday morning. (And it WAS bullshit, too.)

You wonder what kids today — there I go again — will look back on when they get to our age, what they’ll marvel at, or miss or look back on fondly. There is so much of everything now. Or will they all be so stoned or vaped out they won’t be able to remember anything? You know, when you get to be this age, you worry about those kinds of things.