Nostalgia revisited,,,,,,

From at thread on 'Abuzz'

Will post in several sections due to size.....enjoy

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Click here to add your Response Highlights of "Remember"

Discussion Remember

REMEMBER....
When the worst thing you could do at school was smoke in the
bathrooms, flunk a test or chew gum. And the banquets were in
the cafeteria and we danced to a juke box later, and all the
girls wore fluffy pastel gowns and the boys wore suits for the
first time and we were allowed to stay out till 12 p.m....

When a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out,
lay rubber and watch drag races, and people went steady and
girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped dental floss or
yarn coated with pastel frost nail polish so it would fit her finger.
And no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were
always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never
locked. And you got in big trouble if you accidentally locked
the doors at home, since no one ever had a key.

Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and
saying things like "That cloud looks like a..."

And playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules
of the game. Back then, baseball was not a psychological group
learning experience-it was a game.

Remember when stuff from the store came without safety caps and
hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.
And...with all our progress...don't you just wish...just once...you could
slip back in time and savor the slower pace...and share it with the
children of the 80's and 90's

Who can still remember Nancy Drew,
The Hardy Boys, Laurel & Hardy, Howdy Doody and The Peanut
Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy
and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk as well as the sound of a reel
mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides,
playing in cowboy land, baseball games, bowling and visits to
the pool...and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared
to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home.
Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because
of drive by shootings,drugs, gangs,etc.
Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we
all survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, Yeah, I
remember that!
And was it really that long ago?


Ge_'lis_ges_'ti created this Discussion on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 1:49 AM.
Sent to Category: Miscellaneous | History | Philosophy

Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 2:35 AM

Yeah, I remember that! WOW did that feel good!
{{{{Doug}}}}
And how about when they eradicated polio with the Salk Vaccine,
and we thought we'd won out over deadly viral diseases?
(And how about when mosquito bites were par for the course of
summer, and nobody ran around emptying birdbaths?)
And didn't your dog roam free? We thought we were fancy because
our dog had a license! Neighborhood dogs would have puppies- it
was common! My dog used to make the rounds ofthe neighborhood at
cocktail time- he knew who had the best drinks munchies!(How
different from Rupert, who goes only into his fenced yard,
without me on other end of the leash!
Andyou could ride your bike all over your neighborhood- there
was no such thing as a bike helmit. Kids did not get run over by
speeding lines of traffic.
Kids used to dash wildly out to the Good Humor Man when we heard
the bells ring. No one thought about speeding cars. Drivers drove
slowly in neighborhoods. "A rolling ball is followed by a running
child" (DriverSafety Poster)
And what about all that steak? All those cook-outs? Real fire,
not propane. Real red meat- they didn't pump the cattle full of
hormones &anyibiotics and mop the slaughterhouse floor with it
and then grind it into "hamburger"
WHAT ABOUT SODA SHOPS?? Cherry cokes in tall triangular fountain
glasses? Chowklet Eggcreams for us Noo Yawkers. The noise the
straw made in the pointy bottom of the glass...
No school busses.You walked, or took public transportation. At
your own pace. ( And always a stop at a soda shop (or candy
store)Hot chawklit in winter.
Sock hops
Dances
Proms.
They don't have these nowadays. Everyone is too sophisticated,
and at same time too protected (continuation of "the stranger
danger") Kids not safe unless home in front of TV or computer,
waiting for Mom to come home& nuke dinner. Gawd- in THOSE days it
was like Beaver Cleaver's- Mom in apron in kitchen- wonderful
aromas, Dad comes home, whole family sits down with a tablecloth
and eats a real meal.Every night! Together!
<Sigh> Yes. It was long ago. Another world, Doug.


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 2:47 AM

Boy am I maudlin.
How about raking leaves into huge piles all along the curb and
then...burning them? Those leaf bonfires- part of the poignant
smell of falls past.
How about when it snowed, and every kid got its shovel & "went
shoveling" People didn't have contracted snow removal. You got to
make money!!
How about in 1945- your Dad came home from the war? He wore a
UNIFORM, and was the tallest person you'd ever seen?(One of the
only men I'd seen,except for old guys like the butcher,the
grocer.) I was terrified- cried until hetook off that HAT!(That
didn't last- he was also the greatest companion akid could have.
On Sundays- his 1 day off, he'd take me to the Zoo,& carry me
when I got weary. On his shoulders!~~:>)
Well, I suppose that is TOO far back for Doug, and most. Still,
I'll sing ya some PRE rock& roll tomorrow. Now, schniff, going to
bed all maudlin...


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 2:50 AM

Um, Ge? Is this a type of therapy? Why is this Q so
maudlin-making when Bucky's "8 years old" thread was so gay(in
the old sense?) Am I supposed to beworking something through
here? Ya trying to make me be not such a bastard?It won't work
Doug. Tomorrow I'll be back nasty as ever!


