Found at Home
Came across these things while home over the weekend:

What a cute baby I was...

What a cute kid I was. This was taken at a birthday party at Plaster Carousel, where kids paint things made out of, you guessed it, plaster. Lots of kids in my neighborhood had birthday parties there. My masterpiece was a plaque that said Down With Homework and featured a pencil snapped in two. I thought it was very clever at the time, and treasured it for years, until I accidentally knocked it to the ground and it shattered into about a thousand pieces.

And now, something that's embarrassing. I was in 5th grade when Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" hit #1. At the time, I made a bet with a girl in my class that I knew all the words to the song. To prove it, I wrote them out in full. Turns out, I didn't know all the words. Not by a long shot. Compare my version with the actual lyrics; I've highlighted what I had wrong:

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray

South Pacific, Walter Windshield, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Student Baker, Television

North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenberg, H-Bomb, Sugar Ray, Pad Moo John

Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's Got a New Queen

Marshmallow, Liberace, Santayana, Goodbye

(chorus)

Joseph Stalin, Alan Call, NASA and Prokofiev

Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Blocks

Roy Gone, Walk Around, Tuscaninny, Akron

Bin Bin, Foo Falls, Rock Around the Clock

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's Got a Winning Team

Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardow, Budapest, Alabama, Cruise Jets

Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Sewers

(chorus)

Little Rock, Passinack, Mickey Mantle, Cadillac

Sputnik, Joe and I, Bridge On The River Kwy

Lebanon, Chalsador, California Baseball

Stark weather, Homicide, Children of the Little My

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia

Hula Hoops, Castro, Edselina No-Go

U2, Sigmond Ree, Payola and Kennedy

Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

(chorus)

Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land

Building, Berlin, Bay of Pigs Invasion

Lawrence of Arabia, British Beat Romania

Old Miss, John Glenn, Liston Beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politicians, Sex

J.F.K. Blown Away, What Else Do I Have To Say?

(chorus)

Birth Control, Hochie Men, Richard Nixon Back Again

Moon Shot, Woodstock, Watergate, Punk Rock

Bacon, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the Airline

Ayatollahs in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, Heavy Metal, Suicide

Foreign Debts, Homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Burning Jets

Hypadermics on the Shore, China's Under Martial Law

Rock and Roller, Color War, I Can't Take It Anymore

(chorus)

Burning jets instead of Bernie Goetz? Trouble in the Sewers? What was I thinking? And I really had trouble with the start of the second verse. But I'm most ashamed of thinking British Beatlemania was British Beat Romania. As a classic rock lover, I'll never live that down.