... Archie. I am 58 (born in November 1945, at the leading edge of the Baby Boom), so this caught my eye (along with the fact that it sounded like something that would have been written by someone of my parent's generation, not mine).

In fact, so much of what it says in this piece is wrong, it's hard to know where to begin. So, I guess I'll do it in reverse chronological order:

The "Big Band Era" lasted approximately 1935-1945 and ended just before Granny was born. BTW, by the time she would have been paying attention to music (the mid-'50's), her music unquestionably would have been rock 'n' roll & Elvis Presley, not Big Bands & Tommy Dorsey.

FM radio was invented by Edwin H. Armstrong in 1933.

Ball point pens were invented by Lazlo Biro, a Hungarian living in Argentina, in the 1930's. He called them "Biro's".

Penicillin was discovered by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928. The drug was tested and further developed through the 1930's and early '40's and was first used extensively to treat wounded soldiers during the D-Day invasion in June 1944.

Television was invented in the 1920's and patented in 1928. The first commercial TV's were produced by GE in 1928.

Frozen food was developed and marketed by Clarence Birdseye in 1923.

Gasoline was 30 cents a gallon in 1920 and the inflation adjusted price in 1946 was ... surprise ... $2.00 gallon.

The first electric clothes dryer was invented in 1915. Mechanical (albeit non-electric) clothes dryers were in common use in France and England in the early 1800's.

Air conditioning was invented by Willis Haviland Carrier in 1901 and patented in 1911.

The first automatic dishwasher was invented by Josephine Cochrane of Shelbyville, Illinois, in 1886. An ineffective hand-operated dishwasher was invented by Joel Houghton in 1850.

The first electric typewriter was built by Thomas Alva Edison in 1872.

Guys have been wearing earrings since at least the 1700's (guess Granny never saw a pirate! ).

Yogurt (or "yoghurt", as it used to be spelled) originated in Bulgaria 750 years ago.

Women have been having babies without husbands -- and "families" have existed without necessarily having "a mother and a father" -- since the dawn of humanity. "If you're talking about the history of the world and not just the last two centuries, the proportion of the world populated by monogamous households were a tiny, tiny portion — just Western Europe and little settlements in North America," says Nancy Cott, professor of history at Harvard University. (Seattle Times, May 7, 2004)

As for the value judgement, "How could so much go wrong in such a short period of time?", you can start the responses with "average lifespan" & "standard of living" and go on to all of the specific scientific and societal advances that have marked the last 60 years, not only here, but worldwide.

Many of us are nostalgic for the 1950's, but I doubt if very many of us really want to revert to life as we knew it then.

----- jim o\-S