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Ge_'lis_ges_'ti Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 5:50 AM

Because these were your own bitter sweet memories, a corner of
your soul that needed revisited to make you feel real again. All
our lives we lay up treasures for the single purpose of
remembering when the need is there. This gives us our ability to
self repair. I call it bottled memories. You drank from
yesterdays cup of bottled memories. In the soul world to drain is
to fill.
Right now as you sleep, you are bucky's 8 year old.

Be maudlin babe, but enjoy t!


Rubaiyat 21-24 of 101
FitzGerald, Fifth Edition




21
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears:
To-morrow--Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

22
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest.

23
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend--ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?

24
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and-- sans End


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Letty2 (u. 1519917) Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 7:02 AM

Hi, Doug and Joan. I remember all those things and more...but do
you remember the first radio with a record player on the top? I
was a wee thing when my brother brought one home. You could cut
your own records. WOW! I just remembered that because Ge quoted
Omar. My dad cut a record reciting a different translation.."Come
fill the cup and in the fire of spring, your lasting garments of
repentance fling.." I kept waiting for him to finish so I could
sing "Blueberry Hill" but by the time his deep rumbling voice had
completed several quatrains, I was so sleepy that Blueberry Hill
didn't come off too well. Those blank records were wax and as the
arm cut the grooves, tiny curls of wax would be all over the
place. The expression then for making a record was "Wax that!"
Now it's "burn" a cd.


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Geoff Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 8:22 AM

I have long since believed that the earliest memories are the
strongest. I also think that parenthood changes all that. Not
being a parent, I do find my mind drifting back to the past.
Then I remind myself I'm just getting old and too nostalgic and
kick myself back to the daily reality of my life.

Its not that my childhood was bad and for the record, there are a
few people on this website who don't have happy childhood
memories. Remember that when you wax nostaligic.

Bottom line?? Be grateful for the life you had.


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toilsome0(1034104) Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 9:00 AM

And even grade school kids were allowed outside after dark in the
summer to play games in the streets.

The appliance store that left the TV on in the store window, and
you could stand around on the sidewalk and watch free.

In the midwest, the first days of hunting season (bird and deer)
were excused absences for the boys. We were even allowed in
highschool to bring our shotguns to school to put in our lockers,
so that we could go hunting afterwards (honor system; unloaded
guns only).

We left our bikes on the front lawn overnight.

The world series broadcast over the school PA in the afternoons,
if we were quiet.

Pep rallies. Friday night HS football games. The adventures of
buying beer underage.

"Passion pits" at the back rows of the drive-in movies.

Trying to make-out in the front seat with a floor-mounted stick
shift in our first old car.

Single-sex "health" classes in 9th grade with boys shown horrible
slides of syphillus victims. And the girls wouldn't tell what
they saw!

"Regular" haircuts for the boys every two-three weeks. "Butch"
haircuts!

"Gym" shoes only in gym. Single-sex phys ed, and nude swimming.
Lace-up shoes elsewhere, and shined on Sundays.

Sneaking into the store to read comic books free.

Hiding your copy of Peyton Place 'cause it was a "dirty book."

Girls with Angora sweaters and armored bras. Giggles over the
Maidenform ads.

Thanks, I needed that, ge.


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Ge_'lis_ges_'ti Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 9:31 AM

Geoff, hello, thank you for contributing to 'Remember'. I think
that no matter how lousy a person's childhood is they retain a
corner of their soul for the storage of, if not happy memories
then certainly less unpleasant ones.... just as they have an area
set aside for nightmares both real and unreal. It is which area
they spend the most time in that makes all the difference.

I'm not talking 'don't worry be happy' either. We can change our
lives by deciding on what kind of person we want to be and then
spending the energy required to become that person.


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toilsome0(1034104) Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 9:58 AM

PS. In Michigan, real pizza (not out of the box) was a foreign
food;had just got there in '57. Didn't know that mac&cheese was "
pasta."

PSS. Lunch at the new MickyD's was 36 cents: burger, a quarter,
fry and shake, dime each, plus a penny tax.

HS dates for $3: movie, popcorn/coke, drive-in food later, and
home before midnight.


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anOmlet Quick stats
Added on Wed, Aug 29, 2001 11:30 AM

and now kids in schools have mor rights than the teachers

educating kids is frequently not the goal, getting them to the
next grade is

Students have rights, and teachers are handcuffed, principles are
scared of the courts...

We as parents need CHOICE, but this country is trapped in the
public school hole.

It worked in the 50s, but has been failing ever since...good
things kids have the right to be stupid and the right to be
undisciplined, and the right to weat a bikini to school...

anyone else frusturated with the courts giving the kids the power
and taking it away from the teachers and principles???


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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Thu, Aug 30, 2001 11:27 PM

Doug and Joan -- thank you, thank you, thank you so very, very
much.


