'What We Drove In The 50's & 60's'

Turn on Your Volume....If PopOut JukeBox is Playing....Pause It! 

 

No matter what I've done or where I've been Monahans is still home and some of my most enjoyable memories are of growing up in West Texas. The people there are the best I've ever met and we knew how to have a good time doing things a lot of people would laugh at.

Those times can never come again. Back then locking the house up at night meant putting the latch on the screen door. When we went on vacation we made sure we left the keys in Dad's pickup in case the neighbors needed to borrow it to haul something. Whether it was sandlot baseball or going to a dance at the youth center with a band made up of some of our friends we never stopped having fun.

With gas at 20 cents a gallon we could cruise town all night on $2.00 and see what our friends were up to. A big date was taking a girl to the drive-in movie in my 55 Chevy pickup and hoping she would let me kiss her.

I felt like Forest Gump when I won the Monahans ping pong championship at the youth center one year. Randy McNerlin, my brother, Ronald Boren and I won District, Regional and then took second in State in small bore rifle competition while we were in high school. We thought we were pretty special. I don't know if 4H even offers that anymore.

I guess kids still get as excited as I did winning Grand Champion Capon (which is a rooster without his plumbing) at the Ward County Livestock Show, but I doubt it. I don't know of any place on earth where 30 or more teenagers would go skinny dipping in a couple of windmill tanks and not be having sex.

Back then if it was the girls volleyball team, football, track or whatever other sport Monahans was competing in it was a rule that the last man out of town had to turn out the lights because everyone went to watch. Half the town showed up at little league games even if they didn't have a kid that age.

Even after we were in high school Cheryl Graham, Pat Johnston and Linda Redmon used to come out and play street football with us guys. Monahans was unique and those times were special. The innocence of that era is gone now and with the drugs and perverts of today it can never come again. We need to be sure and tell our kids and grandkids about those times even if they seem bored by it all.

    

 West Texas Sunset

by Ray Cooper

 

Long  ago and far away, in a land that time forgot, 
Before the days of Dylan, or the dawn of Camelot. 
There lived a race  of innocents, and they were you and me, 

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born, 
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.

 
We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn, 
We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the  lawn..

 We longed for love and romance, and waited for our 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 3 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 were not Lead. 

And Beatles lived in  gardens then, and Monkees lived in  trees, 
Madonna was Mary 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 were not  grown in jars. 

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 shows came with freaks, 
And bathing suits came big  enough to cover both your cheeks. 

And Coke came just in  bottles, and skirts below the knee, 
And  Castro came to power near the Land That Made  Me, Me. 

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill, 
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill. 

And  middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three, 
And ancient were 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. 
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. 

 

Click on The Back Arrow Button

(On Statler Brothers Song Page)

To Come Back To This Page

#64 Jerry Adams...#61 John Beezley...#80 Fred Chaney...#44 Jerry Lewis...#22 Wayne McPeak...#77 Alan Williams...#21 Gary Wingo

Coaches  Doug Etheridge...Maurice Hodges...F.T. Martin...Pat Tone