The Romance of the '50s

I remember the 1950s fondly, as, clearly do most of us here. 

Intellectually, I now know that they were a time of great strife and tensions domestically and otherwise, risk (nuclear war, polio), and family problems (money, health) for some of my family, etc.  I realize what I really remember fodly is childhood: a gentle, innocent, and wonderful time when a loving family sheltered me from most of the strike and worry and nurtured me.  So it wasn't really the 19509s, just that my childhood happened that way.  Had I been born ten or twenty or thirty years later it would not have been very different.  

But, regardless of knowing all that, I choose to remember the 1950s like I do, fondly and as a special time. 

The fifties as a youngster was great, took many trips on the Northern Pacific local from Western Washington to Eastern Washington to visit relatives.

The only problem with being a youngster in the fifties made you eligible for President Johnsons Viet Nam draft in the sixties.

http://www.k12academics.com/sc...otings-united-states

really?  or do you think that you just didn't hear about it.  in the 50's it was doubtful that people would receive any "news" (ie murders, gangland slayings, etc) that didn't happen locally.  today if something happens in Connecticut, i get to hear about it in San Diego within hours.  with 6 billion people in the world and the chance to get your name on the news by simply pulling a trigger, it takes an extremely small percent of the population, along with news media overanxious for ratings, to bring innocence crashing down around us.

Nobody said there weren't problems back then--many of them quite serious and widespread--but in my view they pale in comparison to what is faced by young people today.  Again, keep in mind that what we're reading here are individual recollections of individual childhood experiences, not anything that purports to be an overview of society as a whole at the time.  And it's quite apparent that the majority of us who grew up at that time consider ourselves to have been very fortunate indeed.

one thing i do not miss from the 50's in school-the nuclear war drills where we had to go in the hallway and lean our heads against our arm and a locker .it would of been better to put our heads against our bootys to kiss our butts goodbye-miss the music-doo-wop on the boardwalk in summer-italian ice and pizza on a sreamy night-great tv shows-westerns,etc.-**** was great for kids-lionel trains,fanner 50 guin and hoslter set-big t model roadster-movies-the searchers-how many remember

sign of the pagan with jack palance playing attllla.or attack a ww2 movie with jack palance-schwin bikes-moonie hub caps and car craft magazine.mickie mantle was a icon to us kids-plus we were young.

I would never cast dispersion on the innocence of childhood. We did not create the world we inhabited at a young age. I can remember being eight years old and taking nearly daily unattended summer strolls down to the CNSM station and armed with a soda from the gas station sitting under the station eaves comfortably on a bench alongside the motormen between their runs. There was a freight conductor that threw lollipops out to track side kids.Again a human scale to life. Slower more grounded for youngsters regardless of adult lunacies.Rolling inside of a truck tire down the hill, building cardboard box forts. We knew very little of the larger world except for billboard boxcars. Who is Phoebe Snow? Where is "Everywhere West"? Who is MA and PA? Thankfully there was a brief respite before the world fell on our shoulders.

Penny candy in dime store glass fishbowls. With a quarter or taking my Dads beer bottles up for a refund, I had all the cash I needed for a small world.

Born in 1942, I hit my stride in the 1950s, and I agree, it was a better time to be a young person then than it is now.

I fear for my grandchildren because of the evils around them, the economic burden they will need to bear, and the dumbing-down of the education system. The legacy we are leaving for our grandchildren is not the good one we had in the 1950s!

Ah, yes.  The romance of the fifties.

My homeroom teacher at dear old Music and Art used to say we had to do that so we would be in two neat rows of hamburger when the clean up crews came.

MIckey Mantle was a hero, we lived withing walking distance of Yankee Stadium, and the Bleachers were fifty cents.  But he turned out to have been a soaker, along with plenty of his team mates.

Our neighborhood had street gangs who occasionally would kill each other, but with switchblades, motorcycle chains and zip-guns instead of automatic weapons.

Polio.

Despite its shortcomings I still consider the fifties to have been American finest decade (so far).

The older I get the better I was.

Pete

If I could be stuck in one decade it would be the 50's. Good OP!

I' have to go with the late 40s early 50s, not sure why it just seems like I would have fit better there.

