The Class of '57 Had Its Dreams
Reflections on my 60th birthday
When I was eight years old, my grandfather re-gifted our family a promotional LP he had received at his radio station, WETB in Johnson City. How my grandfather happened to have a radio station is another story for another day.
The LP, which I loved, was the Statler Brothers’ Country Music: Then and Now. I loved its hilarious comedy track, “Saturday Morning Radio Show” (with your host, the Old Road Hog, and his Cadillac Cowboys). I also loved its hauntingly beautiful song, “The Class of ’57,” written by Don and Harold Reid (the only actual brothers in the imaginatively named Statler Brothers).
I am not the only one who loves that song. Kurt Vonnegut believed it should replace “The Star-Spangled Banner” as the national anthem. The novelist pictured Americans at a medal ceremony of some future Olympics, tears streaming down their cheeks as they sang “Where Mavis finally wound up is anybody’s bet.”1
The song’s far reaching appeal is easy to understand. It’s about dreams of youth, and how those dreams never seem to match up with real life. Whatever the members of the class of ’57 were doing as adults, whether it was selling used cars, fixing hair, lab research, teaching grade school, or playing the organ “at the Presbyterian Church,” it fell short of the future lives they had hoped for when they were eighteen, just out of high school, and ready to change the world. I honestly don’t know why this song about crushed dreams and the onset of middle age captured my eight-year-old heart, but it did.
The song has held different meanings for me as I listened to it again over the years. Most recently, I was struck by the fact that the song came out in 1972, only fifteen years after 1957. All these adults, mourning their childhood dreams, crushed by the harsh realities of life—Tommy, Nancy, Margaret, Mavis (wherever she wound up), and all the others—are only in their early thirties! They’re babies! They have so much more life to live, so many more dreams to pursue—except poor Freddy, rest in peace. But that’s all the more reason not to give up dreaming. Honor Freddy’s memory! Dream big! Come on, Class of ’57!
It’s not that I don’t understand how they feel. When I was in my early thirties, I had just come out of an unsuccessful two years as an associate pastor. I had already left behind dreams of being a playwright or a musician. I had trained for years to pursue the dream of church ministry. That turned out to be a failure. Newly married and jobless, I certainly felt like my dream-chasing days were over.
But there were other dreams, “new dreams, maybe better dreams, and plenty” to quote another song. There was the dream of remaining in a long and happy marriage. There was the dream of becoming a father. There was the dream of attending and finishing graduate school. There was the dream of writing and publishing books. There was the dream of a new career as a college professor. There were setbacks and disappointments along the way, to be sure, but nevertheless, all these dreams that I have listed have been fulfilled.
Today is my birthday. I am sixty years old. I still have dreams for the future. The dreams of a sixty-year-old are certainly of a different quality than those of an eighteen-year-old, for whom time and energy seem unlimited. Even so, there is an advantage to dreaming at my age, with the benefit of past experience and an awareness of the limits of time. I dream more clearly. My dreams are in sharper focus.
Sure, the class of ’57 had their dreams—exhilarating, ambitious, hopeful dreams—but they were not very specific. They all thought they’d change the world with their “great works and deeds.” But what exactly were the works and deeds they had in mind? In retrospect, they admit, “maybe we just thought the world would change to fit our needs.” Typical baby boomers—it turns out their dreams all revolved around them.
My dreams at age sixty are still exhilarating, still hopeful, but unlike the dreams of my eighteen-year-old self, they are clear, defined by boundaries, and, I hope, not so focused on me.
When my daughter was twelve years old, she asked me if everything I wrote had to be boring. Ever since I have dreamed of writing for a general audience. I dreamed of sharing the benefits of my academic training and experience with others through short and (I hope) entertaining pieces.
That dream has been fulfilled, in part, with this Substack, now in its sixth month of publication. My audience is modest but growing. Already I am starting to reach a greater number of people than my books ever did. (But seriously, some of you should read one of those books. Daniel Parker was a very interesting fellow).
Today is the first day of classes for the fall 2024 semester at Marietta College. My dream for my students is that they will all get something out of the religion and history classes they have enrolled in. For some, it will be three more credit hours on the way to a degree. For others, it will be that plus a little lasting knowledge about how other people live and what they believe. And for a few students it will something more. Some will go so far as to internalize the wisdom that is imparted by the world’s religions—a basic trust in a meaningful universe, a sense of hope that goodness and justice and love will ultimately triumph despite all adversity, and the inspiration to act on that hope.
For my beloved Marietta College, my dream is that we will weather our current financial crisis, and that the college will continue, for the rest of my time here and long after I am gone, to deliver a humane, multidisciplinary, liberal education to our students, just as it has done for going on twenty decades. It is my dream that Marietta College students will continue to gain the critical skills and empathy they need to live joyful and purposeful lives and to serve the common good.
And for you, dear reader, my dream is exactly the same. I created this Substack to give readers at least part of what I have to offer students. Thank you for giving your precious and limited time and attention to read this post. Take what wisdom you find here and be inspired. Dream big. Change the world with your great (and little) works and deeds. And in the words of the Old Road Hog, “May the good Lord take a likin’ to yuh.”
“The Class of ’57,” in Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage.