Clueless in Birmingham

We grew up in new, weird suburban neighborhoods. Most of our parents or grandparents had migrated from farms or small, rural towns to the new “American Dream.”

We didn’t know any different, but our parents certainly had to adjust and adapt. Our dads had cars and “went to work.” Most moms stayed home—often without transportation—and became “housewives.”

Our daddies worked hard to be the primary breadwinners in white- and blue-collar 8-to-5 jobs. And, in Birmingham suburbs like ours, there was no public transportation, so they had to drive to work. They spent their spare time tending their new suburban lawns, tinkering with classically crappy and unreliable cars, coaching youth teams, cheering (mostly) for Alabama and Auburn, gambling illegally, and watching TV. They attended church and joined clubs.

Our mamas were mostly stuck at home dealing with us and slaving away with their new “labor-saving” devices: electric- or gas-powered ovens/ranges, automatic washers, and (sometimes) dryers, electric irons, vacuum cleaners, kitchen mixers, refrigerators (often referred to as “iceboxes”), and Osterizers/blenders.

An aside: The Rolling Stones’ hit, “Mother’s Little Helper,” referred to the large number of housewives in Britain and the U.S. who were taking Valium to cope with their new lives. It wasn’t all June Cleaver, you know.

American history is crazy in general, but when you consider the national backdrop during our formative years, you could argue that our generation came of age when things were the most whacko. We were clueless about the world, but it had to have subconsciously affected us. And, as part of the first TV generation, those things playing in the background provided an eerie soundtrack for our lives.

Did we have family conversations about national or international events? It doesn’t seem like it. World-changing events happened in Birmingham while we were growing up. Freedom Riders? Children’s marches? A church bombing? Huh?

We had a vague sense of what was happening just a few miles away, but it didn’t seem to register. Why were we blissfully ignorant about such dramatic local incidents? Did our parents think we were too young to hear about that stuff? Maybe they had no idea how to explain it.

Bull Connor’s grandson was a classmate, and I remember seeing a broken-down Bull in a wheelchair at a basketball game. We knew something was wrong with the man, but most of us had no clue about the community evil ole Bull symbolized.

National and international events were incredibly dramatic during our young lives. We had been born during the decade that the Soviet Union developed the hydrogen bomb, ICBM missiles, and Sputnik. Those missiles could deliver bombs to the continental United States. And we could see Sputnik flying over the U.S. in the night sky. No more free security, boys and girls. The backdrop of our “early childhood education?”: A new insane asylum of American politics and paranoia.

And in the 1960s, we had the Cold War, the assassinations of JFK, MLK Jr., and RFK, race riots, and Woodstock, to name a few. We casually, cluelessly watched as fallout shelters were installed in backyards and familiar public spaces were designated as bomb or fallout shelters.

The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred during the SEC football season when we were in the 4th grade. What the heck was going on? What kind of world were we growing up in? Did the Crimson Tide win the game?

It’s unbelievable now, but we were subjected to “duck and cover” drills at school to “teach us how to protect ourselves during a nuclear attack.” We had to climb under our desks and hold our arms over our heads. Yeah, that would’ve worked great.

First, why would the Soviets nuke Birmingham, Alabama? Second, how were we protecting ourselves against the fearsome power of a nearby blast? Had that actually happened, 25th-century archeologists would’ve wondered why the little idiots were incinerated while sitting under their school desks. You know, like at Pompeii…

For another crazy drill, some of us had to run home from school, time ourselves, and report back. What the hell? Grown, adult, educated lunatics were in charge of this asylum. We were the inmates, and you can’t help but wonder how it affected us.

Oh, and that “police action,” the Vietnam War, which had started as a blip on our radar screens, was slowly creeping up on the boys like The Blob. How could we know that Southeast Asia would still be burning hot when we graduated? Most of us would be unwilling participants in the last draft lottery in 1971. It was terrifying. THAT got our attention.

Serious times, indeed. Maybe we couldn’t live with that chaos, so we created our own.

To quote the great American philosopher and humorist, Alfred E. Newman, “What, me worry?“