Easy To Be Hard

"How can people be so heartless? " I woke up this morning with that song lyric stuck in my head. Funny since I haven't thought of the rock musical "Hair" for decades. Yes, it's funny but rather apt in light of the current political scene. If you can gauge anything from a Facebook newsfeed, it seems a lot of folks are perplexed and dismayed by what is going on with the current presidential campaign. Such nastiness and so little civility makes you wonder "[h]ow can people be so cruel".

What I wonder is where are all the Baby Boomers. What has happened to us, the peace, love, dove generation? Shouldn't we be calling the shots? Aren't there more of us demographically? Well, not anymore actually. According to the Pew Research Center, the Millenials were projected to surpass us sometime in 2015. I think they did since an recent article in CNN Money claimed the most common age in America last year was 22. As a group we Boomers are losing our grip and perhaps our perspective. 

C'mon, there are still well more than 60 million of us and we know kindness. We know love. We know how to make our voices heard. So let's say something. Let's try to do something. 

Find your inner Woodstock. Dig out your Army Surplus clothing. Put on your Birkenstocks and wear some flowers in you hair.  Well, in all seriousness, at least speak up! 

With thanks to Galt MacDermot, James Rado, and Gerome Ragni, I will leave you with some  additional lyrics -

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend ...

My First Guitar

My first guitar was a Silvertone H604 from Sears and Roebuck, probably the cheapest and most ubiquitous student guitar of the 1960's.  It was made by the Harmony Company of Chicago which sold approximately 350,000 instruments between 1964 and 1965. So much for craftsmanship and quality control.

Mine had a huge bow in the neck and, of course, there was no truss rod. The action was so high my guitar teacher had to file down the nut after telling my parents that might ruin the thing completely and that he couldn't be held responsible. It's a wonder my young fingers survived the stress. The case was canvas and after a few weeks the ends of the strings worked a hole right through it at the top. My mother repaired it with an iron-on patch. 

Despite all that, I wish I still had it. Sentimentality? Nostalgia? Yes, of course.  It was my very first real musical instrument and I loved it. You can see it here in this YouTube video where Daniel Guareschi plays one just like it.  I wish I had sounded this good back then when I played for hours in my room, but, sadly, I didn't.

Apparently, I was not the only person longing for the guitar of my youth. There were enough to convince the Silvertone Company to reissue the 604 in a new and improved form. 

You can read all about it here - http://www.silvertoneclassic.com/guitars/model-604604e/

Oh, yes, nostalgia and everything old is new again. Did you have a favorite something from your childhood that you wish you had kept?  If so, tell us about it in the comments.

I really miss that old guitar. It was even good enough for Audrey Hepburn in the film Moon River.