Memories of Growing Up in the 40's and 50's (and since, even)

email | 1/4/01 (this time) | Unknown

[Dakotabound]

"Hey Dad," My Son asked the other day, "what was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?"

"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up."

"C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?"

"We ate at home," I explained. "Your Grandma cooked every day and when your Grandpa got home from work, we all sat down together at the table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I had to sit there until I did like it." By this time, my Son was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer some serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to get my Father's permission to leave the table.

Here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I had figured his system could handle it.

My parents never: wore Levi's, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country, flew in a plane or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a "revolving charge card" but they never actually used it. It was only good at Sears-Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears and Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was because soccer back then was just for the girls. We actually did walk to school. By the time you were in the 6th grade it was not cool to ride the bus unless you lived more than 4 or 5 miles from the school, even when it was raining or there was ice or snow on the ground.

Outdoor sports consisted of stickball, snowball fights, building forts, making snowmen and sliding down hills on a piece of cardboard. No skate boards, roller blades or trail bikes.

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 12. It was, of course, black and white, but you could buy a piece of special colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza. It was a Sam's Pizza at the East end of Fruit Street in Milford. My friend, Steve took me there to try what he called "pizza pie." When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down and plastered itself against my chin. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

Pizzas were not delivered to your house back then, but the milk was. I looked forward to winter because the cream in the milk was on top of the bottle and it would freeze and push the cap off. Of course us kids would get up first to get the milk and eat the frozen cream before our mother could catch us.

I never had a telephone in my room. Actually the only phone in the house was in the hallway and it was on a party line. Before you could make a call, you had to listen in to make sure someone else wasn't already using the line. If the line was not in use an Operator would come on and ask "number please" and you would give her the number you wanted to call.

There was no such thing as a computer or a hand held calculator. We were required to memorize the "times tables." Believe it or not, we were tested each week on our ability to perform mathematics with nothing but a pencil and paper. We took a spelling test every day. There was no such thing as a "social promotion." If you flunked a class, you repeated that grade the following year. Nobody was concerned about your "self esteem." We had to actually do something praiseworthy before we were praised. We learned that you had to earn respect.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and most all boys delivered newspapers. I delivered the "Milford Daily News" six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut on screen. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they just didn't do that in the movies back then. I had no idea what they did in French movies. French movies were considered dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.

You never saw the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers or anyone else actual kill someone. The heroes back then would just shoot the gun out of the bad guys hand. There was no blood and violence.

When you were sick, the Doctor actually came to your house. No, I am not making this up. Drugs were something you purchased at a pharmacy in order to cure an illness.

If we dared to "sass" our parents, or any other grown-up, we immediately found out what soap tasted like. For more serious infractions, we learned about something called a "this hurts me more than it hurts you." I never did quite understand that one?

In those days, parents were expected to discipline their kids. There was no interference from the government. "Social Services" or "Family Services" had not been invented (The ninth and tenth amendments to the constitution were still observed in those days.)

I must be getting old because I find myself reflecting back more and more and thinking I liked it a lot better back then. If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your kids or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they wet themselves laughing. Growing up today sure ain't what it used to be.

[eleb]

But, we will no longer be able to bring them home in the suitcase... New Rule, No Food...... I have been doing that for years, four or five dz. at a time from Indy to So Cal..

[GrandMoM]

Hey, that hasn't changed at all over the last 100 years or more!

....lot more expensive NOW!

[VMI70]

LOL--
We also had one of the first RCA color TVs, so we had lots of visitors. Of course the thing didn't work right, and my father was so mad (it was really expensive) that he called General Sarnoff (the Chairman of RCA!) and told him to come pick up his terrible TV set.
I think it was about a day later, a truck pulled up to the house, brought in a brand new TV and hauled the old one away, no questions asked. The new one worked just fine.
Can you imagine that happening in this day and time?

[DeFault User]

Small town Texas in the 40's and 50's was an experience. Like you, my friends and I could ride our bikes out of town to the lake with rifles cradled across the handlebars and nobody thought anything about it. It was a rare kid who wasn't a good marksman by the time he was twelve. My father taught me how to shoot when I was 8.

I certainly don't miss the lack of air conditioning in 100 degree weather, but there are other things that won't return. One early TV memory was Dizzy and PeeWee doing the baseball game of the week, usually the Yankees with Yogi and Mickey. Some years later in the summer of '66, I saw Diz play in an oldtimers game in the Astrodome. In one inning, he struck out the side. In another inning Mantle jacked one out of the park over the left field wall. (What a charge, seeing Mickey Mantle and Dizzy Dean play in the same game!)

[Nea Wood]

Great thread!

Remember when phone numbers started with words? Like, Esterbrook 9-5321, or Armitage 3-2162.

Remember in school when they'd give you those pills to chew on, and they'd turn your teeth blue in the parts where you weren't brushing hard enough?

Remember when going shopping was a big deal; you got dressed up for it and went "downtown," and you went to the department stores, had lunch in a cafeteria downtown, and it was all a big treat?