I was born in 1960 and I guess I had a pretty good childhood, didn't have everything I wanted but I still had some pretty cool things. Everyones experience is different I guess, we all knew folks who were deal a real hand of crap by fate and we all knew those who seemed to live a life of ease. It would be nice if it really was as great as we remember it but it probably wasn't and it's a good thing that we do remember the good times a little better than we remember the bad times, it helps keep us sane I guess. I just wish that threads like these where we reminisce would stay on track about the good times and fun things and not get hijacked by those who seem to have the need to remind us about wars, social injustice, poverty, illness, etc. that was and still are a part of life. We do this train thing to get away from the trials and tribulations of the world and remember what it was like to be a kid for an hour or so every now and then.

Jerry

I grew up in the 50's and to be honest it was not the best of times for mom and dad. We were as poor as dirt and though mom and dad did the best they could it was tough. They were very proud people my parents and did what they could to keep us kids happy. They did without their entire life but gave everything to their kids. I miss them every day.

So as you see the 50's are not not my favorite decade.

That's no problem, I was proud to serve in the US military. We would be better off if young men and women today gave some time to their country thru the draft. But this time everybody serves, no deferments for college or anything else.  

Gentlemen,

   I grew up in the late 40's early 50's in a Pa mountain community in Potter County, I did not have a TV until I was about 12 years old, my world revolved around my Grandfather and Father and our family traditions, of Grouse hunting and Fly Fishing.  Elliot Ness was one of my Grandfathers close friends his son became one of mine.  Mr Ness lived in Coudersport and he and my Grandfather loved running their O guage trains in each others homes.  Mr Ness passed away in the late 50's and my Grandfather told me to always remember him, that there were few men I would ever meet like him.   My father was an honest to God  hero, who never ever talked about Guadacanal and what he had to do to servive, my uncles were there and made me understand my fathers quiet manly ways.  In the late 50's my fathers work moved him to Swissvale, Pa, were he continued working for the Union Switch and Signal.  I found out quicky the difference between city and mountain people.  My memories of the 50's are mostly all very good, I was drafted in the 60's and spent most of my Career in the US Military, when I ETS'ed in the late 80's I came home to a mostly changed world, I repurchased land in the Potter/Tioga mountains where I had been raised as a boy, and spend at least 8 months of the year there, in my log cabin.  Times are what people make them, I have seen war and piece, I would like to live out my life in the pieceful Pa mountains, with my family.

PCRR/Dave

My Potter/Tioga Mountain Home - This fall

Sitting in my Grandfathers arms 1949, watching our 263E run around our Christmas Tree.  My Father took the picture, unfortunately I can not turn the clock back to

my most happy of times.

PCRR/Dave.... in memory of those days with your grandfather you did in fact go back until we ourselves move on those times are as real as the day they happened cherish those memories.

$oo

This is a wonderfully nostalgic thread!  Reading through the posts brings back many happy memories.  Although I certainly miss the innocence that childhood afforded many of us in the 50's and early 60's, what I really miss most is far more personal.  

I miss summers when I would spend a week at a time at my grandparent's cottage along the Juniata River in central PA.  I always enjoyed those weeks spent fishing and swimming in the river or riding my bike down to the railroad crossing shortly after lunch each day to watch PRR's westbound Juniata passenger train go through.  But what I miss most, is having a quiet breakfast on the porch with my grandmother or taking a walk with my grandfather and his hunting dog after supper.

As a few others have pointed out, life wasn't perfect back then, but I guess all of us tend to relegate the bad memories to the furthest corners of our minds and keep the good memories up front where they can help us over "today's" rough spots.

Curt

My memories later (I was born in 56)

There  is a radio station you can listen to via streaming audio on the computer.

It is WVLT 92.1 Vineland N.J.

During the weekday's  they'll play all the song's you grew up with(not the same 10 song's) like most "oldies" stations today.

They'll play song's you forgot about

During the weekends they veer off course a little.

But during the weekdays during the day's it's all real good oldie's,the at 5 it's the Geator 

Amen!  I was in Army ROTC in college, and after basic infantry officer's school and airborne training, I went to Korea.  Was back in the States only a few months and was asked to volunteer for an airborne assignment.  That led to two consecutive tours in Vietnam and it would have been three if the Army had allowed me to stay.

I've long felt that every able-bodied young person of high school graduation age, male and female, should be required to serve two years in the military or in a civilian component similar to the CCC.  Thank God we still have young men and women willing to serve their country.  They are the best of the best in my view!

I served in The USMC In peacetime 1976

It's funny,young people today, you tell them to MOVE! and they look at ya,they question ya.

I know Parris Island is completely different today,but back at my time and Especially,before me and in the 60's,when they told you to MOVE,if you didn't fly,you were on the ground looking up.

