Fifty years: A guest post reflection

1967.

LBJ at a 1967 press conference. "We are making progress in Vietnam."

In 1917, fifty years before I started college, people farmed with horses.

World War I was underway in 1917. People drove Model T Fords. The first radio station was three years away. The first "talking movies" wouldn't be for another decade. 1917 seemed so very, very remote to me in 1967. It was another era.

Fifty years pass. Young adults see me as old. How could they not? I am old. Like Tony Farrell, the author of today's guest post, I was born in 1949, a very lucky time to have been born. Fifty years prior to today doesn't seem remote to me at all. Carter was president. cars looked cool, everything seems a lot like things are today.

College classmate Tony Farrell wrote about the passing of fifty years in this reflection on youth, war, the man in the White House, and Harvard. Tony had a long career in marketing for upscale brands, including the memorable, but ill-fated product,Trump Steaks.

Tony Farrell

Guest Post by Tony Farrell 

I recall my early first meeting with my freshman advisor, John B. Fox, Jr. ’59, head of the Career Plans office. When I said something like, “…because people like it here so much…,” he interrupted: “I don’t see how anyone can like it here anymore.” Ah, the collision of his old Harvard—where “diversity” meant “where you summered”—and our emerging one. “When I lived in the Yard,” he protested, “we had grass. Now, there’s no grass.” I knew what he meant (about the lawn) but I bet he missed the irony. 

As I related for my 50th high-school reunion in 2017, I have a hard time thinking about a half century. As high-school seniors in 1967, what did we think of the 1917 graduates? Is it possible we’re seen with that same distance? I don’t think so. I mean, 1917 meant no TV; heck, no radio! No air travel and practically no cars or phonographs or movies. In contrast, I detect essentially no difference between 1967 and 2017 (or 1971 and this year): The internet and smartphones are, of course, new (especially to me) but otherwise, it’s still radio, TV, movies; a ’67 Mustang is just another cool car on today’s roads; clothing like jeans, tees and khakis is not so different; we still listen to rock, and I recently saw McCartney in concert. Time is all so foreshortened….

Looking back across my 70+ years on Earth, I am most profoundly grateful for never having seen combat (unlike my father and father-in-law, Navy officers in the Pacific Theater in WWII, and despite my also having served as a Navy officer, during the Vietnam era). 

My British ancestors were not so fortunate: A cousin traced my Mom’s family back 15 generations, to a Thomas Bracey (b. 1550) in Bristol, England. For sure, these Braceys were not royalty. Rather, the men were colliers; teamsters; masons…and fodder: In 1917, within 12 days, brothers Gilbert (25) and Evan Bracey (19) were killed at Flanders, as was their cousin, Henry Bracey (22). In 1918, another two Bracey brothers were killed in France: Spencer (25) in June, and Sidney (28) just four days before the November Armistice. 

We American babies of 1949 are certainly the luckiest generation, if nothing else. All that the 20th century’s scourges of war and Depression ever did to me was to generate an infinite library of historical literature that kept me thoroughly entertained as I blithely drifted into my bright future.

As I brood over the current populist and nativist undermining of NATO, the European Union, the World Health Organization, World Trade Organization and other institutions of peace, I reflect on the astounding wisdom and skill of American post-war leadership—responding brilliantly to the lessons of the vengeful Versailles treaty and the fiscal and economic catastrophe of 1930s; leadership that allowed our “boomer” generation to grow up in such prosperity, health, security and peace.

I just rewatched “Some Like It Hot,” the 1959 comedy movie masterpiece written and directed by Billy Wilder, an Austrian immigrant. In the opening scene—a raid on a Prohibition-era speakeasy—Pat O’Brian’s cop taunts George Raft’s gangster, Spats: “If you want to, you can call your lawyer.” Spats, with four thick-necked goons at his table, responds, “These are my lawyers,” as the hoods stand up. “All Harvard men.” 

Wilder’s punch line doesn’t land without the singular universal Harvard brand. It’s how I chose to attend. (“How bad could it be?” was my thinking.) The Harvard brand allows one to do stupid things, ask stupid questions, and no one will think you’re stupid (at first); it lends one respect without having to earn it (at first); it privileges access to a glittering global community that has helped to keep me, at least, from ever feeling too alone in the world. My marketing career focused on branding; I believe the best definition of “brand” is “a promise.” And with Harvard, it’s been a promise kept: A wonderful college experience, skillfully and respectfully extended well into my adult life. 

The University’s stalwart stance for Constitutional order, and against the forces of tyranny, is something I both expected and of which I feel very proud.

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