The Romance of the '50s

LOL.  My son and daughter think their childhood of the 80's and 90's was fabulous, but when my daughter (by then a wife and mother) wanted nostalgic music from her childhood, it was the Time-Life collection, "Malt Shop Memories."  Seems the music from my childhood in the 50's and 60's, which I was reluctant to forsake and often played during car rides, became the music from her childhood in the 80's and 90's.

Next thing I knew, my toddler grandsons were singing. "Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli lolli lollipop."

In my home town of Battle Creek, MI, the ice for the ice boxes was delivered by a horse drawn wagon. The ice man would carry it to your house from the wagon on his shoulder upon which he had a leather shoulder patch.  A sign in your window let him know how much ice you needed shown in 25 lb increments.  He would give us kids ice chips to suck on those hot summer days.

.....

Dennis

I would love to see scientific studies about the lost intellect due to 'massive electronics input', that sounds quite frankly like pseudo science at best and crackpot thinking at worst. I think there are problems with all this electronic media, I do think that some or a lot of kids face consequences of being immersed too much, but I am tired of those who make generalizations like that, because it was crap. Back in my day we heard how TV was going to ruin us, all this crying about "Johnny can't read" and all that, and for most people it simply wasn't true. There are always problems, but I also am around a lot of young people, and the kids with trouble are generally the kids who always seemed to be in trouble. I also see young people in their 20's who end up revolutionizing the world, new idea are being developed, new concepts created, and want to know a dirty little secret? It isn't happening in the countries who top the list in achievement on standardized tests, primarily it is coming out of the US, and it is as always generally a young person's game.

I also would be careful about 'traditional values', the 1920s and 1930's were peak times for the KKK in this country, we had the America First movement in the 1930's that was all but a branch of the Nazi party in where its sympathies lay. And keep in mind that generation saw WWII, that killed at least 50 million people and saw brutality and inhumanity I could wish would not happen again but might, and it was committed by the most part by church going people who had the 'traditional values' you are extoling.

And while you can claim that the moral center of the world didn't change in the 1920's, people at the time said it was the end of the world, we had *gasp* women showing their legs in public (and in the movies), women were cutting their hair short, and were 'liberated' in ways their elders found shocking...and in many ways it did change, a lot changed then, because society is always changing. 

It is always very easy to blame someone for the problems that are faced, people look at the economic insecurity felt in the US and they tend to blame the young, because that is a lot easier,that kids don't want to work, that they are lazy, that jobs go overseas because they demand too much, and what that is IMO is an excuse for the reality of things, that the world is very, very different then let's say the 1950's, where someone could piddle through high school and get a relatively well paying job. It isn't that kids don't want to work, a lot of them do, as much as I did or prior generations, it is that the landscape changed, between jobs being able to shift to places paying 1920's wages, to automation, it just isn't the same landscape it once was. I see a lot of good, hardworking kids, who quite frankly make my generation and prior ones look like slackers, and they have trouble because it simply isn't as easy as it once was. 

Thanks, Lee, I agree with you as well. We face a lot, but societal shifts happen, the 1930's changed a lot and those were tough times, too. Things change all the time, and half the doom and gloom is that people can't see what is happening and think the sky is falling because things aren't what they once were. Years ago Alvin Toffler wrote a book called "Future Shock" that was part pap, but also had relevant threads on why people think the way they do. A guy who died this year, Jacques Barzun, wrote a book about western civilization called "From Dawn to Decadence" that talked about how shifts happen in society, they go from a period of expansion and zeal into a kind of decay, and that the transitions at the end of the 'decay' cycle are scary...

I agree about young people, Will, and i see what you are talking about as well. I can't speak for Allen's experience, and I don't doubt that kids like that exist, the ones assuming privilege, there are kids who come out of Ivy league schools like that and the like, but quite frankly, they learn  quickly that piece of paper may get you in the door, but that is it. I see what kids do in high school in many places, it is incredible, they have homework loads that didn't exist in my day, these kids are up early to go to school, and many of them don't go to sleep until 1 or 2am, finishing homework. It is true I live in a relatively well off area, but I hear from people all over the country, small towns, large towns, burbs, blue collar, white collar, and I hear the same thing. And I hire young people, and they don't lack the fire in the belly either in my experience.