Overlandflyer: Yes, you have a point about today's media but I clicked on your link and I could not find any massacres of 7 year olds like we had recently. That is what I meant by my above statement. I do believe if Netown were to have happened in the '50s everyone would have known about it. Sure not as fast as today but it would have made headlines across the country. I guess I should have used the word massacre instead shooting.

Thanks for all the wonderful replys. I still believe that the postwar era was a great time to grow up. Was it perfect? No. I don't think any era of society is perfect but thanks again for the memories. I still want to model this era and now I feel I can model it with a little more knowledge. I don't know if I would ever model some of the negative stuff like segregation. Perhaps I will model some things the way they should have been.

Speaking of racial prejudice and injustice, I was friends with an African American fella named Rich who I used to work with. He is a great guy. He speaks excellent English. You cannot tell his race over the phone. He told me stories of when he had to call to schedule a job interview. This was in the '70s and '80s (20-25 years after the era we are talking about) and the interviewer would love him over the phone. It seemed he was a shoe in for the job but as soon as he walked in the door he saw the look on the guys face and knew he wasn't getting the job. I was shocked that this type of stuff still went on. I would like to believe it is over but I wonder if it still goes on today.

I had a pretty good childhood in the '70s. Nothing to complain about. Lots of fond memories. I often wished I could have seen real trains but there just wasn't any in the city.

My parents (USA and England) grew up during the Depression and then both did military service in WW2. By comparison it was much better to live in the prospering USA during the 1950's.

Just some more thoughts of growing up in the 50's.

The very first model kit I ever tried to make was a Strombecker DC-4 plane. Mine didn't come out nearly this good. In fact I made of mess of it. It came with a little packet of powder that you mixed with water to make glue. I got the glue on everything and the wings were hanging down when the glue dried.

  For some reason I don't remember getting my 2026 Lionel freight set on Christmas 1948 but I loved that train more than anything. I would just stare at it sitting on my carpet railroad. I couldn't believe the detail. I thought it was the best train ever made. A special day was always when my dad took me to a train store I think was called Colonel Bob's Trains. He got me my first pair of 027 switches. 

There was a dime store in our neighborhood that carried a few Lionel and American Flyer trains. They were high up on a shelf but I would go in there and stare at them. The American Flyer Circus set was an eye opener but I know I could never get something like that. They had some green metal Lionel 027 passenger cars there for years. The clerk asked once if I wanted to buy them. I guess he saw me too many times looking at them. Telling him I didn't have the $4.00 for one car he suggested I pay on time. He let me pay 10 cents a week for what seemed like forever. I still have the car.

There was no Disneyland at the time we lived in LA but there was Hoppy Land named after Hopalong Cassidy.

Thanks, to all for the 'tears' in my eyes!

I think kids in any era tend to see it as a golden age, my uncles who were kids in the 30's talked about it being a great time, yet it was the depression, and my dad,who was 10 years older knew better......kids see things differently, it is the way we are wired as kids. I think there are good things and bad things in any era, kids today don't have to fear getting polio and being crippled or killed, the survivability rate of auto accidents is infinitely superior today, kids with special problems get help rather then ending up like Boo Radley in "Too Kill a Mockingbird"...kids in some ways have access to so much more then we did, the internet and such has brought challenges, but it means they also have access to information and knowledge we could only dream about back then (whether the kids use it, well, is anyone's guess), and I suspect if you ask them about it many kids will tell you they are having a great childhood..

One of the ironies is that while the 1950's was the golden age of railroading in some ways, many of the railroads were being run into the ground by bad management, they weren't putting money back into maintaining track and such and were basically sucking them dry for any profits they could get (specifically talking the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads), and it helped lead to their collapse, it just took a long time for them to do it so it became evident. 

I think part of the charms of the 50's (and I think there were charms there) was that most people simply weren't as aware of things, in the sense that you lived in a kind of bubble. News came from the local newspaper, and while it obviously had bad news, tensions, bad things happening, it was a slower, less pervasive form of information. You didn't hear about every little thing, the big news in a small town might be the QB on the high school football team got caught necking with the cheerleader or something *smile*. Radio and then tv news were there, but it wasn't the intense cycle we have today, where news has become entertainment. Changes were happening, but a lot of people ignored it, the beats were the first signs of revolt, an we look back at the music of the era with nostalgia, back then lot of people saw it as a threat for the future, that it was causing society to be 'lowered', with young people dancing to 'negro' music and the like (and music had no small part in what became the civil rights era, black rhythm and blues and such fed the burgeoning rock and roll music..). Plus people had a lot to be optimistic about, the GI bill was helping move a lot of people into the middle class and getting educations, and jobs were plentiful in many places, so it was easy to ignore the bad things, the hysteria of the red scare, nuclear war, racial disparity...and if we didn't recognize the plight of blacks, it was because many people lived incredibly segregated lives, where there home, jobs, schools and the like were all people like themselves.