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marypope (U.11925) Community ModeratorQuick stats
Added on Thu, Aug 30, 2001 11:37 PM

Oh, dear,

Remember playing 'cowboys and indians' and nobody called you
politically incorrect? Or sitting in an apple tree, that grew
perfectly, and reading your favorite Nancy Drew? I remember my
grandfather planting a 'Victory Garden' during WWII, and pulling
carrots at the grand old age of three.

And later, riding my bike everywhere - miles and miles to go to
friends' houses, or swimming, or just to get out of the house ...
and the 'bad' boys who had hot rods in high school and riding in
them when they were so cut down you had to sit on the floor.

I'm surprised I can remember all that at my advanced age ...

MP


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 12:04 AM

Fun, huh Andrew?
You tell some now!


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 12:10 AM

Hi Mary!
Our hopscotch game?

My grandparents came from the country. During the war, my mom
took me and stayed with them in the summertime. Victory garden,
hell! My grandfather had a , like, truck farm! I would help with
the harvesting- digging beautiful lirrle new potatoes eachday,
and picking the days green beans. These would be put in baskets
out at the roadside, where there was a scale & a table of paper
bags. Sometimes I even got to help fill orders (the Summer
People)!


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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 12:36 AM

Gad! You've got me reminiscing in my alleged mind. I grew up in
the city, not the 'burbs, so my memories are probably somewhat
different from yours, but not all that much different.

Only wimps wore sneakers anywhere except for gym and to
participate in sports. We wore shoes with 'taps' on them so you
sounded like a storm-trooper walking down the school hallway. If
teachers objected to this, you made them feel ashamed by saying,
with a traight face, that it was an effort to save on
shoe-leather because you were too poor to afford new shoes every
few months.

Sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom was so common, you usually
wouldn't even get sent to the principal's office if caught. Just
got a good talking-to by whatever teacher caught you.

Saturday matinees at the local movie house were always
double-features with half a dozen cartoons and short subjects
between features, not to mention those serials like "Flash Gordon
" and "Wild Bill Hickok" and "Buck Rogers in the 21st Century."
And they cost a dime! So did comic books.

Some people on my street still didn't have electric refrigerators
and the iceman would cruise the street delivering big blocks of
ice for the ice-boxes. One guy still cruised in a horse-drawn
wagon loaded with blocks of ice. You put a card in your window
to alert the ice man to whether you wanted a .25 cents or .50
cent block. You had to have a large ice-box for the .50-center
to fit.

Nobody locked their doors, even in the city, as Doug has already
pointed out.

Stop me before I get totally maudlin.



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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 12:46 AM

Andrew! That was great!! I'd forgotten all about the taps boys
wore on their shoes. Yes. They said it wasto make the shoes last
longer!
And what about Soot-Suit pants- real wide, pleated, pegged
ankle?
Did you wear your hair short on top, long on the sides and
combed into a Duck's As$? With plenty of what? Brylcream? No that
was later.
Omigod- Hoods! Those boys were called Hoods! I used to love them!
Merry Andrew was a Hood!!


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 12:48 AM

Zoot-Suit.
Sorry! Lots of my keys are bare!


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G.Voegtle Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 3:08 AM

Getting out of school early one day a week for religious
instruction. A new outfit and hat for easter. Grandparents who
spoke with Norwegian accents, candy apples, the stoves! Oh the
stoves-huge things with built in soup pots, lights, griddles,
roast spits, and more. New inventions coming out all the time.
Halloween-almost every house on every block had the lights on and
gave treats-of not-we soaped their garage windows! Pretty
harmless by today's standards. Sledding-find a hill and walk up
it, go down on sled, repeat.
Friends who could walk to school with you, eating hard boiled
eggs and not feeling guilty, oak toilet tanks with a pull chain,
new cars-with chrome-and you could tell the difference between
models and years, real spare tires in the trunk, cruising drive
ins, cruising the main drag, radio stations that didn't play "
canned" music-real DJ's who could take your request, the British
music invasion, the toys. The bikes-with fat tires, chrome, big
seats. camping out in the back yard, soda pop in bottles, being
able to burn trash, kick the can, skating on frozen ponds,
walking on stilts, steady sweaters(one big sweater a couple wore
together). Cheerleaders who actually had to try out and prove
they could lead a cheer. Sweetheart soap, True Story magazine,
kids birthday parties-pin the tail on the donkey, drop
clothespins in a bottle, etc,
Kiddie pedal cars, family vacations in the car. The lake with out
jetskis to make noise, county fairs, the tilt a whirl is still
around!
Labeling your 45 record collection and keeping it in a box, silly
songs, story songs, songs with harmony, songs that don't make you
blush when you hear them, gravity-or octopus furnaces, meter man
who came every month, milk man, home owners who did their own
roofing, front porches, men and women who respected
eachother-because it was the way to act. Sleeping on the front
porch on a hot night-cause no one had AC, gravel roads, helpful
semi drivers, slower traffic, less traffic, polite sales clerks,
when house wives didn't buy paper towels, paper drives, cheap
doctors and dentists, houses on the same block designed and built
differently, dippity doo, wearing orange juice cans for curlers,
ironing the hair, peter pan collars, virgin pins, poodle skirts,
rolled up t-shirt sleeves with a pack of cigarettes, boys who
always carried lighters, they could work on their own cars, they
looked out for their sisters. Cake walks, home made anything and
everything, dishwashers-they were called "kids" wringer washers-I
still say they got the clothes the cleanest. Hanging sheets
outside in the winter and bringing them in frozen, ironing darn
nearly everything, crinolines, did I mention poodle skirts?
Cocker spaniels, turbans to wrap your hair at night, cold cream,
doctors who made house calls, doctors you would not think of
suing even if they made a mistake, cause you knew they did the
best they could. A week's stay in the hospital after you had a
baby, I could and I have gone on and on!!! Thanks for the
memories-Bob Hope, the road movies, using your big sisters make
up, spankings-I had them, I knew they still loved me, I learned
not to do certain things, sewing your own clothes, baby buggies,
and little girls with dollies. Ok I will quit now! Did I jog any
memories for anyone else out there?


