Past Tense

     There's a tee shirt that says "of course I live in the past -- have you seen the present lately?"  With an unpopular war in the Middle East, high fuel prices, rising inflation, and corruption of all sorts from those high in government, you'd think I was talking about the present.  But as the NY Times noted, it was nearly the same 20 years ago as midterms neared: Back then, congressional Republicans faced the voters at the midpoint of President George W. Bush’s second term, with the public roiled by the war in Iraq, high fuel prices and a series of ugly accusations against members of the G.O.P. majority on Capitol Hill.  The dissatisfaction was large enough for voters to change the GOP control of Congress.  But don't worry, because even if I never pictured our country allowing an 80-year old child to revive the Klu Klux Klan side of our nation, as well as send shivers through so many members of Congress, this post will pretty much leave all those rants on the coffee table (if such furniture still exists).  So let's jump right in...

                          

      Very few people enjoy reading or hearing about the past, especially if it is coming from an elderly relative or friend, the old back-in-my-day theme. That is, unless you are part of that elderly group (like me), mostly out of touch with technological advances, perhaps wearily venturing into the world of smart watches and ChatGPT but not so much that any of it feels comfortable (yet).  But one part of this post's title does seem to capture the mood of today, and that is that other word: tense.  Anxiety and uncertainty seems through the roof these days as people, at least those who are able to, bet on what investments will bring them the most and in the quickest manner.  Prediction markets, crypto markets, stock markets.  And why not?  The live-for-today philosophy seems to have come from a shattered future of the past.  Gone, or likely to be gone, are pensions, Social Security, affordable Healthcare, and company (or government) loyalty.  What's here seems to be loneliness, wrote AARP, saying that: Nearly 4 in 10 adults over 45 report being lonely, according to AARP research.  Perhaps more surprising was this from Discover: Since 1995, the rate of colon cancer in people under 55 has doubled.  It is now the No. 1 cause of cancer death among men.  No. 2 among women.  A Lancet Oncology study found a rising rate among the young in 27 of 50 countries, mostly in Europe and North America...Australia has the world's highest rate of under-40 colon cancer.  Reading all that, the days of future past may turn out to be the past imperfect (admittedly, I was never a fan of all those grammatical terms)...ex.: life passed me by in the past.

      Brief aside.  That same issue of Discover had a cover that read, "Why Ancient DNA Lives On in Modern Humans."  Laugh if you will but ages ago, I did one of those ancestry tests and it came back that my heritage was nearly 4% Neanderthal.  My brother and I laughed and laughed (National Geographic had sponsored the hereditary site so I figured it was on solid footing -- it was out of business a few months later).  I bring this up because at times we do seem to be heading back to our primal roots, people of color filling the fields and courts of stadiums as professional players, but for the most part unable to afford the seat tickets to watch as fans.  Next concert, take spin around and see what you see...tickets to The Sphere can run up to $1500 on their site, not including the $50-75 parking fee and the bargain $20 beers once inside (full disclosure: I've never been).  But wait, I'm drifting off topic.  

      Way back, as in well over 30 years ago, I began tearing out pages of ads from magazines.  For some reason, creativity was high and it impressed me, even though I had no background or training in advertising.  Here's a sample of what I wrote as I began this visual "diary" of sorts in the mid-'90s: I really don't know why advertising has always captured my eye.  Still, there is nothing as powerful as the proper ad, be it the bleeding heart/have mercy ad, or the simple buy-my-orgasmitron-and-you'll-never-miss-you-know-who-again ad.  There is simply a knack to an ad that'll grab and maul you and an ad that is casually flicked off, forever doomed to ad heaven (a positive thought, to be sure).  Anyway, I guess that by now you can tell 7 reasons why I am not in the ad trade (#1 through 6 being "long-winded") though there must be something drawing me to the pictures or words that make me tear them right out, dash off a letter to the company, and then proceed to never use the product.  One has to remember that this was in the day of print magazines (and a quick check at your library or airport gift shop shows that many still exist...barely; I mean who wants to pay nearly $9.95 for something you'll zip through before the plane even leaves the ground, and that includes dropping nearly $5 for old standbys such as newspapers).  And who has time to read actual print when we we're always in a rush?  That ad on the right encapsulated such multi-tasking, but can you recall the actual product being advertised?  (Quixt is still around...but far from a household word, although its "io" address is more popular than .com among computer and tech folk)

     This happened to many products, ones which were popular and etched in people's minds at the time, but somehow faded away.  The family walking was actually a 2-page spread, the 2nd page ironically showing that you still should keep track of time and not fully getaway, so keep checking your watch (this in the day of a watch being a watch and not a multi-sensor regulator of your body/banking/email).  The ad was for Timex, the first to introduce a flex-band and a self-winding mechanism (but way behind the curve when digital entered the picture).  And the carpet ad?  How cute is that?  (S&S Mills is also still around, but really, have you heard of it or seen it in your stores?)