Does that mean the 1950's were really a bad time to grow up? Nope, not at all, I think it had a lot of things that were good for many people, I think the sense of optimism was a great thing, the idea we could do anything, there was a lot there. BTW I would be careful about gas being 27c a gallon, compare that to salaries, inflation and so forth, ya might be surprised..kind of like looking at a 700e that cost 75 bucks and saying wow that was cheap..when in today's dollars that is like 2500.....

One thing I want to comment on, I wouldn't be so hard on the kids today, anyone remember all the movies like 'the wild ones' and such, that said the young people of that era were going to be a bunch of degenerates (heck, they said my generation, really the first true children of television, were all going to be homicidal, brain dead maniacs because we supposedly watched so much tv and 'violent' cartoons like bugs bunny and road runner). I would be so sure about academic achievements of students in the 1950's versus today, when sputnik was launched in 1957 suddenly we went through a paroxysm, and we found our schools to lacking, especially in math and science. I can tell you the kids in schools today face pressures we never did, and a lot earlier, things we learned in high school are being taught in middle school, and the load on these kids is incredible, they are doing hours of homework, which speaking for my generation was not the norm, and they are under incredible pressure I can guarantee you kids in the 1950's didn't feel....it isn't entirely good, but I see a lot of young people who are working hard in ways we never had to, it is incredible, the pressure of homework, and then also the rest of their lives, with so called 'ec's' (extra curriculars) and the like......and the kids are reaching up to it, and that gives me optimism. My son is a budding musician, will be going to conservatory next year, and the kids in music today are staggeringly good, many kids today enter the best conservatories playing better then graduates were 20 or 30 years ago, to get into a top school on violin, my son's instrument, kids start really young and dedicate themselves young, putting in 3,4 5 hours of practicing a day, if not more.......and there are kids doing that with a lot of things. We hear about how the Chinese and Koreans produce better students, but take a look at who is creating tomorrow, it is people like Mark Zuckerberg (love him or hate him) and scores of other innovators, and a lot of them are coming from this country. I see a lot of dedicated, smart young people who quite frankly would put most of the kids I went to school with to shame. People in the 1930's said the young people of that time were slackers, didn't want to work, were disrespectful, listening to 'immoral music', and they became 'the greatest generation'.....

I'll leave you with some words about nostalgia, kids, present, future, etc.

"The young of today are disrespectful of their elders, they don't cherish our traditions, our faith, they are lazy, they don't want to work, and I fear for the future".....translated inscription from Babylon, C700 BCE.

"Little mouse, thou art blessed compared to me, for only the presenth toucheth thee; while I, with a yearning,backwards glance, and though the future I cannot see, it worries me nonetheless".....Robert Burns, Ode to a Mouse (paraphrased).

OH, forgot one other thing that really stands out. We had a little plastic house screwed to our front door with a note pad. We would write what time we expected to be back home. Sometimes even told people we were on vacation and be back in a week. Don

“My father always said that too many words cheapened the value of a man's speech.”
― Patricia Briggs, Raven's Shadow

I've long felt that every able-bodied young person of high school graduation age, male and female, should be required to serve two years in the military or in a civilian component similar to the CCC. 

Allan, I hear that a lot, and there's one little tiny obstacle in the way. it's the "involuntary servitude" clause of the U.S. Constitution. Now, everyone understands that the defense of the country does not fall under that clause - but I sincerely doubt that any form of universal, mandatory civilian service would survive a court challenge. And I'd be among the first in line to donate to the fund to pay for the challenge. 

"I've long felt that every able-bodied young person of high school graduation age, male and female, should be required to serve two years in the military or in a civilian component similar to the CCC."

 I've said the same thing many, many times Allan. We would see an amazing change in our youth. Don

Quoting SW Hiawatha

Allan, I hear that a lot, and there's one little tiny obstacle in the way. it's the "involuntary servitude" clause of the U.S. Constitution. Now, everyone understands that the defense of the country does not fall under that clause - but I sincerely doubt that any form of universal, mandatory civilian service would survive a court challenge. And I'd be among the first in line to donate to the fund to pay for the challenge.