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 3:19 AM

That was GREAT, GV!! THANKS!! You sure did jog memories!


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Ge_'lis_ges_'ti Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 4:11 AM

wildroot, wildroot cream oil in copious quantities. Mine was
combed up from the sides, met in the middle and cascaded to the
front, in the manner of the Fonz. It was a pain in the azz
requiring a stop at nearly each restroom passed. Your 'cigs' were
neatly rolled up in your T-shirt sleeve.

If you were 'cool' you wolfed down whatever mom had packed for
lunch so you could hang out with the 'hoods; in the alley across
the street from the school. Everyone knew that the 'chicks" (hey
JD) loved the hoods.

Then there were the fights ... every hood loved to fight, at
least that was the perception. Someone would cross an undefined
boundary and the dreaded'I wanna see you after school behind the
library.' The word spread like wildfire through the entire
school.If you were challenged and did not show you might as well
hang it up as far as cool went. Even the nerdiest kids were far
above you on the respect food chain.

My first fight .... I made the mistake of returning conversation
with the girl that sat beside me in history class, I had no clue
that the bundle of angora she wore on her finger meant that she
was the steady of the great Rodney .... track, basketball,
football, and inter mural wrestling star .... and a senoir to
boot. I w a s t o a s t. He started to 'take care of me' at
lunch but the first bell rang and everyone started running for
class. That afternoon was the longest afternoon in my life. I
checked the clock at thirty second intervals. When the three
thirty bell rang I felt miserable, my bowels were churning ....I
walked to my execution alone, no one wanted to be associated with
a loser and Rodney was an odds on sure thing.

A ring was formed from the spectators and some kind soul pushed
me from behind into Rodney. I don't know what he hit me with but
I saw Jupiter and several other stars. The spectators laughing
brought me back to Earth. Then I made eye contact with Rodney. I
thought 'if I'm going to die .... I'm going to die' I waded into
him with a ferocity that shushed the crowd. It was my first
experience with 'the zone.' I wasted his butt and to me, it only
took about a tenth of a second. What happened next you would not
belive ... the great Rodney ... started crying. I felt so bad for
him, I wanted to tell him I was sorry, but I didn't. The next day
on my way to class I saw Rodney coming toward me in the hallway.
Oh crap was my first thought, I didn't have time for a second. He
stopped in front of me, shook my hand without saying a word, then
continued down the hall. I wonder where he ended up ... I think
Vietnam.





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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 9:25 AM

Great memories, GV.

Joan, I used Wildroot Cream Oil, combed my hair duckass style
with a big wave in the front.

Anyone remember when your mail was delivered TWICE a day, SIX
days a week? And, of course, you knew your mailman by name.
Always the same guy.


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Karate·ka (u. 335541) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 9:33 AM

Ge-'lis...Do you think boys still fight like that, or do they go
home for their guns?

I remember rolling a small ball of tinfoil, adding pieces
collected from packs of my Grandfather's Lucky Strikes, the ball
getting larger and larger until it could be contributed to the "
war effort." We learned how to tell different war planes apart
(was it a fighter? a pursuit plane?) because we lived in
California where the first-strike invasion of the U.S. was
expected. We learned the words to the Marine Hymn, the Army Air
Corps song, etc. We rode our bicycles everywhere. I remember
being allowed to "drive" the family car to the end of the
driveway and back when I was 12. We knew all of our neighbors for
blocks around, and all of the children would go outside in
summer, after dinner, and play for hours..seeing who could throw
a ball over the top of the house, who could play hide-and-seek
and manage to lose someone that none of us wanted to play with.
We felt so safe. We weren't afraid of anything, except for a
far-off enemy in Germany or Japan that was only a vague concept
in our minds until the neighbor's oldest son didn't come home
from the war.

