The fabulous ‘50’s…what I remember….

[raccoon]

Great home-cooked food
President Eisenhower
Inflation so low you didn’t notice it
Candy you could buy for a penny (bubble gum, squirrel nut zippers, etc.)
No air conditioning

Rock n roll
USA is #1.
Cheap gasoline
Kick-butt economy
No air conditioning

Cars with lots of chrome
Disney movies
Candy bars for .05 (small) and .10 (large)
Lots of hope and optimism about the future
No air conditioning

[Richardo]

1. Polio, segregation, Korea, The Cold War, McCarthyism...

No air conditioning. :)

[sarge43]

21. Repression of minorities and women

Air raid drills in elementary schools

No air conditioning

[LiberalEsto]

2. Teenagers wearing bobby sox

I was a little kid when our landlord's daughter was a real teenager. She wore saddle shoes, bobby sox and a ponytail. My immigrant parents were completely bewildered by this "teenager" phenomenon, which they had never encountered in the Old country. But I couldn't wait to become a real teenager just like Irene.

[monmouth]

3. $.50 filled the tank half-way...n/t

[SCantiGOP]

6. you're younger than me

for the first few years I drove I thought that there was a law setting the price of gas at 29.9 cents/gallon. I remember once needing enough gas to get home and pulling in to a station. Back then you weren't allowed to pump your own gas. The guy put the 50 cents worth in (almost 2 gallons) I has requested and then sarcastically gave me a FREE map of the Eastern US, saying, "Here, you may need this."

[Arkansas Granny]

4. Elvis, hula hoops, Sputnik, poodle skirts, DA haircuts

[RebelOne]

5. Yes, I remember no air conditioning,

and I lived in South Florida at that time. But we had lots of fans.

[raccoon]

7. I lived in SC. We had few electric fans.

I remember in church, in the back of the pews along with the hymn books, were paper fans on sticks, usually with the name of some funeral home on them.

[ohiosmith]

8. I remember:

Walking to and from school.

Bread and milk delivery trucks.

Five cent sodas.

50 cents paid for a Saturday afternoon matinee, popcorn, soda and a box of Junior Mints.

Newspapers were delivered by kids like me with wagons or on bikes.

Hoods with leather jackets and duck ass haircuts.

We made our own scooters out of orange crates and an old roller skate.

Cutting grass in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter to make a few bucks.

Our totally hot Catholic school girl babysitter.




:hi:

[raccoon]

9. You forgot one.

No air conditioning.


But then, since you're from Ohio, that's understandable. :hi:



edited for clarity

[ohiosmith]

10. We had air-conditioning. It was called open windows.

:P

[blueamy66]

42. Or hanging out in the basement.

nt

[RebelOne]

15. Yes, I remember walking to and from school,

though it wasn't that far, maybe about a mile. And milk delivery trucks, 5 cent sodas, 50 cent Saturday matinees and ducktail haircuts. When I first met him, My ex-husband had a ducktail haircut. Those were the days, but I definitely would not want to relive them.

[Glorfindel]

11. No telephone service more than 1 mile out of the city limits until 1958

You picked up the phone and the operator said, "Number, please."
Enormous TV's
Ronald Reagan hosting "General Electric Theater"
All grownups smoked
The gritty crunch of soot on the sidewalks because everyone heated with coal
A country school with eight grades in five classrooms
Driving down Highway 41 to Florida and the incredible number of billboards
Running outside to watch an airplane fly over
The bookstore on the Mezzanine in the downtown Atlanta Davidson's department store
No air conditioning (but nobody cared)

[RebelOne]

16. How about party lines

when everybody listened in to your conversations?

[Glorfindel]

17. Oh, yes, of course!

A distant cousin of my mother's lived just down the road, and he would frequently join in the conversation. You always assumed he was listening, and he usually was. He was an old bachelor all alone in a big house, and the party line was his chief entertainment.

[raccoon]

18. Speak for yourself about nobody caring about the AC!

And thanks for sharing. "All grownups smoked"--IME, certainly lots of them did.

I remember sitting in a classroom after recess...sweating. Sitting watching TV, sweating.

And I was a kid and a lot skinnier then!

But what could you do, except live with the heat and humidity? Well, you could bitch about it but it didn't change anything.

And, and remember in 90-something heat, riding in a car with no AC?

