Glenn and now

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: (clockwise from top-left)The Beach Boys, Bart Simpson, The Spice Girls, the original VW Bug.

As '60s troubadour Barry McGuire sang in ''Eve of Destruction,'' ''You may leave here for four days in space, but when you return it's the same old place.'' Which brings us to John Glenn, retro rocket man. Whatever its scientific merits, Glenn's scheduled blastoff Thursday is NASA dinner theater: a nod to an era when America faced both the Soviet menace and outer space, the New Frontier.

Was it all so different then? In some ways yes, in some maybe not. As Tom Wolfe wrote of the 1962 model Glenn, he ''had not gotten this far in his career by standing still in a saintly fashion and waiting for his halo to be noticed.'' There he goes again. Houston, we have a flashback.

From the right stuff to the right spin, from Jackie chic to Jackie Chan, here's a comparison of Planet America then and now from 108 miles high and 36 light (even silly) years away. It's the same astronaut, but look what's changed:

	1962	1998
DOW JONES AVERAGE	750	8,500
FIRST-CLASS STAMP	4 cents	32 cents
GATHERING STORM	Vietnam	impeachment hearings
SOUND BITE	"You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."	"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."
POLITICS	Ted Kennedy goes to Washington	Joe Kennedy leaves Washington
CORPORATE HEAVY	US Steel	Microsoft
SCANDAL	rigged quiz show	campaign fund-raising
FASHION	leopard-skin coat	body peircing
HAIR TREND	bouffant	Rogaine
HOT DOLL	Barbie	Beanie Babies
HIP MAGAZINE	Playboy	Wired
HIP CROWD	jet-setters	cybersurfers
COOL CAR	Volkswagen Beetle	Volkswagen Beetle
POWER WEAR	pillbox hats	Zegna neckties
DANCE CRAZE	the twist	swing
HIP COMIC STRIP	Pogo	Dilbert
"IN" DRUG	Librium	Viagra
COOL TECHNOLOGY	pop-top cans	laptop computers
TV HOST	Johnny Carson	Johnnie Cochran
CIGAR NEWS	Cuban embargo	White House embarrassment
HIP SPORT	roller derby	extreme sports
POP ICONS	Lenny Bruce, Beach Boys, Shirelles	Chris Rock, Beastie Boys, Spice Girls
MOVIES	"Lawrence of Arabia" and "Days of Wine and Roses"	"Bride of Chucky" and "There's Something About Mary"
THEATER	"The Night of the Iguana" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"	"The Lion King" and "Killer Joe"
TV SHOWS	"The Flintstones," "Ben Casey," and "The Twilight Zone"	"The Simpsons," "ER," and "The X-Files"
BOOKS	"One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "Ship of Fools"	"The Day Diana Died" and "The Perfect Storm"
WORLD SERIES CHAMPS	NY Yankees	NY Yankees

This story ran on page E01 of the Boston Globe on 10/27/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.