These are the days that are still shaping our future. They will make you smile, tap your feet, and wish for simpler days, but they can also make you cringe and rejoice in the changes.
50's and 60's Nostalgia's blog
It began with the first warning bell. As we left the playground to begin the day, our wiggles and giggles were gobbled up by the wide halls where teachers stood at class room doors and rows of lockers called for our coats. Enthusiasm gave way as we slipped into our desks and faced the front of the room where the green blackboard wore a hat of a perfectly executed alphabet.
Children of the Lone Ranger and Popeye years grew up under a cloud of other beliefs that shaped our lives. We were eating the best apples ever produced with the help of DDT and arsenic. We couldn’t drink coffee because everyone knew it would stunt our growth, while smoking cigarettes was chic and cool, one of those things adulthood held as a carrot to a rabbit. Most of us lived in second-hand smoke without a single thought for our health, but we didn’t swim for an hour after eating.
They were the “Big Three” and the beginning of my adventure with managing technology. Learning how to tell time was essential. Little hands learned to be steady and patient to stop the occasional rolling images or to adjust the shades of gray. And then there was sharing. With so many choices, negotiating with siblings and parents became part of the experience.
A glacier-fed lake nourished those years I shared with Ed Sullivan and Howdy Doody. I played in it with the same abandon as the lawns I ran across in my neighborhood. In the fall, the water level fell as the dam released the warm vacation playground, but each spring my endless swimming pool would fill up once again with fresh water from the snow-filled mountains at the head of the lake.
Is there anyone who can travel back in time without pausing at chocolate chip cookies? In the days of Milton Beryl and Art Linkletter, these icons of delicious delight were the favorite at childhood club meetings, potlucks, mothers gathering for coffee while their children played, and after-dinner treats.
Best-selling books can transform lives, but they also plant seeds across the country like Johnny Appleseed. These author insights can grow into dawning awareness, transformed beliefs, and inspiration to action. A good novel, one that catches the attention of many, can challenge tradition and change the direction of our culture.
As I travel around my home town, remembering how it was when I was growing up in the 50’s, I’m always amazed that some things feel the same. I was four years old in this photo… and the Treadwell Apartments still stand, looking much the same.
It was subtle and totally acceptable when I was back in the 1950’s wearing skirts and dresses to school: being a girl was more about being cute than being exploring our potential. It wasn’t how fast we could run or how high we could jump as much as it was the bow in our hair. Boys wore sturdy shoes and warm pants when the temperature dropped. Our shoes and bare legs changed our relationship with recess.
It was a right of passage for little kids. We had no idea how soapy water could ever turn into drudgery when we were first trusted with sharp knives and fragile glasses. The young child who sometimes got to stand on a stool and chase suds with wooden spoons could only dream of the time when they would be grown up enough to take over the sink without supervision.
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