Posted on 04/27/2024 10:38:51 PM PDT by 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?
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
“Who do you think won WWII? I thought you’d be the last person to say the United States won.”
As if late I’m beginning to think the Cold War never ended.
Boomer II, born in ‘55
The early 60s are wonderful every neighborhood was full of kids mostly slightly older than myself because that was the big boom, there were kids everywhere, everybody had friends, if you wanted to pick up baseball game it didn’t take long to gather 2 teams, pick up game of hoops... not a problem. Board games, supper at 5, back outside or homework.
When the older Boomers started their counterculture crap that’s when things started going downhill. They were playing by the slippery ditch that many fell into...
“But remember, not everyone joined the counterculture, not everyone demonstrated, dropped out, took drugs, joined in the sexual revolution or dodged the draft.” - Marilyn Quayle
Pick your poison. Nobody knows how the future dominoes will fall.
-PJ
I went in the front door of our Carnegie library and the only sound was the tick tock of the clock on the back wall.
As a kid I enjoyed a fearless freedom unknown in today’s America.
I was born in January of 1950. Although we were quite poor, my memories of my childhood are very fond.
I wouldn’t say the US lost WWII. America has ‘lost’ itself because of the prosperity that followed WWII. More money, jobs, success AND FREE TIME for leisure and learning activities that allowed the seeds of liberalism and social decadence to thrive.
You wore dungarees with engineering boots, you wore the pantlegs outside the boots and you rolled or folded the jean cuffs inside out so they were just above the foot of the boot. You wore a very wide black belt with a large steel buckle and you wore a white tee shirt with your pack of cigarettes rolled up in the shirt sleeve. Of course you combed your hair with a dab of Brylcreem in it.
I was born in 1948. Lived on a dairy farm the first 7 years of my life. Our house had no indoor plumbing. We did have electricity and a kerosene stove for heat. In the warm weather we took baths in a galvanized tub outside. The farm formed a triangle. One Aunt and Uncle at one point, another Aunt and Uncle at a point, and us at the bottom point with cow pastures in the middle. I guess we were poor, but I never realized it and it never bothered me. When I was 7, my parents built a new house around the corner where we had other kids to play with. We had a 13 inch screen tv and two tv stations to watch. My Father controlled what we watched. Friday nights I’d sit on the floor next to his chair and watch the fights on tv with him. I thought I had a great life in the 50’s
Addressing parents: “May I . . . ?”
Parents: “No.”
For me it was a great time to be a kid. My father had a welding business and he made good money. We weren’t wealthy, but quite comfortable. I was born in 1950 and by 1957 was riding my bicycle all around town with my friends. We would stop at my dad’s shop and grab some bottles of coke from his cooler, then be gone until dinner. Never had any fear of harm from wackos like there are today. We lived in a house that was the last one on a dead end street, and next to a 40 acre field, then about 60 acres of woods with a creek and some ponds. I spent many hours in those woods, saw lots of wildlife. Today interstate 287 runs right through those same woods that are gone, along with the ponds we used to skate on in the winter. There were only 3 tv channels ABC, NBC, & CBS. Commercials were fast and not so frequent. Saturday mornings were cartoons until noon. Sunday was Roy Rogers and Disney. Movies at a theater was 50 cents, candy in machines 5 cents, popcorn 10 cents. School was fun with trips to dairies, zoos, & museums. I don’t remember any protests or riots, it was for me a peaceful decade, and a great time to be an American.
I remember new blue jeans were stiffer than cardboard and pretty damned uncomfortable until about a half dozen washes, but they seemed to last forever.
Tx for good description.
The biggest difference was the schools. In the early 50’s no one had locks on their lockers. Imagine all that implies... Our teachers were the same women that in today’s world would run companies. Teachers were smart and capable and were there because they were locked out of better jobs.
They taught the values that allowed us to live in a world without locks on our lockers.
The biggest problem with students in the 50’s was kids chewing gum in class. Which we all at one time or anther tried to get away with...
Most adults had stories about a teacher who changed their life - and I don’t mean the type of stories we have today about ‘teachers’ who push sexual mutilation and pornography for elementary school kids. And because we hadn’t gone through liberal culture scams yet - (like “kidnapped” kids pictures on milk cartons) Kids played outside. The milk carton lie was based on things like ‘a divorced man being more than 10 minutes late returning his own kids to their mother counted as ‘kidnapped’ for lying statistics) With the 70’s came the ‘nonprofits faking their numbers to get money to keep money flowing to keep their doors open. And the ‘kidnapped kids’ lie was right in there with that time period.
And yeah in the 50’s we had dances and parties and more socializing. But part of that was because there were ZERO computer games, ZERO computers, no cell phones, no air conditioning , very few TV’s in the early 50’s and movies cost a dime to see... So kids went to movies on Saturday mornings. And most of us walked to the movie theater because families only had one car and we were used to walking to places. It was a different time.
I still have a pair of engineering boots and the wide belt down here in Florida now.
Born 1951.
I didn’t know the politics of the time, being so young but I could sense differences of what was and what I had. I had running water and electricity and a toilet. My grandparents did not have a toilet so I did get to experience the joys of a pit toilet...a 2 holer and a set of steps up: a master crapper if ever there was one.
I remember black and white tv with Mickey Mouse, Howdy Doody, Mrs. Francis [”Are you a Do Bee or a Don’t Bee?”] and Disney. Going to the movies to see such classics like Bambi, Snow White and Song of the South.
I did not know the rural life. I was in a tract home in a small town near Philly. There were many Levittowns and they did change the face of America. Suburbia was a thing.
I recall the fear of nuclear wars and the ridiculous war drills in school, covering our heads in the hallway.
There was Breyers vanilla ice cream in dixie cups. There were Sugar Smacks and Rice Krispies and chocolate milk.
There were kids with braces on their legs from polio, There was measles and chicken pox that we all survived.
Much was gained in the 1950’s and a lot was lost. I guess it was trade-offs.
As a young child in the 1950’s,innocence was augmented by a positive afterglow of American success in WW2. Society had as many ills as it does today, they just were not weaponized to the extent they are today for political gain.
Just boys and girls.
Perverts of all stripes didn’t dare show up in public.
Public schools were safe and had no pink haired, nose ringed weirdos.
Trannies were confined to men’s clubs as “female impersonators.”
Narcotics were something you vaguely heard about in some far-away dark alley of a big city.
People went to church.
People believed in America. There were NO people inside the gates screaming “Death to America.”
We didn’t have much money, but we were happy.
Everybody smoked and drank to excess.
White bread, baloney and Miracle Whip sandwiches.
The 50’ were far better than today.
I remember the breaking of the vacuum seal on cans of Maxwell House coffee. WHOOSH and that wonderful aroma released into the room. Mom winding the key to open the can. Then the electric percolator singing and bubbling the brewed coffee.
And, of course, dad’s collection of old coffee cans in the garage holding all his nails, screws, nuts and bolts. Plastic “Storage systems” that interlocked together and lids that could not pop open hadn’t been invented yet. Woe to you if you dropped a coffee can of nuts and bolts, too!
My mom grew up in small town Idaho, born in 1927. I was born in 1951. Through high school, she always insisted no son of hers would wear “dungarees.”
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