What were the 1950s like?

YouTube ^ | April 28 | Me

[RandFan]

Check out the YouTube circa 1956.

I want to know if life was like that: Congested dance halls, Rock n' roll, a post-War boom?

Seems like another world... One you kind of hanker for.

Can any Freepers recall the era depicted?

[Fiji Hill]

Do you still have a public library in your town? I would have thought modernity would see them close. Not been to one in years...

Modernity is great for those of us who like real books. I have about 15 library cards. When I want to find a book, I surf over to worldcat.org, a database of most of the country's public and academic libraries, to find out which library has the book. That was something you couldn't do int he old days.

[shadeaud]

Mickey Mouse club ( oh and Annette Funicello!!! Be still my heart) Spin and Marty, War of the Worlds game, spin the bottle, Post Office, Hide and Seek, RingAleaveeoh, stick ball on the street with the sewer plate was home base,searching for the tower on Jones Beach, ( almost forgot. Flash Gordon along with Dale Rden, Ming the merciless, the Clay people!! Egg creams at She's soda fountain, Orange Spalding punch ball. Nuns used the yard stick and dad used the belt. Life was easy till ....it wasn't

[RandFan]

It’s true they have completely hollowed out the dollar. That is what is happening.

Shame it’s just too complicated to explain to the average (stiffed) person.

Sooner or later it comes to a head. We know this.

[citizen]

I lived on a dirt road in rural Tennessee. We had an 8-home party-line phone. Our ring was one long and two short. Serious talking was done in person b/c your conversation was open to anyone on the line.

Crops and cows and chiggers and being trapped at home if the creek rose. Sweating in the tobacco firlds, sneezing in the dusty tobacco barn stripping the leaves. Riding the school bus to the 3-room elementary school, catching it early “on the way up” to ride it both ways, sitting in the very back to be tossed up when the bus hit a bump. Looking forward to the county fair or being depositited in the Lincoln theater while my grandparents shopped.

White & colored schools and water fountains and pool halls - but everyone got along - playing with Gene Goodrich’s black kids at the feed house. Everyone went to church on Sunday. Having the town square all lit up with light and people on election day night.

No one talked about wars. Good times, over all.

[Freee-dame]

The wisdom of Thomas Sowell is such a blessing

[citizen]

Yes, the b/w television....going to Aunt Dot’s to watch Bonanza because they had a color TV.

[aspasia]

My take: the media will lie about it.

[Hartlyboy]

Born in 1942. Lived on a dirt road in a house the old man built that had an indoor bathroom. My grandmother who immigrated to this country [legally] in the early 30’s, was aghast at the idea of s...ing in the house.

I’d go back to those years in a heartbeat, despite the polio scares and hiding under the desk in drills because the Russians were going to bomb us. Took a turn with a relative in the spotter posts up on stilts by the firehouse where you watched the sky for bombers sneaking in below the radar.

[DeFault User]

Do you remember the first TV you ever watched? For me, it was a neighbor’s B&W about 1949. What I recall was similar to what Arnold watched on Green Acres, a posse chasing bandits with hooves kaclopping, then the bandits with the same sound effects plus gunfire.

We had radio which gave us Jack Benny and Rochester and Mel Blanc. Also, Gunsmoke with no boring posse chases. The Shadow provided mystery and some “magic” for the imagination.

Instead of walking, we rode our bikes everywhere: to the movies on Saturday (parked them behind the library); to the lake with our rifles on the handlebars; and to school.

[PIF]

I figure there couldn’t be a better time to be around!

—
You are right, its was.

[dfwgator]

Then it’s Bandstand, Disneyland, growin’ up fast
Drinkin’ on a fake I.D.
Yeah, and Rama of the Jungle was everyone’s Bawana
But only jazz musicians were smokin’ marijuana

[Georgia Girl 2]

I still remember driving home from my Aunt’s house in Tampa to Jacksonville on a Saturday night with Gun smoke on the car radio.

[Hiddigeigei]

"Can any Freepers recall the era depicted?"
I started college in 1950. Student exemption kept me out of the Korean War, although I served in Korea later.
"Congested dance halls, Rock n' roll, a post-War boom?"
I did some dancing with a girlfriend at the Student Union, but I think we were the only couple dancing.
Rock n' Roll? I never much cared for modern popular music. My tastes ran to classical and Country And Wester.
Post-war boom? I spent the whole decade in school not counting two years in the army. I was in BASIC with the husband of Patsy Cline and got a ride from him from West Virginia back to Fort Bragg with her and a sister singing on the back seat. It was a pleasant memory.
I remember the decade as good times with fond memories.

[Albion Wilde]

Church basement, Saturday night. Parents lining the walls.

[Albion Wilde]

The Allied forces. Ike was their general wasn’t he ? His title was “Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe”

Ironically, after that he was president of Columbia University before he became President of the U.S.

[Albion Wilde]

And, of course, dad’s collection of old coffee cans in the garage holding all his nails, screws, nuts and bolts.

Yep. Every dad and granddad had a workbench and jerry-built shelves in the basement. “Heavy metal” was all the hand tools from the 20s thru 40s, before electric tools. Hand drills, saws, rasps, tin snips—I still have some of my dad's and granddad's tools in my basement, but they are in steel toolboxes from Home Depot. That's because I have the handmade wooden tool chest with removable tray in my upstairs, a keepsake—along with the handmade wooden doll's house from my granddad.

[Elsie]

bingo!

[Elsie]

. On long trips you would pack bread and lunch meat to have lunch at a road side park that consisted of a picnic table under a tree.

Some of these are still around.

[Albion Wilde]

Instead of plastic:
- Glass jars of many sizes
- Wax paper
- other stuff

Cloth sacks, cardboard boxes with string and handles, glass bowls with lids.

Kids today think they invented "sustainable" and "organic", but most of the food we ate was organic in the 50s, because it came from local farms to the grocers. There were some chain groceries, but very little frozen food. Women shopped often, sometimes every day, so your food was fresh and not full of preservatives. Many homemakers also had string bags or individual shopping carts, and walked to the store or took a bus, because there was only one car and dad needed it for work. (I'm speaking for urban and suburban areas here. We grew up two miles from the city line of a large city.)

[Elsie]