[RebelOne]

34. Hey, I cared, but I did not know any better

after growing up in the heat and humidity of South Florida, I was just a kid and thought that's the way life was. Remember, South Florida does not have any seasons, so I did not experience fall, winter or spring, just constant summer. Maybe just a little chill December through February.

[struggle4progress]

12. H-bombs. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Emmett Till.

[ChoralScholar]

14. Oohh.. good call..

Segregated Drinking Fountains/Restrooms/Lunch Counters, etc
Oppressive Blue Laws
Rizzo with a bun in the oven....

I got nothin... I wasn't alive

Also no Air Conditioning

[raccoon]

20. Thank you. nt

[struggle4progress]

25. I was gonna add the Peekskill Riot but it was in 49:

from Being Red (1990), Howard Fast's memoir of his life on the left
http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/peekskill.html

All this was before my time, too, but I think it cast a long shadow over my life

[raccoon]

40. Thanks for the link--I bookmarked it for later reading. nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. Duck and cover. Segregation. Polio. No air conditioning except at the movies.

We couldn't go swimming in public pools in August because of polio. We also had to get Mantoux tests in school (for tuberculosis). I got measles, mumps and scarlet fever (no vaccines in those days). Everybody got smallpox vaccinations. There were lots of diseases that hardly anybody gets any more.

[raccoon]

19. I know--I had measles and mumps in the early 1960's.

Sounds like the Middle Ages now!

[woofless]

22. Sonic booms.

Polio shots.

[sarge43]

23. One of the very few things I miss from the 50's

are the Sunday newspaper comics - Prince Valiant, Tarzan, Terry and the Pirates, Steven Canyon, Lil Abner, etc. They were beautifully illustrated and high adventure, in short graphic novels.

[ohiosmith]

24. Yes! And the Katz and Jammer Kids, Bringing Up Father, Snuffy Smith, Dick Tracy, Dondi......

:hi:

[sarge43]

26. A whole Sunday morning of pleasure

with a big glass of chocolate milk in front of the radio listening to Stan's Polka Hour on WJR.

[ohiosmith]

27. We listened to some religious music before church. I would bring home the paper after my deliveries

and selling the extras at my stand. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. :hi:

Most people have no idea!

[sarge43]

28. No, they don't.

That a kid on a bike would throw the newspaper onto your front porch every morning - another world, another time.

[ohiosmith]

29. And it would be there before 6:00 am regardless of weather.

:hi:

[sarge43]

33. Did you ever pitch one on the porch roof just out of spite because

they complained about late delivery?

:evilgrin:

[ohiosmith]

35. Honestly, no. I needed that nickel tip too much.

:shrug:

[grasswire]

38. Stan's Polka Hour?

I know a lot of kids today who would think you were killing them if you were playing polka music.

Have you ever watched Big Joe's Polka Show on some TV network recently? It might not remind you of New Hampshire, but it would certainly remind someone of Butte Montana.

[sarge43]

39. Whatever your ethnic background, in the auto factory towns of Michigan circa 50's,

polkas were soul music. Hell, late 60's and two hip replacements, I hear a polka and I still inch to hit the floor.

[Ptah]

30. Sputnik

20 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFz-6bQC0-M

[ohiosmith]

31. Good one.

:thumbsup:

[Ptah]

32. Thanks.

I remember the sound,
my older brother is still an
amateur radio enthusiast.


:toast:

[txwhitedove]

36. Big TV with small black/white picture, Lone Ranger, Rin Tin Tin,

Flicka, no air conditioning, riding my bike all the way to the library where it was cool and they had the only chilled water fountain, glub glub, Double Bubble and Bazooka gum, candy cigarettes, summers spent playing jacks with a golf ball (personalized of course) on the front porch while listening to am radio, barefoot, gooey tar in the cracks of the hot street, grandpa bringing home a truck load of watermelon for the whole neighborhood, playing outside after dark with the fireflies and good friends...., and we can't forget the



Burma Shave signs!!!

[Silver Swan]

37. I remember that our small town bank

offered interest rates of 2 3/4 percent on savings.

I wish I could get that now.

[whistler162]

41. Being trapped in a water filled room for a long time,

about 9 months, and screaming when I finally got out after being hit by a man in a mask! Then its a blank until sometime in the 60's.