generational markers (was "Disney's Man In Space")

My wife claims the generational marker between "early Boomers" and "late
Boomers" is that "early Boomers" saw "The Wizard Of Oz" for the first time
in a theater instead of on TV.

So, I'm just looking at some of the old books and art from the books from
the 1957-60 period at http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~jsisson/1957-1960.htm and
just wondering if perhaps there was a "generational marker" among those of
us who grew up in the early Space Age.

I was born in 1957 -- beat Sputnik off the pad by about 7 months -- and my
earliest memories of space enthusiasm begin at a time when it had already
been reality for a couple of years. Sputnik was ancient history to me at
the age of eight. I first "got serious" at the beginning of Gemini, and
even at that age, I'd look at some of the art and books mentioned in the
"Disney's Man In Space" thread and think of them as quaint artifacts of an
ancient era. In the lunchroom, my pals and I engaged in endless critique
of that old stuff: "Huh, that'd never fly, how come it's got all those
fins?", "Oh, man, that guy'd be dead now, his helmet doesn't even seal at
the neck!", "Gawd, what's that supposed to be, an Atlas? A Titan III?".

So now, I'm wondering what the generational markers are for those of us
who were school kids pre-Mercury, as opposed to post-Mercury -- between
the kids who could only look at books and imagine what rocket ships looked
like, and the kids who had TV's wheeled into the lunchroom so we could
watch the Gemini launches and who knew _exactly_ what a _real_ rocket ship
looked like.

--
"All over, people changing their votes,
along with their overcoats;
if Adolf Hitler flew in today,
they'd send a limousine anyway!" --the clash.
__________________________________________________ _________________
Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org
Mike Flugennock's Mikey'zine, dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org