Musings from Jerry Brooks

Two score and fourteen years ago, most of us entered Bowen High School  as freshmen. (That’s 54 years for those of you who aren’t  keeping  score)

Since then we’ve seen a lifetime of advancements and innovations, failures and misdeeds.

We’ve seen “The Good, The Bad, and The (oh so) Ugly”

We had War and we had Peace.

We had Bull markets and we had Bear markets

Michael Jordan and the Bulls, and  Da’ Coach and Da’ Bears

We had long time Mayor Daley and … we had long time Mayor Daley

We had corrupt politicians and…we have corrupt politicians and… we’ll elect more corrupt politicians

We saw the failures of many banks, and the Hall-of-Fame for Ernie Banks

The White Sox champs of ’05, the Cubs champs of  ‘wait til next year’

Enron making the newspaper headlines, and Subeck (our Ron) heading the Bowen Arrow

We had epidemics of Swine flu and Asian flu, and we saw an outbreak of ‘Saturday Night Fever’

Down-sizing, Outsourcing, and Used-to-be ‘Made in the USA’

Ale wives and Ex-wives, Imacs and Big Macs, Surrogate Mothers and Significant Others

Ipods, Wii Games, You Tube, and the Me generation

Walking on the moon, Shuttling out into space, ‘Dancing with the Stars’

We saw the ‘Greening of America’ and the Walgreening  of America.

Natural Disasters-

     Katrina, Mount St. Helens, Sandy, winter in Chicago

Man-made  Disasters-

     3 Mile Island, BP Gulf oil spill, Watergate, Body piercing & tattooing ,New Coke, Rap music

Great Ideas- Velcro, Tivo, Perma Press, Map Quest, Right turn-on-red, Double Stuf Oreos

Answer-    Inspector Clouseau , Ace Ventura, Rod Blagojevich, silicone implant

Question-  Alex, What are three nincompoops and a boob?

Answer-    Internet pop-ups (mostly), Beanie Babies and Pet Rocks, they left Gore hanging in Florida  Question- What are ads, fads, and the Florida Supreme Court? (will also accept chads)

We’ve seen the rising use of Viagra and Cialis, and the erection of the John Hancock Building and Sears Tower (lasting longer than four decades)

                               “Go ahead---Make my day”

                                “I’ll have what she’s having”

                                “Stifle it Edith”

                                “Yadda, Yadda, Yadda”

                                           -30-

My apologies to my English teachers for any errors of syntax, punctuation, and Capitalization