I Want to Go Back to the Fifties

I want to go back to the fifties. I want to turn back time to when the world was a simpler place. I want to put my hair in a ponytail and roll up the legs of my jeans.  I want to play music on a turntable, and dance to rock and roll. I want to wear penny loafers and bobby socks and big skirts with can-can petticoats.

I want to have a slumber party and giggle with my friends. I want to cruise down Main Street and wave at the boys. I want to go to a drive-in restaurant and have a hamburger and fries without worrying about cholesterol. I want to drink root beer from a real glass mug. I want my biggest problem to be whether or not Elvis wriggles too much when he performs and whether Suzie really fell asleep at the drive-in movie.

I want to go steady. I want to wear a fellow’s class ring and put tape on the back of it to make it fit. I want to worry about homework and final exams, acne and after school activities. I want to watch television in black and white.

Funny, how I thought the teachers were all too hard, that I’d never graduate and that only my parents and a high school diploma stood between me and living happily ever after. I worried about things like college scholarships and if  I’d ever get married or whether I would be an "old maid." I didn’t know about women’s rights, or civil rights, or right to life, or right to death.

Then I grew up.

There was stereophonic sound and supersonic transport. There were riots, demonstrations, and rockets to outer space. There were babies and bills. There was social movement and political awareness and something called responsible citizenship. Cold wars became memories and real wars became headlines. I found out about lies, political assassination, social disease, and buying on credit.

I want to default on the problems of the world.. I want to live in a time before designer drugs, credit cards, and computer viruses. I want to renege on the present and go back to way things were. We have come so far. We have gained so little.

I want to go to a football game and cheer for the home team. I want to turn in my marriage license, my driver’s license, my voter’s registration, and my social security card. I want to forget about social responsibility and political consciousness. I want to return to the malt shop, to drive-in movies, to virginity, to an age of innocence. 

I want to tease my hair and watch American Bandstand.