Long ago and far away,
In a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan
And 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.
Oh, there was truth and goodness
In that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges,
And Peyton Place was porn.
For 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 circles on the lawn.
And they could hear us coming
All the way to Tennessee ,
All starched and sprayed and rumbling
in the Land That Made Me Me.
We longed for love and romance
And waited for the prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
And no one's seen him since.
We danced to "Little Darlin'",
And Sang to "Stagger Lee"
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land That Made Me Me.
Only girls wore earrings then
and three was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts,
Except for Jean McKinney.
And only in our wildest dreams
Did we expect to see,
A boy named George, with Lipstick?
In the Land That Made Me Me.
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
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.
We had a Mr Wizard,
But not a Mr T,
And Oprah couldn't talk, yet
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We had our share of heroes,
We never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin,
Or Marilyn Monroe.
For youth was still eternal,
And life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever,
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 Led.
And Beatles lived in gardens then,
And Monkees in a tree,
Madonna was a virgin
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We'd never heard of Microwaves,
Or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed,
But they weren't grown in jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out,
And "gay" meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-ed
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We hadn't seen enough of jets
To talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left
At the bottom of the bag.
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.
Buicks came with portholes,
And side show came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
To cover both your cheeks.
And Coke came just in bottles,
And skirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land That Made Me Me.
We had no Crest with Fluoride,
We had no Hill Street Blues
We all wore superstructure bras
Designed by Howard Hughes.
We had no patterned pantyhose
Or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms
In the Land That Made Me Me.
There were no golden arches,
No Perriers to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
And cats were not called Bill.
And middle-aged was thirty-five
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 swear by Retin-A.
And they send us invitations
To join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby,
From the Land That Made Me Me.
So 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 ago, and far away
In the Land That Made Me..... Me
Do not know who the author is but thought others may get as big a kick out of it as I did..........
Sunday, April 6, 2008
The Land that made me me
Posted by mauniejames3
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7 Comments:
That is fun.
I do wonder if the author can be tracked back...
@Maunie:
A nice find, Maunie. I like it (I have to admit I am old enough to like it..) Hope you don't mind me having straightened-up the lay-out a bit.
@Susan:
I tried to trace it, but all sources mention "author unknown". Anyone??
Well... always up for a challenge ;-))...
As far as I can find, the title of the original poem is 'The Land of Sandra Dee', and the author (supposedly) is Leland Waldrip.
See e.g. here
Thank you Jos...I tried to get it to look like that but no such luck..good job...I really tried to give the author credit...I guess
ellen figured it out...good for you ellen..........
Maun
@Jos & Maunie,
my sincere apologies. It's quoted on different blogs as belonging to this author.. I apparently misinterpreted.. I'm sorry!
Nevertheless, it still is a wonderful poem, and a nice stroll through memory lane..
thanks so much for sharing it Maunie!
Ellen, I do hope you are not going to give up researching for the author, are you?
Hi Ellen...You go girl...I have found nothing...it's almost a game now..I spent an hour yesterday looking. but I have to admit I'm learning things I never would have known...
Maun
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