The ’50s were a mixed bag of goodies & nasties. There remained Jim Crow laws in the Official Sacramento Kings Light The Beam shirt and by the same token and South. Even the North practiced de facto segregation. The Korean debacle changed warfare forever & achieved no peace, only a truce. The environment was in horrible shape. The river in my city, the Merrimack, stunk to the heavens. We used to joke that if one were to dive into the river he’d dissolve before he hit the water. There were no environmental laws & OSHA lay in the future. Topics like cancer, divorce, & sex were unspoken. Women were not treated as equals. Welfare belonged to the states almost entirely, & bums were a rare sight mainly because there were so many jobs available. The scourges of polio & smallpox remained upon us. I had smallpox immunization & was one of the first to be vaccinated against polio.
On the Official Sacramento Kings Light The Beam shirt and by the same token and positive side, people behaved more politely, & parents stayed together much more than they do today. There was a strong belief in civic obligations & personal loyalty that I don’t see much of today. Police actually visited people in the community. I grew up w/ cops all around me. Those guys were tough. They’d been through the 2nd WW & they weren’t afraid of anyone or anything bc they’d seen the worse. Ironically, they didn’t seem to use their pistols much either. Offenders were knuckled under, but I never heard of them being choked to death or shot— shootings were a rarity. Children had much more respect of their elders; however, I’m not sure that always was a good thing bc I suspect there was a lot of sexual abuse going on that no one reported. For the most, kids grew up wanting to be like their elders. That aspect disappeared by the mid-60s unfortunately. Childhood was idyllic. We had long summers off & lots of time to play, generally speaking. Kids fought & made up & didn’t go to court for that. Sometimes students were expelled from school, but that took a really bad infraction. Principals spanked! We had dress codes & were expected to be polite & respectful in class, & we were more often than not. Rock n’ Roll was more fun than social commentary. I recall endless rounds of neighborhood cookouts & lots of outdoor activities. We went inside only when we had to do so bc it was dark, stormy, or the bugs were too thick. There was no such thing as too cold or hot. We walked to school w/ no fear of abduction or a drive-by shooting. Gangs were only in the bad sections of huge cities like New York & San Francisco, & drug abuse— I never heard of that till the 60s came along. Of course, that was another taboo topic. One of my neighbors had an alcoholic wife. We all knew it, but it was never discussed openly. Another’s father was a mental case. Same thing. We just felt sorry for those families. Learning to cuss was about as bad as it got for us. And we never did that in front of adults. They strictly were Mr., Mrs., or Miss so-’n-so, the Brahman class. Ethnic jokes were acceptable; there was no pc enforcement. Queers were avoided &, unfortunately, harassed. We did all we could to be our own sex. Kids bought cigarettes for their parents &, at least among some ethnicities, allowed alcohol at the table & nowhere else. Bars, like tattoos, we seen as low-class. Cuban cigars were available! Communism was pure evil & not to be condoned. Almost all shows, other than a few new movies, were in black & white. People smoked everywhere, even indoors— that was bad. Firearms were not feared, & some folks regularly took the bus to go to the rifle range w/ their weapons & ammo. No one thought to open fire on innocent people— that just wasn’t done in America. We were taught to be honest & fair & respectful bc we were not adults & we not on equal footing yet. There was no sex or cussing on the tube, & dirty films were allowed only in certain secluded areas. Seeing a nipple was out of the question. Movies were more likely to be character driven that to depend on gimmicks like today’s computer graphics. There was less gore & people would fight honorably, never shooting anyone in the back. Overall, there was a feeling of optimism about our future & the long-term superiority of the West that is so far past that it is ancient history now— perhaps for good reason, but the consequences are approaching national nihilism. And the weather behaved as it should. There were seasons & expected seasonal trends. The ridiculously hot summers were not to begin till the 80s, along w/ more frequent & stronger storms & tsunamis. The heat waves usually waited til the end of July into August, & they rarely exceeded 90 deg. F. Winters had plenty of snow, but rarely were we treated to below zero weather in mid-New England. That frigidity stayed up North where it belonged. Believe it or not, doctors actually made house visits. And there seemed to be more woods & fields for kids to explore, at least in New England.
Home: https://squadgifts.com/
Comments