Saturday Afternoons in the 1970s

My father, who, just weeks ago celebrated his 82nd birthday was, and still is, a great believer in practicing and perfecting basic skill sets. For my brother and me, our required practice came on Saturday afternoons, when we had a choice: either we practiced an hour of typing or reading.

Now, there were ground rules: our typed assignment had to have a central theme or story, we just couldn’t hammer at the keys randomly and he would later correct it for grammar. Our reading could not be Sports Illustrated, comics or MAD magazine, but either national news publications like Time or papers like the New York Times where we would be quizzed later on current events and content.

He was a believer in the 10,000 hours of practice theory, four decades before Malcolm Gladwell’s classic “Outliers” introduced the concept to the American public. Once satisfied, he would then allow us to go outside for recreational pursuits, which usually consisted of pick-up games at the local park. 

I harken back to those days because I’m grateful for the dividends they later paid. My typing skills became an invaluable tool for college papers and later, more than two decades in journalism. Ditto for my interest in current events and a voracious appetite for reading.

And also because of a number of disturbing incidents that happened recently that I could not imagine occurring years ago.

On a rare night when I managed to remain awake past 10’oclock, I happened to catch late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s hilarious on-the-street interview vignette – “Lie Witness News,” a spoof of ABC’s “Eyewitness News.” And the questioned posed to the people was this: “Former President FDR died yesterday, what do you think he would best be remembered for?”

Now since FDR was born in 1882 and died in 1945, you would hope that no one would actually fall for that ruse. No such luck. Mush wits of all ages pontificated on the much-belated passing of our 32^nd President and when asked what his greatest contribution was, how many do you think mentioned The New Deal even in passing?

If you guessed ZERO you would be correct. And perhaps even scarier is that these people are allowed to vote.

Two days later my neighbor came over with an assignment paper for her high-school age daughter which contained about 20 questions – with one displaying a picture of the current Speaker of the House John Boehner asking for identification.  Both the mother and the daughter were clueless as to who it was – despite his name and picture appearing almost daily on TV and in print.

Had I not been able to identify the SOH in high school you know my father would have had a few things to say about it. For those keeping score at home at the time it was Carl Albert, D-Okla.

I don’t remember particularly enjoying those afternoons, as I could hear the neighborhood kids rambling outside, but as fundamental skill sets sadly wane, I can take some solace in the fact that Jimmy Kimmel will never laugh at my expense.