This fashion is in, that one is out
narrow waists with baggy knees
Wide lapels and razor-thin ties
Who knows what will be
Slicked-back ducktails
top off muscle t-shirts
hoping to attract
coy smiles from a skirt
My friend and I dress real dumb
bowling shirts plugging Bazooka-Joe gum
The girls see us, giggle, and flee
Who knows what will be
Crewcuts, flattops, pompadours
Cowlicks, ducktails, side parts
Clean cuts, Ivy Leagues, slick-backs
Where have all these hairstyles gone
No longer do the cute chicks fawn ...
that day*
two score and ten
business men in leisure suits,
grandmothers with grey handkerchiefed hair
and adolescents in gaudy glasses,
girls wearing bouffants and sweaters,
the boys maybe ducktails with Pomade
all wrinkling their faces in disbelief -
profound grief that it could be -
As the week ends on the blackest Friday
they watch stoic Jackie stand with Lyndon
as visions of Camelot dance out of their heads
the gritty grim speculation roosts
over a looong black-n-white weekend
of caissons and long drum rolls
and a belief that it'll never
be the same - really, it never was
© Goode Guy 2013-11-16
*1963-11-22
The 50’s are special to me
Started High School in ‘52
Wore shrink tight jeans and cowboy boots
Long hair ducktails and sideburns too
Rock and Roll music was “the thing”
Meet your buddies with a high five
The girls started looking good to me
That’s when bop dancing came alive
Buddy Holly, Little Richard
Elvis Presley and the rest
I’d listened to them all the time
Soon Bebop music was the best
Got a job at the Trading Post
Learned to drive and got my first car
Fender skirts and a necking knob
And a muffler that sounded bazaar
Then girls suddenly caught my eye
Double dates to the drive-in movies
Smooching when parked on lover’s lane
A French kiss was something groovy
Out of college in ‘59
And from then right up to today
When I think about the 50’s
I just grin, what else can I say?
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