We didn't know anyone who had been divorced. We got our milk in
bottles on the front porch, and my mother used to answer a knock
at the back screen, every day or so, and feed a wandering hungry
man. Doors were never locked, and yes, Doug, the keys were
always in the ignition. Mothers were always home.. or out playing
bridge for a few hours, hurrying back to get dinner for the
family.
D


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G.Voegtle Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 10:49 AM

Remember making a chain out of chewing gum wrappers, making
confetti for football games, and Minneapolis used to have a
morning and afternoon edition of the newspaper.
Remember when you didn't know anyone who had a credit card?When a
$20,000. house was really something big?
I loved mail delivery x2 a day!being proud of soldiers,radios
that you hid under your pillow at night-or the ones you could
clip an antennae to your bedsprings on.
HiFi's, grandma's old floor model radio, every neighborhood had
at least one ham radio operator, police used to drive people home
who had too much to drink, you never pumped your own gas!


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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 10:54 AM

Cops actually WALKED a beat. On foot! They didn't travel in
pairs either. You got to know your neighborhood patrolman. By
sight, anyway.

Newspapers. In Boston we had the Morning G;obe, the Herald and
the Record as morning newspaper choices. In the afternoon, The
Evening Globe, the Traveler and the American. Later it was just
the Herald-Traveler and the Record-American but the Globe
continued to publish two entirely separate and distinct papers
into the '70s if I'm not mistaken.


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Ge_'lis_ges_'ti Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 11:00 AM

Please take the time to visit this site, you'll love it


http://www.freshmenclass.com/americanpie/


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toilsome0(1034104) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 1:11 PM

Paper routes as a boy's first, best job! I delivered the Detroit
Free Press, am paper, alone on my bike at 5am. Never a fear.
Covered my weekly collection route on Th/Fri nights, and walked
around with $20 in coins with nary a fear of robbery.
Every kid I knew had a job, or several. Pumping gas, washing
dishes, store clerk, bagging groceries, babysitting,constrution,
painting, lawn work, etc.
Like our fathers, we repaired our own cars, outside, even in
the depth of a Michigan winter. If you lacked a special tool,
the local gas station/garage mechanic would loan you his.
Coal deliveries through a metal chute in the basement wall.
Lay-away installment buying, no credit; cash and carry. (Except
the local grocery would let you charge during the week.)
Friday paydays in cash. Even the military through the mid-60s
paid in cash.


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WallyWolf Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 2:08 PM

I think back and remember when my grandmother, grandfather and
father would sit around the table with the rest of the family for
Christmas dinner. They were my best friends and confidants and I
thought they would be around forever. I wish now that I could go
back in time and tell them how much they really meant to me.
Even now, especially during the holidays, I can close my eyes and
hear their voices. It was a wonderful time to be alive.


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moxiecola Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 3:44 PM

I cannot tell you how much this thread has touched my heart and
inspired me. I am not from your era not even close being a
teenager of the 80's. But I have listened to my grandmother tell
many stories like this and it makes me yearn for a time like
this. I wish I could say we could go back to these days because
it pains me to know my children will be raised in a time where
there are guns in schools, robberies every day of the week and
drugs on every corner. I long for a time when life was simpler
and kids enjoyed each others company not the company of Pokemon.
I thank you all for sharing such personal memories with your
abuzz family.


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Karate·ka (u. 335541) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 6:19 PM

Toilsome...I scooped ice cream and waited tables when I was 14,
then on to clerking in a dept. store where I was so proud to be
making real money, 50-75 cents an hour!

WallyWolf...Yes, those ties were a part of every family then. My
husband's mother lived with us for the last 25 of her 91 years,
and my children will always remember her as part of their young
lives, a warm and loving source of encouragement whom they could
go to when they were momentarily estranged from Mom or Dad.

Doug...great site, thanks. I have a CD of American Pie riding
around in my car and play it at least once a week, enjoying also
the next track "Vincent."


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Ge_'lis_ges_'ti Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 7:02 PM

Kara, I knew someone would like it. The day the music died for me
will always be the day the bastards shot Kennedy. The death of my
naivete. I kept saying over and over 'they killed the president
..... they killed the president. In my world of Superman, Zorro,
Spin and Marty, Roy the Moosketeer, Annette, Red Skeleton with
Gertrude and Heathcliff, Beany and cecil, Princess
Summerspringwinterfall, killing presidents just was not, you
couldn't just, no body could shoot a president .... get up John
oh God please let him get up!!!

It seemed that the next day the body counts began on the nightly
news programs. Mountains of body bags, scenes of a naked little
girl running down a street of fire and blood. In a matter of a
few years we had become a nation of people that ate their young.
A nation of people that witnessed atrocities, did not blink, and
turned their backs on screams of suffering and terror. A
un-winable war over untenable real estate .... men that to this
day wake up screaming in the night over acts they were force to
perform just so they could return home to the scorn of the people
they loved enough to die for.



