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In September, a friend messaged me with a picture of the Partridge Family, an early 1970s sitcom popular with kids of that era.
"Do you believe this show debuted 50 years ago?" he said.
Good grief. A half-century since the Partridges - single mom Shirley and her five kids - sang their way into America's hearts with tunes that became Top 40 pop hits? Come on, get happy.
But I couldn't. I was struck by that gulf of time separating me from that cool world of hippies, bell bottoms and peace signs.
The Partridges were part of ABC's Friday night lineup, loosely based on the Cowsills, a family singing act that played "supper clubs" as they were called back then. The Partridges traveled to gigs in their modified 1957 Chevy Superior school bus, with its mod Piet Mondrian paint job.
Actor Danny Bonaduce was the family's wisecracking 11-year-old bass-playing son. In the mid-1980s, years after the show ended, I was at Temple University. Bonaduce's aunt, Jackie Steck, who had taught journalism and writing at Temple since the 1940s, would confirm campus rumors on the first day of class, telling students, "Yes, I am Danny Partridge's aunt."
It was testament to the Partridge Family's enduring pop culture power for we tail-enders of the baby boom.
A landmark show like that would, ordinarily, get a splashy retrospective on its 50th. You know, "Whatever happened to" or "Where are they now?" But 2020 was a year of subdued anniversaries. Coronavirus, with its mounting death toll and draconian mitigation efforts, dominated the news. Probably this year, too. Probably for years, if governors and public health experts keep moving the goalposts on what virus victory looks like. Wonder if they attended the same colleges as those who've run the endless war in Afghanistan.
Anyway, not to make you feel old, boomer, but here are a few other anniversaries that checked the half-century mark in 2020.
Earth Day . . .
Apollo 13 . . .
The Kent State shootings . . .
Hendrix and Joplin . . .
Doonesbury . . .
American Top 40 with Casey Kasem . . .
AMC Gremlin . . . .
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