I just want to know if there are any other guys out there like me. I have more in common with my Grandpa than my dad. I like swing and big band music a lot more than most my age. I like cars from pre and immediate post war era. I like brown suits, and wish hats would make a come back. I recognize D-day, VJ day, and VE day as significat national holidays. I joined the Masons and some of my friends in the Masons are like 30 and 40 years older than me. I'm pushin 40 but still in my 30s...for now. (I asked my friend Max if he ever saw Berlin. He said he flew over it a few times but never stopped. He was the captian of a B-17) I like bowling. I like most old movies, especially from the 30s and 40s better than whats out now (although I'm dying to see Cars). I just generally feel like If I could have been contemporaries with gramps I would have fit in better.
Ya know, my friends say that about me, too, but I don't know. Jim Crow, the medical treatment (I had cancer at 17--if it had been 1940 I'd be dead!); there's a tendency to see only the good in the past. Having said that, I think I would have been happier if I had been born way back when. Tucker
Yep. There was a down side but my gramps is still with us and he lived to see most of that stuff overcome. Must have been cool to see so much progress.
Sure, I loved chatting with my gramps, and we had a lot in common. he told me all about zooming the gals during the war and how he got my grandma. ha ha. he's dead now, we just buried him 2 months ago. hard to see him go. my dad isn't into anything that I am, but he's still my dad, and I love him just the same. Oh, I like hats too.
Sometimes I think I would have been happier back in that era, but then somtimes I think I would have been even happier marauding and plundering on the high seas. There really are things from this era that I wouldn't want to be without ie girls that take pilates, wear stilleto heels and have big fake ****s. - and the HAMB of course -
I kind of know how you feel. I never knew my grand fathers, but i do respect D-Day, VJ- day, and Ve. I know this was posted the other day but i never said anything so i will now, my dad was in the pacific from the begining to the end, My mom never heard from him for almost 3 years, my father in law was one of the surviving rangers who climbed the cliffs of point de houc on D-day, i was in the army, and so were my brother inlaws . All i watch is the old black and white movies, i dont believe they make as good now days. I love the old swing big band stuff, believe me, ive been a guitar player since i was 12, ive played a lot of places in my life, but thats another book, Todays players cant play like the old cats! They were better!
I'm kinda that way. I'm definitely more for traditional values than my parents were (or even my grandparents for that matter). My great grandparents are what I relate to......They left this world over 20 years ago. I wish I could have known them better. I'm 32. The only thing I like about NOW is computers and the net. I don't know how anyone did anything at all before this invention.
I am a lot more like my Grandapa then my Dad, but I'm still like my Dad too. They are both gone now and I do miss both of them. I think we should all be thankful for the legacy and sacrifices that the past generations have left for us. I have many pieces of the past in my life.... cars and trucks especially. I grew up in the 60's and 70's and have rock & roll from the 50's through the 90's along with a bunch swing on my IPOD. Embrace the past and thank those that have gone before us, especially the vets (I for one am glad I don't speak Japanese or German). They have left us a legacy of the future.... What will we do with it?
Andrew- I think its an aquired taste. I turn 30 this year. I never gave two thoughts to hotrods until about 5 years ago. As you know I'm more cars than culture, I've grown to love aerodynamics and the beautiful lines of a duece. These are certainly things I can recall have opinions about in high school as I thought they were for "OLD" people only. I grew up on a farm and learned to do everything needed to run a farm, fix equipment, fix hay trucks after a night out with friends offroading, etc... But you're right a good deal of those skills I learned from my grandfather, not my father. And here is why, my mom would have killed my dad if he pulled half the **** my grandfather pulled with me. Like jumping off the back of a D6 Caterpillar, leaving me sitting up there digging **** up. I was 3-4 according to my mom. After the fact he said "What could the kid hurt?" There are definately things of eras past that I love, the simpler times. But at the same time, today is pretty damn good. Lets talk this over at the next cruise night.
I agree -- almost -- I think part of what makes the things we like mean so much to us now is that we have something to compare them to -- back then the things that we look at as "cool, traditional, retro the list goes on" were just ordinary life. You could have appreciated but could you really appreciate swing big band and rockabilly music the way you do now with out being able to compare it to Justin Timberlake and the dancing pretty boys or Britney Spears? Could you really appreciate the cool aspects of the black and white cl***ics without being able to compare them to King Kong? I dont know about everyone else but although there are aspects of the past and present that I appreciate the one thing I have found from talking to my Grandparents, parents and neighborhood seniors since I was young was that although I was always mesmerized and entertained by their stories one thing still held true -- it was just ordinary life for them just like the things people do today are normal for them. If you keep living totally in the past something that happens today just may p*** you by. Live for today listen to what you want dress how you like as long as you're happy it dont matter what year it is.
Find yourself a nice 75 year old girlfriend. Personally, I like old stuff, but I like the world better now that it's no longer in black and white.
I guess it's a double-sided discussion. Not an argument, just a perspective. I think cars from "back then" had more romance and *** to them. Once they got slab-sided in the 60s, I just don't get it. How can you "modify" a '68 Camaro visually? But take the fenders off any 30s-era car, and it's a new machine. The same goes for older kitchen appliances and products. Just seems there was a mentality to build them to last instead of holding together until the next rainstorm. I also think people (in general) work, live, and move a lot faster these days-for no good reason. Like nobody can do without a cell phone and we'd die without a big screen TV or pager. How did my mother and father even survive? (LOL) Maybe it's a realization that we can enjoy life as it is and appreciate the values from those times. Or if we can create these cars, we can create our own view of how to live life. Ah ****. I'm getting all philosophical again.
Hey, thanks for posting this. Maybe I'm not crazy after all. I work on traditional hot rods in my garage listening to a big band type Canadian radio station. It just all seems to go together. I never cared for that music when I was younger. And I've come to the conclusion that Francis Albert Sinatra really was the best ever!
DAMN!.....I am older than the TING!.....life is over...................................................................
Ya, I should have been born 30 years earlier. Things seemed more simple back then, although I am sure they had concerns just like us, but different. Things are way to fast paced and stressful now a days.
Satchel Paige said, "Your age is how old you would be if you didn't know how old you was". Guess you're just old. The older I get,the more I like the stuff my dad did. Maybe a simpler time, maybe because it was still music, maybe because ican appreciate a different point of view. Seems like there was more "cl***" back then. And I think because people kept their word.
What ever happened to westerns? I loved a good western movie. I miss John Wayne and Bob Hope. I rode motorcycles in the desert with Steve McQueen when I was young, what a guy. So my question is who in todays life can equal these guys in talent and just plan bravado? Oh and for my money Bing Crosby was the greatest singer there ever was.
Well i'll be hitting the big 60 this year and it seems back in the 50's there was a more laid back and friendly era. You worked for your cars and you fixed them or walked. There was no xbox or ps2 or cable to keep kids in the house. You earned what you got. Today the pace is so fast that kids growing up can't take the time to learn from the past. That is why when I'm on this site and see the young guys with the skills and tradition of the past it means somewhere they learned it from Grandpa or dad. And that is what keeps our hobby alive. On the old Hemi site there is a saying of " Thanks for helping keep the fire lit" that also applies here!
The Jalopy Journal