Remember when you'd get in your parents' hair so they'd tell you to "go out and play," and you would -- and you were totally free?! You could ride your bike, go to a friend's house, go to the playground or candy store, whatever you wanted, totally unsupervised and totally safe, until supper time or your mother called you home. Sure, you knew to look both ways before crossing the street and not to talk to strangers, but basically you were FREE. Nowadays kids are either indoors or else they're participating in some sort of supervised activity, like soccer, where their parents drive them to the event. I don't know any parents who let their kids just "go out and play" anymore.

Would I go back to those olden days? In a New York nanosecond!!

[Dusty Rose]

Remember grandma plucking a chicken??

I remember grandma whacking a chicken, then watching it run headless all over the famyard. Wierd.

[blam]

"I did my senior HS year at Fairhope(74/75) while my dad built the Lake Forest community at Daphne for Diamondhead Corp. We rented a bayfront home very near to the Grand Hotel at Point Clear......absolutely wonderful environs that Eastern Shore is."

The eastern shore is nice. In my youth, we would take our excess milk to Dairy Fresh dairies in Fairhope. I always enjoyed that trip, they made ice cream and would always give us our fill.

[grimalkin]

Thanks for posting this. Even though I grew up in the 70's, I can still relate to a lot of things mentioned in this article. We were never wealthy, but my dad always worked hard and we never went without food, shelter and clothing. We only went out to eat on rare occasions and it was a BIG deal... even to get an ice cream cone. I used to get so excited. lol

I remember spending most of my time playing outside and I was only in front of the TV on saturday mornings (the cartoons were still good at that time). I was a tomboy and built forts with the other kids on the block, caught tadpoles and bugs, had a sandbox, went to the "trails" in the wooded places around our home. My parents never worried about me and just told me to come home when it was time to eat and not stay out past dark.

In school, we learned math the way we were supposed to learn it... we had to "show our work" on scratch paper during algebra class and turn it in along with our assignment. We also had phonics and were required to understand the structure of sentences. We didn't have "self-esteem" and all that other nonsense... we earned our grades and getting high marks would actually make a kid happy.

I really miss those times.

[dtel]

BTTT for another day.

[Conservababe]

My grandmother only whacked turkey's necks with an ax on a tree stump. The chickens, she merely picked them up and wrung their necks.

[woofer]

Don't you mean "Bonanza"?

No, no...The Cartwrights came on after Disney. Ah...Swamp Fox, Davey Crockett, The Highwayman. I do believe I learned my history watching Disney.

[Dusty Rose]

In Wisconsin, the Dairy State, it was illegal to sell oleo in the grocery stores. People would take orders, then go over the border into Illinois to buy the "olee" and bring in back in the trunks of their cars. When oleo did become legal in Wisconsin, at first it was only the kind that needed to be squeezed to give it a color like butter. At least those are my recollections growing up in the fifties.
My Mom, a true Wisconsonite, still prefers her butter to olee.

[mountaineer]

my Mom used to sprinkle the dry clothes with water from a coke bottle.

Oh boy, my mother made a first-class ironer out of me, and I sure remember sprinkling the clothes (except we used a Pepsi bottle). We always had a mangle (how many people can say that?!) which made the job easier.

[Dusty Rose]

Maybe we should start a "47 Caucus!" Count me in.

[GrandMoM]

Remember when going shopping was a big deal; you got dressed up for it and went "downtown," and you went to the department stores, had lunch in a cafeteria downtown, and it was all a big treat?

....sure do!...most of the time we went to the dime store, the big stores were in downtown Detriot.

The rest of the family would be happy to order at the fountain, but, I had to go to the snack bar and get a Chiliburger! Oh my, that was good, it was chile and ground hamburger mixed together, not chile poured over hamburger like today!

[VMI70]

Don't forget dinner...
No elbows on the table.
No talking unless spoken to by an adult.
Mother was always served first.
Three of us rotated who would clear and clean, wash, dry and put away the dishes.
Permission to leave the table.

In addition to the above:

Everybody folded their hands, and the youngest (me) said grace;
Don't talk with your mouth full;
Finish what's in your mouth before taking another bite;
Don't take large bites;
Chew your food well before swallowing;
Don't drink with food in your mouth;
If you're not eating, put your hands in your lap;
Sit up straight;
"May I please be excused"

I had to sit to the left of my father-he at the head of the table, me on the side at the corner. Any abberation from expected behavior was corrected with a "bop" on the head. That may not sound like much, but he was a Golden Gloves boxer and would have on his VMI class ring, so I would never see it coming. When it did, the tears would practically spurt out of my eyes.
Needless to say, we all had good manners.

[mountaineer]

my very first hair dryer ... was/is blue, with that long tube and that poofy cap that swelled when you turned the motor on

I can't think of one of those hair dryers without remembering the time when I was 10 and fell asleep while drying my hair with one just like that, except I wasn't using the bonnet. The hose thing lay on my arm long enough to give me a second degree burn. I guess it didn't occur to my parents to sue Sunbeam in a product liability action, but back then, people didn't sue for every little thing.

[Conservababe]

We always had a mangle (how many people can say that?!) which made the job easier.

Okay, what is a mangle? Evidently my mother did not buy one. LOL

[Aeronaut]

Remember when phone numbers started with words? Like, Esterbrook 9-5321, or Armitage 3-2162.

I'm a '46. Our home phone number was GRanville-0651.