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Ridinghood (u. 62735) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 9:22 PM

Ah, yes, I remember it well. And it was all as you say.
Except--my parents' threat was always at least as great as their
love (is it possible for the two to be equal? I doubt it), and I
was lucky to escape with my life and/or sanity. I also remember
well when a child had to pretend that her parents were the
perfect Ozzie and Harriet types, because they'd kill you if you
let slip otherwise.

No, it wasn't such a great world then. At least not in private.
In public, I agree that it was better.

But you know what? I'd rather be safe at home, and take a bit of
a risk in the world. Don't we all do that, one way or another,
anyway?

When you fear for your life at home, that's no life at all.

So never kid yourself that all those 50s Moment to Remember were
all that glorious. For some of us, they weren't.


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Ge_'lis_ges_'ti Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 9:54 PM

What you say is true
yet we made it through.The 'for what'
Remains unspoken


Welcome


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longdog Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 10:47 PM

Hoods? In my 60's high school they were called 'greasers' cause
of all the grease on their hair. In southern CA, a good deal of
the Mexican Americans belonged to that group, and I remember the
guy's black hair shined like patent leather. The girls had
teased out bee hives (remember ratting your hair?). Remember the
good girl and nice girl definitions? A good girl goes home and
then goes to bed; a nice girl goes to bed and then goes home.
Dances were 'sock hops' and afterwards there was 'making out'
(replacing the word 'necking') in your boyfriend's car.
Nostalgia!


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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 11:00 PM

Ridinghood, you're right on a number of counts. What we're
reminiscing about here really is a kind of wistful and nostalgic
memory seen through the always inaccurate prism of time. It is
an amber prism do everything looks bathed in a misty sunshine.
Private lives were certainly not always happy and there was
plenty of misery to go around.

We shouldn't forget that the 50s were also the era of McCarthyism
and the Red scare, of Civil Defense hysteria and nuclear attack
preparedness, of racial inequality in many places in the country.
You grew up in Kansas so you should remember Brown v Board of
Education. That was the Board of Education of Topeka. The
Korean War raged for the first three years of the decade and boys
went off to fight just like they had five years earlier during
WWII. In Oklahoma, the entire Army National Guard (the 4th
[Thunderbird] Division) was activated and sent over to hold the
38th Parallel.

But, all that said, there is still so much pleasant nostalgia to
go around. Memory is a strange thing. For those of us who are
lucky, the bright and shining things stand out in clear detail.
The negative experiences seem like petty details to be forgotten
and dismissed as irrelevancies.

Or, at least, so it is with me.

Peace.


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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 11:03 PM

It was, of course the 44th, not 4th Inf. Div. from Oklahoma. And
somewhere in there I typed 'do' when I meant 'so.' It's getting
late.


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Ridinghood (u. 62735) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 11:03 PM

longdog, it must have been a real blast for guys so inclined in
those days. For girls, it wasn't.

I remember when....my best friend, (who was the next-to- smartest
girl in our class) got pregnant at age 15 and gave birth before
her 16th birthday. She married the guy, because both were from "
respectable" families, and those respectable parents couldn't
stand the "shame." It was the end of her as a social and moral
being. After two kids, they divorced, he remarried, went back to
school, and had a life. She didn't have much of one. And the
oldest daughter, the one whose birth had started it all, was
murdered in Washington, D.C. in 1980.

Several of my other friends also had hastily arranged marriages.
Nothing particularly good happened to them afterwards either.

Today, at least they'd have a life. No one would make them hide
in a closet and foreswear all ambition.

Things weren't as good back then as our aging memories would like
to tempt us to believe.


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Ge_'lis_ges_'ti Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 11:17 PM

I would say that it speaks to something that we would want,
sometimes so desperately for our childhood to have been magical.



Mikel, collar up or down? ;o)


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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Fri, Aug 31, 2001 11:29 PM

The style in Boston, Doug, was one end of collar up around your
cheekbone, the other side down. (And those, of course, were the
outsized "Mr. B" collars.


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 12:11 AM

Hey-gurrrrrls did the collar thing too! In NY burbs, we had the
collars up high, and at your chin, you'd turn the corners both
down.So completely kewel!


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 12:18 AM

I have something to say, and I'm gonna say it the best I can, and
I truely hope not to offend anybody.
Maybe the 50s weren't a happy time for everyone. Actually, I
thought *I* hated growing up in the 50s! Trust older age to put "
an amber patina" on everything! And maybe some people had unhappy
home lives- I know some friends who did. Ireally think this isn't
the thread for that, though. Not being heartless or blase, but
honestly, here we're all wallowing in the maudlin nostalgia.And
enjoying ourselves so much. Please let's continue?


