Pop Culture

It's an interesting life I lead.

I've written before about how my father ignored pop culture as much as possible. I grew up without cartoons on Saturday mornings because dad thought it was more important to do chores and be responsible little children first. If he had to be out of town on a Saturday (that happened a lot), it didn't mean that things relaxed ... he left a list on the blackboard in the kitchen.

So, I missed a lot of 60s / 70s Saturday morning pop culture.

Our television when I was a kid was a black and white thing - in my parent's bedroom. Mom didn't put the television into the living room until the last year of her life. It moved into a family room, but we were all in middle school / high school by that point.

We lived in small town Iowa and until I was in Junior High, there was no such thing as a movie theater in town. It was a huge excursion to see a movie!

I remember having an older girl stay with us for awhile - she listened to the radio - a lot. She knew all of the words to all of the songs. That made an impression.

Mom had an immense record library - all classical stuff - no pop culture.

So ... I missed a lot of pop culture.

I did my best to make up for that when I was in high school, college and my early adulthood. But, let's just say that meeting Max transformed my ideas of what pop culture was all about. The man is a walking trivia game when it comes to pop culture references and information of the 50s, 60s and 70s, and some early 80s. He watched all the television cartoons. His mother would drop him off at the theater on Saturday afternoons and he watched movies all the time. His knowledge of all types of music is incredible.

I just sit back and listen when he gets started.

At some point, I completely embraced popular culture. It's a lot of fun. i suppose I probably fill my mind with inane things, but that's ok. I'm barely using 10% of my brain anyway ... if I fill it up with a little craziness, there's plenty of room for the esoteric.

The best part is wondering what they're going to come up with next. Life is always an adventure - even when it's just pop culture.