     The ads from Range Rover were again, from a time when Range Rover in the US was pretty much an unknown.  One had International Harvester and Jeep, but no Hummers or other brands that the US felt warranted an "off-road" label or capability.  So what better way to introduce your brand than with some clever advertising.  Like me, you may not have bought one, or even considered this newcomer at the time; but you have to admit that the rugged presentation got you looking, even if only at the ads.

     Another venture of advertising back then was the simple cleverness of getting a point across.  Take the ad from Conde Nast Traveler magazine on spotting counterfeits, or the ad from Westin Hotels displaying "excellence" with something as simple as a cold glass of milk and a few Oreo cookies.  As I wrote in my notes back then (and remember, this was over 30 years ago), we all know the joy of a Snickers bar or a warm chocolate chip cookie.  But (as I wrote) if you were Westin or Hilton or Marriott or Four Seasons, would you admit it (much less advertise it)?  Why not?  It took guts...and it certainly was a touch of "excellence."

    And as if to show how much today's world has changed, at least in the advertising world, note the number of liquor ads back then.  Such promotional ads were for the most part, clever and somewhat innocent, suggestive but not anything like deceptive (think Marlboro man cigarette ads, which went through actor after actor as each died from lung cancer).  Drinking was pitched as sort of a relaxant, nothing trendy or tempting to a teenage mind (at least mine, anyway).  Heck, Johnny Walker Red was the sort of high-end drink that Playboy advertised in its lounge ads (back when Playboy not only existed but actually had "clubs," sort of a Jeffrey Epstein primer now that I think about it).  Pinch (scotch) with its gold-threaded weave cover was a big advertiser then, and is barely found on shelves today.  But Windsor Canadian?  And Smirnoff?  But step back and look again.  No drunken, smoky bar scene, no cluster of empty glasses from a wild party.  Just a simple suggestion that when you've had a rough day and think you might need a drink to take the edge off, do consider their brand: Smirnoff and Windsor?  Really?  But that was three decades ago.

     If it seems that I'm picking only the snappiest ads, the ones playing on words or images, well I am.  But such marketing can work for other categories as well -- not products but serious issues that needed to be considered.  Teenage drinking was indeed an issue back then and cars were made of steel, not plastic, and had V-8 engines (gas was considered "expensive" at 35 cents a gallon, and that was for ethyl, the name for high octane premium leaded gas...get the lead out took on an entirely new meaning as all that leaded gas polluted our air).  Crash back then and generally you either survived because of the tough steel, or were basically doomed (because of the tough steel).  As you'd hear on so many memory shows, there were no seat belts or car seats.  As kids, we would climb into the back seat window well above the trunk and make faces at the drivers behind us, never thinking that we might be blocking the rear view of our mom driving (you only did this with mom, because dad's "get down" was serious and meant a lickin' when you got home; did I mention that getting a whipping with the belt was pretty much standard back then...sometimes even from teachers!).  But what better time to think about those teenage dreams of being rich and retiring at 50...another bit of reality brought to you by advertising back then.  

     So now those gun ads...yes, still around.  But this was a time of getting over the highly-publicized assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy in the '60s.  Gun ownership, a quiet closeted issue as the rate of violent crime began dropping, re-entered the spotlight with the Columbine school shooting, and the drive-by shootings of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG.  Anyone it seemed, even teens, could have a gun.  And while times have changed for better or worse regarding the owning and the open carrying of a gun, the US still leads most countries in handgun deaths (Mexico has now taken over the lead with its cartel shootings).  Otherwise, the sobering comparison of the US topping most countries, pretty much stands (although Brazil is catching up).  Second Amendment rights, gun safes, drive-bys, ICE agents.  The advertising world back then had the guts to make a point of bringing this issue to the public's attention.  Could you picture any such ads ever appearing in the media of today?

    At this point, you may be wondering what was the point of all these old ads?  For me, it was a diary of sorts, all now thrown into the recycling bin as I clear out papers and yearbooks.  But looking at those ads (and the many I left out), it seemed a simpler time, a time of marketing and advertising to us as if we were actual people, not some legal stiffs who have to sort through 3 pages of legalese for prescription drugs or weight-loss injections or pills for whatever we can think of.  Think about it.  Do you ever pause to look at ads anywhere these days, be it on your screens or on a page?  These days, instead of being a chuckle, ads are irritants interrupting our movie or article over and over.  And in the end, do you remember any of them?  Even after the 10-millionth ad for Progressive insurance or Liberty Mutual and that ostrich (okay, the emu is basically a smaller ostrich)?  Did any of those ads cause you to switch insurance coverage?  And when was the last time you saw an ad for helping a cause (not counting what you get in the mail or your email)?  Illiteracy?  Child and elderly abuse?  Vaping or smoking?  Drunk driving?  Stopping war?  Today's world of advertising seems about as gutsy as our Congress, which means basically nil.  Blasé, uninviting, unimaginative, scared.  But that woman on the right.  If you can't read the wording, here is what the young model, Dany Boden, said: For goodness sake!  Why are you always staring at my short arms?  Why don't you look at me as I am?  From top to bottom.  All that is me!  Added the photographer, Rasso Bruckert: Seldom does any person fulfill the ideal of beauty in our time; even less so the person with a physical disability.  And so it is a matter of redefining the concept of beauty, to consciously and individually create it for yourself.  This was reprinted from Mainstream: Magazine of the Abel-Disabled (no longer in publication) and appeared in The Utne Reader (which ceased printing but continues as a digital magazine).  So quickly.  Can you remember an ad from the past year that stood out to you?  Any ad, or pictorial feature?  One that made an impact and stayed with you?  Me neither...