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G.Voegtle Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 1:10 AM

Thank you everyone for sharing your happy memories. And for the
caution about it not being all roses. But, there are alot of
things I wish we still had from those days and wouldn't it be
great if we could some how combine the good things from
yesteryear with some of the things from today. I feel sorry for
kids today as I say we were the last generation who truly got to
have fun. Kids today can't do anything unless they are under
constant supervision. I can remember waking up on Saturday and
after breakfast and chores it was, "Go outside and play,,find
something to do." With 30 or so kids on the block it wasn't hard.
As long as you checked in every couple of hours or so that is all
anyone worried about. At 12 I was allowed to ride the bus
downtown with friends and go to the movies, shopping, or to the
chinese restaurant for a cheap meal. None of my friends would let
their 12 year olds do this today and most 12 year olds are alot
more sophisticated than I was at 12! If we could bring back some
of the good things and meld it with equality, independent
thinking instead of nationalism, the medical advances we have
had, racial parity, and tolerance for those less fortunate, it
would sure be great. How about if we ask some of the youong
people out there to tell us-what do you consider some of the good
things in society today-how's it going? We could add some things
and of course keep telling some of the great memories, too!


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 2:23 AM

Aw, but GV, you're giving us such great memories!
Sorry to be so bossy tonight, but the title of the thread is "
Memories", and Doug is obviously talking about the 50s in his
post. I actually see 2 offshoot threads here:
Memories- less than good, and
How does today compare favorably with the 50s?
Doug?


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Joan Dark Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 2:28 AM

And Doug- your "fight" memory was straight out of West Side
Story! The romance of it all!
Boy, boy, crazy boy
Stay loose boy!
Got a rocket in your pocket
Be cooly-cool boy!
Don't get hot, cause man you got
Some high times ahead
Take it slow, and Daddy-o
You can live it up and die in bed-



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G.Voegtle Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 3:07 AM

Joan Dark-What can I say? You are right! Ok here goes-remember
when there were only 3 or 4 TV stations? And TV signed off around
midnight or earlier? Then they aired that picture of the Indian
in a headdress-couldn't be done today! Anyways, the TV sets were
encased in a huge piece of furniture. When it went out a man
would come and take the guts to the shop-where he would have it
forever-or however long it took your folks to get the money
together to pay the repair bill. I actually used to like it as I
would crawl into the TV set (it had a blonde wood cabinet with
double doors) and I would act out "commercials" Helena Rubenstine
was one of my favorites. I think I liked saying her name.
Sometimes I would imitate Marilyn Monroe, or Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Sometimes a non family member would be in the house and they
would ask, "What is she doing in the TV?" My mom would reply very
matter of factly, "Commercials." Like it was the most normal
thing in the world. I also used to like to go out to the garage.
My dad had his pride and joy there. It was a pink Lincoln with
white leather interior. The steering wheel was so big that I
could put both my legs through it and sit on the bottom of it and
steer it-thus giving myself a ride of sorts.
Then there were the TV shows and TV trays. My dad was crazy for
the news and westerns. My mom liked Lawrence Welk and Loretta
Lynn.In the daytime there was Queen for a Day-nobody won a
million dollars-but many people tried out to get a new washer and
dryer! Do you remember My Little Margie, or My wife Joan? Cleo
and the ghosts-don't remember the name of that one!
The circus.
The first time you read a Ripley's Believe it or Not book.
Peddle pushers, culottes, shells, dickies, saddle shoes, white
gloves, wing tips, gant shirts for the boys, cleats on shoes,
roses that had wonderful fragrances, having to wait your turn
because there was only one bathroom in the house, seeing built in
appliances for the first time and thinking, "What will they think
of next?" A yard without a lilac bush? It just wasn't done!
When some people converted their garages so that returning GI's
coming home would have a roof over their heads-housing shortage
was severe. Grandpas could do carpentry and many made whirligigs.
It is late-I must turn off my brain for awhile! Good night.


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Karate·ka (u. 335541) Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 3:21 AM

Ge-'lis...Maybe that's why so many people felt moved by American
Pie and weren't really sure why they liked it because who knew
what the words meant? You heard pain, as well as beauty and
nostalgia for a better time. I too remember the stab of pain and
utter disbelief when JFK was shot. Maybe a whole nation came of
age right then. We had lived happily with our gloss on things,
seeing our world as the best-of-possible, trying not to see or
acknowledge the ugliness that was underneath: racism, jingoism,
mis-applied patriotism. Suddenly, we had to see pain and fear
and ugliness, had to admit it, there was the shooting on TV, and
then that press photo of Jack Ruby, and all that followed.

Ridinghood...We had more "certainties" then. They formed a frame
through which we saw life. Now those certainties seem to be
gone: the state, the church, the family are not the institutions
they were then. What happened? Was it increasing communication
so that we could see the rest of the world for the first time?
Was it the pill? (Surely the most world-changing discovery of
the century.) And you and GV are right: it was never as perfect
as we thought, but we pretended because there was so much good to
be lost if we did not. Ah, where have all the flowers gone...


