Toni Home Perm, Flexible Flyer Snow Sled, Hula Hoop, Mercurochrome, Fishnet Stockings, Beatles, Mohair, Go-Go Boots, Aluminum Christmas Tree…and, the beat goes on.While the mushroom cloud of the Cold War hovered over us, my sister and I carried on as kids do regardless of world events. Since the daily minutiae of life provides the magic for memories to MUSHROOM WILDLY–feed your head my … WILDLY–feed your head my nostalgic recollections of growing up during the ’60s counterculture.
Serious, sentimental, or silly revelations set aside: you know better than to duck and cover under a school desk for protection against nuclear fallout.
more
Smart, clever, snide, and nostalgic, Pasco writes with élan on a vast array of topics dear to the hearts of Baby Boomers. Raleigh coupons, candy cigarettes, Bazooka Joe, Nancy Drew, mohair, Carnaby street, the celery green walls of primary school academia; it’s all here, just as it was when we boomers were in bloom.
In addition to the title’s multiple entendre, these memoirs are filled with snarky allusion and Wildean epigrams; sometimes in the same sentence. “Before you get the notion I’m going to drawl about roping cattle or saddling up at the Flat Broke Ranch, I’m not steering you there by a longhorn shot.” (22)
Pasco’s snapshots of yesteryear, a collection of pieces she originally penned for The Sixties Official Site, are more than mere nostalgia; they are tiny well-researched histories which include background on the social, political, and cultural mores of the time, spiced with odd details such as the fact that Green Stamps printed three times more stamps than the U.S. Post Office throughout the 60s.
Nicely crisp metaphors abound. “Eyes stung, hair and clothes reeked, curdles of smoke and carbon incensed the air like a priest performing benediction at high mass.” (106) And; any and all afunctional alliterates will delight in sinewy sentences such as: “Crushed by the cresting catastrophic contaminated canned cranberry cancer caper, I crumpled and cried…” (132)
A vastly entertaining and informative treat, not just for people of a certain age, but for everyone living or breathing who enjoys quality writing and razor-sharp wit.
‘100 Wild Mushrooms’ presents readers with 100 chapters of nostalgia and memoir from the 1960s. Food, music, TV shows, comic books, toys, fashion, crazes, world events, celebrities and recollections of personal experience combine to form a most enjoyable trip down memory lane.
I really enjoyed the diversity and range of the topics in this book. Not content to merely entertain me, these memories carried me away to a different time where life seemed much more straightforward than it often seems to be today.
Written with good humour and warmth, This is a delightful collection that will appeal to a wide audience, especially those who were there but may not always remember much!
In Eva Pasco’s own words, “simply remembering a few of our favourite things meandering along Memory Lane is a trip worth taking.”
I really enjoyed this delightful book of the author’s memories from her growing up years. Partly I enjoyed it because, amazingly, she and I were both born in the same year, 1951! However, I think any reader who wants to learn about what everyday life was like for kids growing up in the 1950s and 1960s will enjoy it. Originally published as a weekly column/series of vignettes on The Sixties Official Site, Pasco for the first time brought all the stories together in one book. Although Pasco was well aware of all the tumultuous events that occurred and shaped the 1960s as she was growing up (and that indeed have helped define America since then), these stories focus on her personal and family life during those years. I highly recommend this book!
100 Wild Mushrooms: Memoirs of the ‘60s by Eva Pasco was a true blast from the past for this old hippie/flower child. It was a well written detail oriented cruise through a truly special time for the baby boomers
But it also gives the younger generations a better, more accurate look at the 60s than is usually portrayed by the media and motion pictures. Thank you, Eva Pasco, for refreshing my memory.