Posted on 04/03/2017 9:20:51 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
Born in the 1930s and early 1940s, we exist as a very special age cohort. We are the “LAST ONES.” We are the last, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the war itself with fathers and uncles going off. We are the last to remember ration books for everything from sugar to shoes to stoves. We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans. We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available.
We are the last to hear Roosevelt’s radio assurances and to see gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors. We can also remember the parades on August 15, 1945; VJ Day.
We are the last who spent childhood without television; instead imagining what we heard on the radio. As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood “playing outside until the street lights came on.” We did play outside and we did play on our own. There was no little league.
The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real understanding of what the world was like. Our Saturday afternoons, if at the movies, gave us newsreels of the war and the holocaust sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons. Newspapers and magazines were written for adults. We are the last who had to find out for ourselves.
As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth. The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow. VA loans fanned a housing boom. Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans put factories to work. New highways would bring jobs and mobility. The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics. In the late 40s and early 50s the country seemed to lie in the embrace of brisk but quiet order as it gave birth to its new middle class. Our parents understandably became absorbed with their own new lives. They were free from the confines of the depression and the war. They threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.
We weren’t neglected but we weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus. They were glad we played by ourselves “until the street lights came on.” They were busy discovering the post war world.
Most of us had no life plan, but with the unexpected virtue of ignorance and an economic rising tide we simply stepped into the world and went to find out. We entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were welcomed. Based on our naïve belief that there was more where this came from, we shaped life as we went.
We enjoyed a luxury; we felt secure in our future. Of course, just as today, not all Americans shared in this experience. Depression poverty was deep rooted. Polio was still a crippler. The Korean War was a dark presage in the early 1950s and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks. China became Red China. Eisenhower sent the first "advisors" to Vietnam. Castro set up camp in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power.
We are the last to experience an interlude when there were no existential threats to our homeland. We came of age in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, climate change, technological upheaval and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with insistent unease.
Only we can remember both a time of apocalyptic war and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty. We experienced both.
We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better... not worse.
We did not have it easy. Our wages were low, we did without, we lived within our means, we worked hard to get a job, and harder still to keep it. Things that today are considered necessities, we considered unreachable luxuries. We made things last. We fixed, rather than replaced. We had values and did not take for granted that "somebody will take care of us." We cared for ourselves and we also cared for others.
We are the “LAST ONES.”
My mom is 95 and is one of the Last Ones. We were up late last night going through her memories for the family tree I’m putting together. She’s very sorrowful that her world is gone and no one seems to take her seriously any more (I do), even though she knows more than most people and has seen more than they ever will. It was a fascinating evening.
I (born in 1949) and others like me,witnessed you guys and tried to emulate you...Some of us succeeded...
Thank you....
It was a generation that got to savor both privation and plenty. All we’ve known since is the latter ... to our detriment.
And at that time a REAL SILVER DOLLAR had a value of about 47 cents.
Then LBJ removed the silver from our coins and the printing presses cranked up turning out Federal Reserve notes like there was not tomorrow.
I would add that we were self reliant, asking nothing from the Federal Government other than what was their one overriding responsibility of protecting the nation from external threats.
-—post of the day -—excellent-—
I wonder how much longer that list COULD be?
• My mother and her sisters married their childhood sweethearts.
• Mom was always home.
• My brother and I had grade school teachers who had taught our parents.
• I can remember my father cried while talking about his RAF buddies who ‘didn’t make it’.
• I remember when finding a nickel was an event.
• I remember taking shoes to the shoe repair... to get more mileage out of them.
• We walked to and from school, (lunch time included).
• Every nationality on earth lived in a 4 bock area where we grew up and we never locked our doors…
And on, and on, and on…..
Remember oleo margarine used to be packed in a cellophane pouch, white. Looked like Crisco.
There was a little bright orange tab that had to be kneaded into the white margarine to give it a nice yellow color.
That was my job.
We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better... not worse.
BLAM said the following a while ago >>>
I feel grateful to have been born at the best time in history, in the best country and living conditions in all of human history. I live better than most kings and royalty in all of human history...how could I have been more fortunate?
Few here cannot deny the truth of both of the foregoing...
And the music of that time is still the best!
Your post made me cry. Missing my dear mother who died 1 May 2007, just a few weeks shy of 95. You are so lucky to have your mother.
We would go to the 5 & dime and sit in a little cubicle. Mom would put our shoes on the door. The shoemaker would pass by and take the shoes and give a ticket.
New leather soles, heels, and metal “taps” to make them last longer.
I loved squishing that pack to rupture and then mix it.
I had a wood rifle with a “clacker” that you cranked. I killed more Nazis and Japs with that maching gun than I could count. Born 1940.
Loved reading this. Describes my mom and deceased father well. Some of those money-saving habits remain to this day, and I took them on as well. We owe a debt of gratitude towards our elders; they have seen a lot.
Bookmarked
1932 here.
Brother 1935.
Father died 1938.
Tough times.
.
Age-ism against those born in the 20s or earlier.
I was born in 1935 and of course relate to that article.
The statement "Up on Blocks" reminded me of my first automobile which I got in the early 50s .
It was a 1937 Packard that had been "Up on blocks" till after WWII was over. -Tom
I remember my uncle had a Hudson.
Considering my rough start I have been very,very lucky.
God has been good to me.
.
Your post is terrific and very timely - started writing my memoires 30 years earlier... better get moving again. Time is just running away - but I remember childhood events during WWII more clearly than yesterday.
I understand that’s normal for geezers;)
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