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Ridinghood (u. 62735) Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 1:33 PM

Merry Andrew, I missed your post just preceding my 2nd one last
night. Just now saw it. You mentioned Brown vs. Board of
Education. In a way, that was ironic, because it was only in the
big cities that public schools in Kansas were even segregated.
In the small towns, there weren't enough blacks to justify a
separate school system, plus Kansas had always had a fairly
liberal history, in spite of being Republican. (Republicans were
liberal for ever so long, you know.)

Anyway, I always went to school with blacks--the few there
were--and we lived next door to the local A.M.E. church until I
was 14, when we moved to a "better" side of town.

Anyway, back to the court decision. It had one enormous effect
on our little town, but it had nothing to do with the schools.
Our flap was about the swimming pool situation. We had a perfect
example of "separate but equal" in our public swimming pools.
There was an enormous, filtered one for whites and, directly
across the street, a small, identically filtered one for blacks.
As a result of the Brown decision, the "white" pool had to allow
blacks. And boy, did that cause consternation!
The integration of the swimming pool had one rather sad
consequence: the white kids whose parents belonged to the country
club tended to drift back there for their swimming, whereas
before they'd mostly used the public pool, in order to be with
their friends. So a court decision about schools had the net
effect of separating the white social classes in our town. I
suppose the same thing has happened with public and private
schools in the years since, first because of race and then
because of declining school quality.

But it's kind of funny to look back and remember all those
frantic parents.

The racism of parents also deprived us of our cherished "Teen
Town." It had managed to go along, despite Brown, with only
whites in attendance. The blacks functioned socially together,
and they'd never tried to attend. But finally, one of the top
white boys in school, whose father was a prominent federal judge
(appointed by Roosevelt), brought one of the black athletes, a
close friend of his and a really nice guy whom I'd known since
grade school, to Teen Town. The parents again freaked out, but
this time they knew they didn't dare keep him out. In fact, the
white guy told them, when they tried to do so, "If he doesn't
come in, I don't come in."

So they just closed Teen Town. It was the greatest thing we had
going, a place to gather, dance, and start or end romances,
usually after a football or basketball game. And they just took
it away.

It seemed so unnecessary.


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toilsome0(1034104) Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 2:20 PM

I grew up in Michigan car factory town, and there was no racism.
I lived on the wrong side of the tracks, went to the blue collar
schools, and class sentiment united us against them, "the richer"
as we thought. We were about 20% black, 20% mexican migrants, 20
% hillbillys (me included), and the rest Arabs and Central
Europeans. Mostly our fathers worked in the auto factories, and
that's what we aspired too, when we had any thoughts about the
future. It has turned out to be the most integrated period of my
life. (We were always open about prejudices elsewhere--including
our homes and parents, because we knew they didn't apply to us. I
was always the "redneck" to my black friends, who in return were
"jigs," and we both agreed that the mexicans were "wetbacks," who
in turn taught us their Spanish profanities about our ancestors.
The name-calling was proof of our immunities, and reassuring that
those names didn't matter in friendship.)
Despite the other substantial material improvements in life
back there, racism is now a nasty feature throughout most of that
city's life, with divisions I never would have imagined--church,
shopping, bars and restaurants, residence, school, etc, across
the board. What was open and free has become closed and
mean-spirited. Somehow all those names became real, threats, and
weapons.
It wasn't the golden age, but we used to be integrated and
friends.


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Ridinghood (u. 62735) Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 4:30 PM

The two boys I mentioned above were extremely good friends--both
were good students, played football, and had prominent fathers.
The black guy's father was the universally recognized leader of
the black community, and was eventually elected to City Council.

It's funny how there can be little to no racism at one level, and
a virulent amount of it at another. I never heard anyone, of any
age, ever suggest that there was anything wrong with blacks and
whites going to school together. Probably because it had always
been that way.

As John Stuart Mill said in his famous essay on women 150 years
ago, we tend to assume that what is customary is, in fact, "
normal." If we're not used to it, we tend to view it as
abnormal, or worse.

Intellectual integration was one thing; physical, bodily
integration a la the swimming pool, was apparently something
else again.


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Merry Andrew (U58365 ) Quick stats
Added on Sat, Sep 1, 2001 5:31 PM

Interesting take on racial integration, Ridinghood. I think
you're right in saying that what we accept on one level
(intellectually) can be quite another matter on a different level
(physically). I grew up in a nominally integrated environment
(Boston) and never realized how much racial prejudice there was
down deep among the people until the Federal courts decided that
the schools suffered from de facto (not de jure) segregateion and
ordered forced integration via court-ordered busing to spread the
student population out evenly among the existing schools. The
uproar in the white community led to near-race riots. The
situation in the begining of the first integrated school year
wasn't that much different from Little Rock back in the 50s. But
I was an adult by then and had no school-age kids, so I paid
relatively attention to it.