Two Words, One Answer.
Tom Brokaw
 A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland in the Forties and Fifties $13.95 Tom Brokaw must think that people care about every facet of his dull life--because he has elaborated on it in so much boring detail in this book that even Brokaw fans will throw their hands up after hearing another insignificant story and say "who cares." Sadly, he comes across as a person who considered himself better than others and was incredibly insensitive when it came to class status. He often mentions in the book whether someone is "working class" and he claims that in high school "I was a member of the ruling class...it was a white man's and white boy's world" and writes about racism issues that deal with his going to school with Native Americans. If he thinks he is getting sympathy from the reader because he somehow grew beyond his bigotry it is hard to come to that conclusion through this book. Brokaw is trying to build on his past "Greatest Generation" reputation by painting a picture of his childhood on the South Dakota prairie. But the problem is that it was a pretty boring childhood. Camp, summer jobs, trips to Minneapolis, fitting in at school--almost nothing happened to him that was anything unusual. There are two exceptions that are worth hearing about. First, as a teenager he headed to New York City to appear on a game show with the South Dakota governor and ended up cheating on the show. Yes, he was part of the quiz shows scandals. This is something he probably should not have revealed. Second, the only good thing about the book is that it tells the story of how this partying college kid was "counseled" to leave school by a caring professor who told him, "Get all the wine, women and song out of your system." Though this should embarrass the future anchorman, his professor used it to turn Brokaw's life around. Tom dropped out of college then begged the professor to let him back in as a serious student. The book is also deceptive in length. It may look like a long book of over a couple hundred pages, but the types is double spaced and there are about 30 pages of picture-only pages mixed in the middle of chapters, so the actual length of the book would be about 100 pages in a normal book. After reading this book any favorable opinion people have of Brokaw should decrease because he comes across as a smug, arrogant, rich guy who thinks his lowly upbringing was something special. It wasn't--he was raised the same way most other people were in the Midwest and nothing really changed for him until that college professor gave him a verbal kick in the pants to change his life.  The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections $14.95 I am a product of the 60's. Mr. Brokaw's Book did not try to render an opinion or to state in any way certain people were right or were wrong. He reported what he say and did as a child of the 60's himself. I got a lot from some people who did influence my thinking back then and still have a lot to say as their words are timeless. To say it brought back memories would be an understatement, it brought back ALL the memories, many I wish I could forget, but still they are important. My summary from those memories is I need them not to do them again, but as a way of life that had a chance before chemicals were introduced.  Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How It Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrow $18.00 Boom! is completely worthless. Brokaw has no idea of what was really happening in America in the sixties. He just looked down on it from the disconnected perspective of his own sheltered journalistic world. He was not one of us; he was one of them. For a more authentic look at the era from someone who actually lived *in* it rather than *above* it, try Die at the Right Time! A Subjective Cultural History of the American Sixties. |
|
