Three weeks ago I spent two hours on the horn with a Comcast “agent”—after 20 minutes of a blistering exchange with the “first step” auto-annoyance voice that kept saying, “I didn’t get that, do you want to return to the main menu?”—going back and forth with lengthy periods of relegation to “please hold” purgatory. The word “purgatory” is a slight, but only slight, exaggeration, because I’m sure that’s how millions of people feel today when attempting a negotiation with a bank, online merchant, internet provider, government agency (by far the worst, and that’s saying something) or gas company.
It was a Saturday night, around 9:30 and I was watching Primal Fear—one of my favorite 1990s films, featuring Laura Linney, Richard Gere, Edward Norton and John Mahoney—when suddenly the screen on the mounted TV went black, although the sound remained. I fiddled around with cables and wires to the best of my limited ability before calling Comcast and that’s when the real trouble began. I forget the agent’s name—and don’t have to spell out his home country, pardon the typecasting—but he was polite if befuddled (like me, but that’s not my job!) and the end result was he couldn’t fix the snafu, but… because I was a such a “gentleman,” he set up an “expedited” visit from a Comcast worker the next day, who’d provide a new cable box. As it turned out, my visitor told me the TV was fried—we’ve had it 10 years, so that’s on the verge of planned obsolescence (not as bad as Apple products, but I figured Old Bessie had several more years)—and he laughed about that two-hour call, saying, “Maybe he was new, but probably just stupid.”
Anyway, thanks to my son Booker, a new TV was delivered the next day, and he got a pro—after dickering on price—to set up the new flatscreen. This guy really knew his stuff—and had Booker on speaker to go through the maze of passwords necessary, because that was all an infuriating riddle to me—and if he was too gabby, that was okay. I confess, like The Beat in 1982, that this fiasco led to a self-indulgent “woe is me” day, as in “Man, I remember when you could just turn the TV on and off, and a bank teller (or manager) would untangle any discrepancies.” People Power, smile on your brother, you can’t beat it!
However, whining about the “good old days,” as opposed to harmless and mind-soothing nostalgia, really is for suckers. There’s a giant Twitter/Instagram account called Declaration of Memes, that spits out mildly funny gifs all day, and whatever the creator’s intent (probably racking up the moolah) I think loads of people over 40 take them seriously. A “Declaration” evergreen is a picture of a nuclear family in front of their house, with message reading: “This is what a single income, at a standard 9-5 job afforded in a family in the 1950’s… What went wrong?”
It’s dopey for all the obvious reasons: who’d want a return to Ike’s America, when poverty was widespread, hospitals and physicians not close to their current proficiency, racism the norm (whether blatant or just kept in one’s head) and frozen food was a staple of suburban family menus. My north Baltimore neighborhood, now an amiable “rainbow coalition,” was, not uncommonly, a cauldron of discrimination in the 1950s: no blacks, Jews or swishy-looking men allowed to purchase a house. Probably Catholics, Italians and Germans as well.
The picture here (not unlike the Declaration example) is of my two oldest brothers giddily wheeling out for a jaunt in northern New Jersey. One income, four kids (I wasn’t born yet), a house… and always a tight budget. So tight that when the oldest boys went to the dentist, my mom didn’t spring for Novocain during a cavity filling. “That’s six dollars we can put to better use,” she said (a handed-down story, but I doubt it’s apocryphal). But my brothers and I were lucky: despite financial constraints, it was a happy childhood, with devoted parents and lots of friends. But do I wish America was more like the 1950s? Not for a single moment.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Patti Page’s “Tennessee Waltz” charts big on Billboard and Cashbox; the United Nations headquarters, for better and mostly worse, opens in Manhattan; the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment is ratified; All About Eve wins six Oscars; An American in Paris premieres in New York; the New Jersey Turnpike opens; Chrissie Hynde is born and Shoeless Joe Jackson dies; Hank Ketcham’s comic strip “Dennis the Menace” appears for the first time in 16 newspapers; Claud Cockburn’s Beat the Devil and Albert Camus’ The Rebel are published; Frankie Laine becomes the highest-paid vocalist to date (Columbia Records); Miles Davis’ Dig is released; Hugo Koblet wins the Tour de France; and Maureen Connolly is named the A.P.’s Female Athlete of the Year.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023