Wow!  THAT is a memory.  Hoppyland.  I remember going to that!  I loved Hopalong Cassidy.

Born in 1950 and raised in the 50s and 60s I had a keen sense of the wonders of the America that we were to inherit. Sure we had the worries of the A-bomb (with heads burried under school desks) but we also knew that our parents were raised in Depression and War and that we had it made in the shade. I can still see the joy in my father's face as we ran the trains at Christmastime, or shot the air rifle, all as if he were the kid. In fact he WAS the kid, too, as he was raised in an orphanage (him mom died when he was three and his dad was a struggling Sicilian baker in lower Manhattan) then from one foster home to another. At seventeen he was in the Pacific, returned home to do 'piece work' making thermometers by hand and finally joined New York's finest at the age of 29. So yes, the 50s were a magical time for our generation and our parents who finally saw the joy that America promised.

Lee, every time we went it was windy, foggy and cold. Don

Yes, we are making memories every day we live.  Having been born in early '40 I received my first 26" Schwinn in '46 for my 6th bday, my first Lionel set in '46 from Santa, my first paying job taking a daily paper in '51 and Boy Scouts.  Taking the paper route allowed me to browse our Hobby Shop on Saturday afternoons (after completing my weekly route collections and turning in the wholesale cost to the paper office).  Many valuable lessons learned taking the paper routes on my bike like realizing after leaving the front porch  that the almost blind widow had given me a $5 bill instead of a $1 bill (paper cost $1.35 a month) - yes, I returned her the money of course.  On my daily bike rides to school I had to cross the main double ACL north/south New York to Miami route and would sit there so close to the crossing as to be inveloped in the Mikaldo steam coming from the drivers, and sometimes when I 'whistled my arm' the engineer gave me a full dose of steam and wistle.  Time marches on.

 Excuse me but you don't know what you are talking about.  Nobody was "immune" from the draft.  College only meant you were "deferred" and that meant you were eligible for the draft as soon as you graduated.  In my case you can also forget the "affluent" part of your remarks too.  I worked my way through college.  Here's another tidbit for you:  At Michigan State University and all Land Grant colleges, ROTC was mandatory for two years, and four years if  you wanted to come out as 2nd Lieutenant candidate.  That put you in the military immediately after graduation.

On the real subject of this thread, there was an identical thread a few weeks ago wherein I spilled a lot of my childhood memories of those years, so I won't repeat them here. Those who like this thread should go read that one.  It has a lot of stories, train related.

I will say that being born in 1937 and growing up in the 40s and 50s were wonderful times.  I was in high school and college in the 1950s, much simpler times.  The Eisenhower Years are often referred to as good years by many.

.....

Dennis

I didn't know it was relevent to the subject, but yes, I did serve in the military.  Instead of waiting to get drafted, I enlisted.  Luckily, there was no war to fight.  I finished my obligation during peace time. The closest I came to going to war was when JFK got into a standoff with the USSR known as the Cuban crisis.

I had planned to leave MSU as a 2nd Lieutenant but to enter advanced ROTC (Junior year) you had to go through a physical wherein they found I had a small hernia, and high blood pressure, so I didn't pass.  After college the physical for the draft didn't care about those things and I passed.  That's when I enlisted in the 6 year program offered at that time where you went into basic training and 6 months active duty followed by 5 1/2 years of active reserve.  That meant I played war a lot on some weekends, went to weekly classes, and two weeks summer camp each year.  I was a buck sergeant by the time I got out.  I was also lucky in that when they found out I had a wife and four kids they let me out early.  I just happened to be born too young for WWII and Korea, and was finished with my military obligation by the time Viet Nam really got rolling.

.....

Dennis

I'm really enjoying the stories in this thread.  So much that I've actually stuck to and read them all.  There seems to be a lament about the lost moral center that our withering nation once had.  We also state how we marveled at the new technologies coming along.  Someone above said it started to change in the 60's.  The technology and the change are cause and effect.  It has been television that has allowed the false reality of the media to change us and the way our children grew up to live in a different nation.  The electronic march continues, and the current generation have become deluded narcissists.  All I can figure to do is raise my family with the values that we grew up with.  I limited our children's, and now granddaughter's, screen time and content.

A relic of the past living in a foreign country,

Alan