50 Years Ago
 

I remember this well, as my High School Civics class hashed this election to no end. But more than the election, I remember the times, the country as it was then. Although there have been improvements such as civil rights, I don't like many of the changes we've gone through. Looking at the details of the picture, you can see a different country.

That suicide in the front row would be a big deal today.

Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket. I think I see Mary Jane Rottencrotch, too.

"A small crowd gathered in front of the local Moose Lodge to hear Mr. Kennedy stand on a high-chair on speak into a light bulb."

No one paid any real attention to Ike's "beware the military-industrial complex" or the John Birch Society,
but there was "Silent Spring" and the National Park Service's "Mission 66",
and some Pirates beat some Yankees, and the first "sit in" in Woolworths,
and almost as important, Bill married Edwina in Dallas Tx.

Could you imagine what would happen if you stood six feet from Obama and pulled out a toy gun?

Well, no, 'cause you wouldn't get within 60 feet of Big O with so much as a slingshot in your pocket, but ...

Well one change is, you can't just stand on a high chair to deliver your message. You have to be behind a backdrop with a message repeated over and over so that even the dumb people can take something from it. :D

Maybe that kid was from Dallas.

And Flags! Where are the enormous FLAGS! What is this Kennedy fella, some kind of commie traitor???

I remember that time, and it looks like JFK was speaking in West Virginia where he was shocked to find the amount of poverty there. He reacted strongly to it which was obvious to the people who voted for him in the primary and election.

Timing is all wrong, but, I'm thinking the kid w/the gun went to University of Texas at Austin. Looks like a young Charles Whitman.

To bad it has all been such a total failure since....

Obama on a high chair would be news enough

:lol: Obama Steals Infant's Highchair, film at 11, on FOX.

Actually it's a step stool, common at the time for reaching high kitchen cabinets, buy fox wouldn't care.

Wouldn't that be a great news item? :D

But then we'd need infant teleprompters... :3_eyes:

When I was growing up we had this great kitchen chair that had a hinge in it so you could flip the back over and the whole thing would convert into a stepladder. I'm pretty sure it's still in my dad's house.

We had the same kind of chair, I'm not sure where it got to...

Clod's dad has it.

Or you can buy one here: http://www.theparadenorwood.com/bp743/se-waite-son/

I imagine that most furniture manufacturers got out of the step stool business for liability reasons. You can argue that when a dumbass falls off a stool and breaks their neck, they shouldn't have been standing on the stool in the first place. But if you incorporate steps leading up to the top of the stool, you can't make that argument any longer. Then you are in the position of having to make sure your step stool is idiot proof. And idiots are pretty clever at finding new ways to be idiots.

Like by clambering over the exposed machinery of an out of service escalator.

...and, after the fact, very clever at finding someone else to be responsible for their behavior/stupidity.

Yea, highchairs have come a long way since then. :D

God damn whippersnappers, that ain't a high chair, it's a kitchen step stool... now get the hell off my lawn. :cuss:

nice smiley bruce - thats a new one to me!

Us po folk used it as a high chair. :D

You probably drove to town on a tractor, but that don't make it a car.:p:

Naw, we had a station wagon with a rumble seat in the back. The big fight was who got to sit in the back. Oh, and seat belts were an option back then.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_i_AovfzNXg...h/DSCN7440.jpg

'69 Dodge? Rear seatbelts became standard in '68, '64 up front.

Hell, it was somewhere around there, but who remembers that stuff with they were 9, 8, or 4?

I do. :p:



Now if I could remember what I had for breakfast...

I have great memories of the time, just not if "Rear seatbelts became standard in '68, '64 up front." :D Not something the average child thinks about or remembers in the 60's.

It depends on the childs age and interests, but the seatbelt thing I had to look up 3 days ago. :lol:

Bastid. :)

They may have been standard installation, but I'm pretty sure it was still legal to drive without them, right? As late as about 1980, a car salesman was trying to convince my mother-in-law that a particular vehicle would be perfect for them, despite the fact that they were a family of 5 and it only had 4 seatbelts.

Actually, now that I think about it, children now have all sorts of seatbelt laws, but I think it's still legal today to be an unbelted adult in the back seat.

When I was a little kid, children only had to be belted in the back if they were 3 or under. I know this because my mom lied to a cop about my brother's age when she got pulled over after the cop saw my brother and I bouncing around in the backseat. That was in the early 80s, so not that long ago. Now, kids have to have carseats until they are 7 or something. And no front seaters at all.

That was like a quarter of a century ago!

Seat belts? I remember lying on the ledge under the back window of Dad's Malibu watching the tree-tops fly by... that was apparently before bad things could happen.