THE LAND THAT MADE ME ME

Long ago and far away,
In a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan
Or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents,
And they were you and me,
Long ago, and far away
In the Land that Made me Me.

Ike was in the White House,
And Hoss was on TV,
And God was in His heaven
In the Land that Made me Me.

We learned to gut a muffler,
We washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry
In circle on the lawn.

And they could hear us coming
All the way to Tennessee,
All starched and sprayed and rustling,
In the Land that Made me Me.

We danced to "Little Darlin'"
And sang to "Stagger Lee,"
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land that Made me Me.

We'd never seen the rock band
That was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson
And Zeppelins weren't of Lead.

We hadn't seen enough of jets
To talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left
At the bottom of the bag.

We'd never heard of microwaves,
Or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed,
But they sure weren't grown in jars!

And Beatles lived in garden then,
And Monkees in a tree,
And Madonna was a sacred name
In the Land that Made me Me.

We looked for love and romance,
And waited for a prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
And no one's liked him since.

Only girls wore earrings then
(And three was one too many),
And only boys wore flat-tops,
Except for Jean McKinney.

We fell for Frankie Avalon,
Annette was, oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
They never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five,
Or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty-One
In the Land that Made me Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,
And Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat
Whose co-star was a chimp.

And only in our wildest dreams
Did we expect to see
A boy named George wear lipstick
In the Land that Made me Me.

Youth was still eternal,
And life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever,
In the Land that Made me Me.

And Hardware was a box of nails,
And Bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
In the Land that Made me Me.

And Coke came just in bottles,
And skirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land that Made me Me.

There were no Golden Arches,
No Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
And cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was thirty-two,
And old was forty-three,
(And ancient was our parents)
In the Land that Made me Me.

But all things have a season,
Or so we've heard them say,
And now, instead of Maybelline,
We all use Retin-A.

And they send us invitations
To join A A R P,
We've come a long way, baby!
From the Land that Made me Me.

Now we face a brave new world--
In slightly larger jeans--
And wonder why they're using
Smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children
Of the way it used to be . . . .
Long, long ago . . . far, far away,
In the Land that Made me Me.

-- Author Unknown

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