Posted on 01/24/2008 2:03:41 PM PST by o_zarkman44
Makes you wonder about 50 years from now.
Comments made in the year 1955! That's only 53 years ago!
"I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to beimpossible to buy a week's groceries for $20.00."
"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $2, 000.00 will only buy a used one."
"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack isridiculous.
"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?"
"If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store."
"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage."
"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls."
"I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every newmovie has either HELL or DAMN in it."
"I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas."
"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a yearjust to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the President."
"I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. Theyare even making electric typewriters now."
"It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."
"It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."
"Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more, those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."
"I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."
"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."
"The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt theywill ever catch on."
"There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel."
"No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $35.00 a day in the hospital it's toorich for my blood."
"If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it."
The year isn’t over yet.
OTOH, here's a real quote from 1960:
Boy, that Rock Hudson is a man's man.
From 1963; Kennedy to Johnson: "You need to be President like I need a hole in my head."
From 1971: "Man, I'd die to get it on with Claudine Longet."
This sounds more like someone today writing up what they thought people might have say in ‘55. It wasn’t that way.
I remember thinking that if I made $250 weekly paycheck, I would be wealthy
As a teenager around the early 70's
the list is cute and all, but the first group of astronauts was selected in 1959.
I guess anyone with some time and half a memory can write one of these lists.
59
Fellow 55er checking in here. The quotes are amusing, especially the ones about married women working, as my mom returned to work as a registered nurse when I started kindergarten but had worked up until my birth.
Not if they had listened to Lucille Bogan's "Shave 'Em Dry" - recorded in 1935 and one of the best-selling blues 78s of all time.
That song is rawer than 99% of all the hip hop records I've ever heard (and I own about 600 hip hop records and I've probably heard upwards of 5,000).
True. See my post 22 for proof.
You have to raise prices for everything. Higher prices, more taxes to the treasury. When the country is run primarily on SS & Medicare taxes from employees and employer matching funds only to give all Federal Taxes back to those who make $70,000 or less (middle class folks) this is what happens.
You end up with the majority not paying Federal Income Taxes.
Just in time for the bail out of everyone WHO DOESN’T PAY FEDERAL TAXES TO GET A REBATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy election year!
Babe Ruth made more than Pres. Hoover back in 1930
"I sure hope it rains soon. Not for my sake but for my grandson. I've seen rain."
I still have the 1958 issue of Popular Science where the What's New column reported on the Toyota Toyopet, the first Asian car to be introduced in the US. The commentary at the time was along the lines of, "Who's going to buy cars from the Japs!"...
Saw it, thanx. Congrats on catching the one-arm man and all that.
The reference to Omaha makes me believe these “quotes” probably were of midwestern origin. I believe them to be typical of how rural people thought back in the day when life was much less complicated. The email actually traces back to someone at Kansas State U.
City folk have their “urban legends”. Country folk have their own form of folk legends can’t they? You can dispute the validity of the quotes since they aren’t sourced, but you cannot dispute the reflection of a yearning for the good ol days and how far things have gone, for better or worse.
“When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29cents a gallon.”
Somebody must have just made some of these up,In 1955 I was paying 13.9 cents/gal.
Just before the crunch hit in 1974 we were paying 26.9 cents/gal.
“People from the 50’s would faint dead away if they heard Rap Music lyrics.”
We’re older, but we’re not yet dead. The little woman and I raised three kids, through rap and all that other stuff. We heard the lyrics. Our kids grew up with their fads, just as we grew up with ours. We were confident that our presence in their lives was the right way to give them a sense of values and we provided examples of those values in action, every day.
Were the 50’s (and later) really ‘the good old days’? To the extent that happy memories outweigh unhappy ones...yes, they were better times; certainly easier times.
I’ve got to say, though, that it truly seemed that we were invincible, that we were all immortal. The amazing advances in the sciences, alone, were monumental in advancing our understanding of the universe around us. Life was full of right and wrong, black and white. No PC moral relativism to paint myriad shades of gray. No internet, no Playstations, no personal computers. We spent a lot of time outdoors, year round. And these midwestern winters could right cold. We baked our own bread, and raised alot of our own vegetables and meat. I don’t recall a recall on any of it...
Yep, those were different times.
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