However, bad news took a back seat to "I like Ike" and the sensation created by Levitt's '50 model that came equipped with a giant 12½" TV. Stalin graciously obliged this good feeling by croaking. This bustling decade of the 50s—the "police action" in Korea; McCarthyism at home and Puerto Rican extremists firing on Congress notwithstanding—was led by consumerism.
Music before Elvis was the sweetest and softest ever. Such names as Hugo Winterhalter, Mantovani, June Hutton, and Andy Williams were hot on the strange new 45 and 33rpm vinyls that replaced the clay of the 78rpm. Hi-fi and stereo junked the phonograph with its lonely speaker and two-ton tone arm.
In the 50's automotive world, taillights were perceived as sculptured art; black and maroon yielded to pearly white and chartreuse, and then two tone colors became the rage; the unimaginative gray mohair interior gave way to color-keyed vinyl; the clutch was history; brakes and steering had to be powered; the old valve in head engines yielded to the "rocket engines" of the overhead valve; convertibles were the rage from the tiny Nash Metro to the sleek whale fin Caddie; anyone, thanks to the auto industry, with stock in chromium and vinyl became instantly wealthy.
The cobalt bomb made its debut, but cancer still reigned; still, Dr. Salk gave the children hope. Elvis gave the children of Sinatra fans something to scream and swoon about as he hipped his way onto the scene in blue-suede shoes.
Near the end of the decade almost every household had a 21" screen, and Howdy Dowdy replaced Uncle Milty as Mr. Television, but Baseball was king of TV—in '59 all the world knew Yogi Berra tied Ruth and Dimag with his tenth world series, far more important than flag factories humming since we had become fifty united states.
Holding its breath till this awful decade of the '60s ran its tragic course, the nation received comic relief in '69 when Ted Kennedy urged that the United States take steps toward alliance with China. The only one not laughing apparently was the President-elect Richard M. Nixon. The champion of the common man, Jesse Jackson, was jailed in Chicago for picketing the so-called liberal trade unions for their alleged discriminatory practices. It was a sound boom year: the SST Concord made its first experimental flight while the new 747 jumbo jet made its maiden voyage; youth turned on to raucous breast-beating politics.
Hope throughout this hopeless decade nevertheless pulsated from Kennedy's inaugural address and Joe Namath's crystal ball to Peggy Fleming's winning the gold in '68 and Armstrong's giant step for mankind in '69—in between was the brash kid called Cassius Clay who inspired millions and then stepped to the beat of this infamous decade by disillusioning them with racial rhetoric and draft-dodging as the nation's distinguished conscientious objector, and yet WWII's famous conscientious objector war hero medic, Lew Ayres, shook his head in sadness.
The incredible drama of Patty Hearst, the phantasmagoric horror of Jonestown and Time choosing "Women of the Year" as a result of the Roe ruling should have been enough for any decade. But these years of the '70s were pocked with frustration—"secret plan to end the war," Watergate, racial riots continued in schools, President Ford and his infamous "Drop dead New York," Carter's zero budgeting, spiraling inflation from the Arabs' ballooning the price of oil; and though Nam had finally come to a close, it never really ended. It was further plagued through '79 with the embassy in Tehran being attacked, resulting in the nightmare of hostages and Ted Koppel becoming a household name. Insult to injury to the decade was inflicted by the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. But the big bad, anti-business Democratic government bailed out Chrysler—of course, Mitsubishi was the true factor in making Iacocca a genius, and then there was Star Wars. But the most redeeming shining hour in the decade was the bi-centennial celebration; the nation patched itself together, though short-lived
The previous two decades of soft but penetrating rock was dipped in acid in the 80s as the kids abandoned the Beach Boys, Elton John, Carol King, the Osmonds, the Fifth Dimension and the Jackson Five and looked to punk to override the horror of two hundred dead marines. Nevertheless, Springsteen hung in there and the movies created beautiful music.
Gorbachev eradicated the fearful image of Big Brother and became "Man of the Year." Reagan grabbed credit for ending the "evil empire" while ignoring the stiff resistance to communism for the past forty years.
Eight years had passed since Bush accused Reagan of "voodoo economics"; now it was his time to pin-cushion the people as they misread his lips and observed more of the same that would tie a bow in the gleaming plasticity of the Reagan years whose stage for national fantasy had been set in 1980 by the question who shot J.R. as more paramount than the murder of John Lennon.
The 90s brought us the Gulf War and yellow ribbons testified to the spirit of the people to kick ass had returned. The bombing of the Trade Center was a foreboding that no one paid any attention to. Gingrich stole the headlines as Speaker of the House and his “Contract” out on liberals and the Clintons; notwithstanding, Clinton was the first Democratic president since FDR to be re-elected to a second term. Then Monica Lewinsky stole the headlines from the Republicans until impeachment took over.
The new century rang in confusion in Florida and as a result a president was elected by decree. September 11th changed America almost as much as Pearl Harbor had. Yet the change was not lasting except for air travelers and Islamic immigrants. In Afghanistan, however, the change was dramatic and deadly, but there, too, it was not lasting. So another war had to be contrived to sustain the drama.