Elvis
If you grew up in Mississippi when I did, and you claim Elvis wasn’t a major factor in your childhood, you’re either lying or extremely deprived. I remember a woman who had an Elvis scarf in a plastic bag. She said she caught it at a concert when he tossed it out to the crowd. She wouldn’t wash it or take it out of the bag because she wanted to preserve his perspiration. My friends had Elvis scrapbooks. Their mothers had Elvis scrapbooks. I was folding laundry and wearing a Fonz T-shirt when I heard Elvis was dead. I was devastated.
The Bible
Image from Inspire4Less: https://www.inspire4less.com/productimages/9781558190382.jpg. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
My father is a minister, so of course Bibles were prevalent in my childhood, and maybe I owe more to the Bible for my literacy development than anything else. Certainly, I think, memorizing passages from the King James as a child made it easy for me to understand works of literature from earlier time periods. Also, we all had our own Bibles from the very beginning. We read along with the things being read to us. You’d be hard pressed to find a better way to absorb language.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Image from ABC News: http://blogs.abcnews.com/photos/uncategorized/eb.jpg. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
We had a set of junior encyclopedias that are quite possibly the reason my brother James and I both have Ph.D.s. James has two Ph.D.s because he read the entire set. I only read the encyclopedias when I had to, such as when I asked my mother a question and she told me to “look it up.”
Big Mac Ingredients
We didn’t even have a McDonald’s in Brookhaven yet when I first learned to recite the Big Mac jingle.
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom
Marlin Perkins is still my superstar. Wild Kingdom aired on Sunday nights, when I was supposed to be in church, yet I have many fond memories of it. When you only have three channels like we did then, good TV is as good an excuse as any to stay home.
Nancy Drew
Image from Wikimedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bf/ND1tsotoc.JPG. Retrieved 6 June 2009.
Nancy Drew had it going on. She was all about girl power, though she knew what all good heroes know. Power is about using your head.
The Waltons
I learned about Pearl Harbor from this episode of The Waltons. I still cry when I think about it.
Pink Floyd
Possibly ironic that I liked this at a young age and grew up to be a teacher, but who’s keeping track?
Sears Catalog
Image from Telstar Logistics: http://telstarlogistics.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized
/2007/12/23/searscover.jpg. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
Of course there were the Sears and Penny’s catalogs. Everyone had to have a wish list.
The News
You couldn’t be too young to watch the news in my family. It was what was on. I don’t actually remember the death of Dr. King in 1968, but I know I was in front of the TV when the news about it was on.
Sharon Gerald's Media/Literacy Memoir 