     So here's something from the past that stayed with me and wasn't an ad: war.  Specifically, a book of WWII vets telling their oral history of what they remembered from fighting in the Pacific, as documented in the book by Scott Davis, The Last of the Old Breed.  Bear in mind, most of those old timers are now gone or nearing that point, in many cases being past the age of 100.  I think my fascination began when I met my one and only vet who had fought in Cambodia.  Grizzled, as if the war had been hard on him and had never eased up, I told him that I was in the lottery system at the time, the war just starting to wind down, at least from the viewpoint of those not fighting.  I had a high lottery number, I told him, but I would have gone.  He looked at me, told me that he was also in that lottery but that his number was #1, so he was going no matter what.  And he then told me,  "You didn't want to go, man.  And be glad that you didn't."  I told him that I would have gone if called, but would have returned a wreck, likely physically but definitely mentally.  "That's IF you would have returned," he told me.  I thanked him for his service, truly, and thanked him for bringing the reality of war to me.  It was as if, despite meeting other vets, he was someone I could have easily been bunking with on a cargo plane heading into the unknown for what even I called, a shit war (so said because his was the first flight in to Cambodia and when their plane landed, he was told to stay with the plane while his company checked things out; he instead went out with his men.  His "reward" was that he ended up being docked as AWOL for a day, and stripped of two ranks).  But it was the comments from those other grizzled vets, the ones now about to breathe their last breaths and who saw more horrors than many of us can imagine, and who fought a war against a true enemy, an enemy the world knew and not one just satisfying the imagination of egotistical leaders.  Herewith, a few quotes from those veterans.  

--Luther Hendricks, 96, Fifty-Second Defense Battalion: I take stuff now that's supposed to calm me, but it doesn't do a thing.  I hear planes flying, I hear shells exploding, I see people coming at me with knives.  I have dreams that people are in the house, trying to hurt me.  But there's nobody there.  They've been working on my PTSD for two years, but they haven't fixed a thing.  They talk a lot.  It took them seventy years to figure out that the ringing in my ears came from the guns and explosions; seventy years to get me a pension.  Where were they when I was thirty-five?  Forty-five?  Fifty?  "Oh, you're crazy.  You're just hearing things.  There's nothing wrong with you."  Hell, I'm ninety-six now.  What do I have to do?

--Stew Lahey, 97, Second Separate Engineering Battalion: I bet half the guys you've talked to, their families don't know what they did in the service.  Why?  Because we didn't want to talk about it.  My son doesn't know.  My daughter doesn't know half the stuff I went through.  They don't need to know; it's not going to help their lives any.  But now, young folks don't realize what they have because of what happened eighty years ago in World War II.

--Harmon Hunter, 101, First Marine Division: Wouldn't you think we would have learned from that experience?  But we haven't learned a damn thing.  Everybody's willing to take on a war, no matter who starts it.  It's unbelievable.

--Eugene Jones, 94, Fourth Marine Division: It's not like some goddamned movie.

--Colleen Mussetter, daughter of Harold Rediske (awarded the Silver Star): Dad still hated when people would say he was a hero.  He would get very upset: "I am not a hero.  The heroes are the ones that never came home."

   The past, real or imagined, wasn't and isn't all good, no matter how we remember it.  But it did seem more to the point, more open, more real, if that can be imagined.  So I close with something totally out of the blue: Jelly Roll.  No idea about his Grammy-winning country music, no idea about his prison background, no idea about his facial tattoos and cross symbols.  But as a guest host on Jimmy Kimmel, he broke with the funny stuff and offered one of the most sincere speeches about what so many of us are going through, young and old, those struggling and those sitting comfortably watching television, those displaced and perhaps even those living in their cars (the movie TOW, based on a true story, displays this reality in a shocking way for most of us).  It was a refreshing reminder of where we've been, where we are, and where we just may be headed.  And somehow, it made me think of those veterans. Take a peek...don't judge, and don't let life pass you by!