Some interesting reading there but now I'm going to play with my 1950's trains ... 

Before this gets too politicized, thank you all for sharing your memories, because they are also wonderful to hear. Some of the things people talk about were still not unknown in my childhood in the 60's (the balsa wood gliders someone mentioned bring back fond memories), the games we played as kids, flashlight tag, kick the can, what we used to call 'exploring', pickup baseball games, it was a different era even when I was growing up. Kids were not as organized as they are today, and it was a lot of fun, very different world then today. 

One post made me chuckle a bit, about kids with cap pistols riding their bikes or running around shooting them off. What made me chuckle is if kids did that today, often the people reporting them might be people who as kids did the same thing (darn grumpy old folks *lol*). There was one women when I was growing up who was probably then in her 60's (this was about 1970), whose husband was a grump, and when he would yell at us for playing too loud, running across his lawn, etc, she would yell at him and tell him to be quiet, that he sounded just like "old man Tate' that they hated as kids, for doing the same thing! (Neat lady, she made one heck of a pitcher of lemonade, still can taste it

I taught English/Language Arts on the college/university level for three-years and twenty-one years in the Nashville, TN public school system. Over those years, I saw many young people that worked hard to succeed in their studies and preparation for higher learning.

I have five-grandchildren ranging from age nine to eighteen who are doing well with their respective studies.

Personally I have confidence in our youth and our future as a nation! 

That's another great memory!  Playing cops-and-robbers or cowboys-and-indians with our cap guns (remember those roll caps--little black dots on red paper rolls?).  Kids trying that today would probably end up in jail, and that's assuming they could even find cap guns and caps.

My kids have cap pistols and cap rifles. No big deal, and no one gives them grief about them. They are prohibited from school though.

I have thoughtabout the beautiful set of Colt 45 pistols I had as a kid, along with a "tooled Leather" belt and fake ammunition.  They were very special to me and I still remember how proud I was of them and how they seemed almost too good to be true.  The guns (cap pistols) were all metal, quite heavy, and  looked very realistic, with an operating cylinder and everything: today I'd be thrown to the ground and handcuffed if I had them.  I remember proudly wearing them, and my coon-skin cap, to the store when my Mom, brother, and I went shopping a the grocery store up the street . . .

Well, yeah, you're 63 years old.

There are cap gun web sites that sell original and replicas of many of the old 1940's and 50's cap pistols.

I'm glad you have found some kids who want to succeed. But for the company I worked for in the one store I was at for my last 11 years before I retired this past May 11th gives met doubt about this generation of kids. 

We employed about 75 workers, 12 percent full time and the rest part time. We hire on the average 137 new employees every year! These jobs are entry level jobs but there is no way we should hire almost twice the people we need. Most leave after a couple of month because they are fired for various reasons, theft, #1 btw, don't show up on time or just don't show up at all, refusing to take direction, etc. 

some of the kids are just great but a vast majority don't want to work. The work ethic and to work to get ahead is severely lacking in some areas of this great country. 

I pulled myself up by the bootstraps being raised poor as dirt by working very hard, taking every hour my employer was willing to give out.  And at one time working 3 jobs, 2 full time jobs and a part time job on the weekends. None paid very much but together I did very well. 

TRUE Romance: Born in 1941 the 50's were prime for me, from delivering the newspapers (that would be twice a day The morning call and The evening Chronicle) to picking peaches at the orchard, then becoming a lot boy in two different car lots, before joining the navy, getting married and having my first child by the ripe old age of 17. In those times everyone in the household worked when they were old enough to get a job. In the early 50's when I did not have and House work or duties my time was spent with my buddies along the railroad tracks and the lehigh river and the canal. Certainly some of the best memories of my life. Oh yeah the Good old 50's.

 This is an interesting post sharing the same thoughts and memories as many of you folks. Thanks to all of you. Casey

Don't rub it in Jimijo.  I'; old and often feel worn out and loeft behind by the modern word.  Part of the reason the '50s seem so appealing. 

Still, in the hands of kids toy guns without the orange tip and all can create alot of problems.  i saw a security guard stop and Mom and her kids at the mall recently and request her kid put the organ tip back on while they were in the mall.  I guess the kid had alreayd learned to just pop they off. 

Anyway, I'm not really complaining, but things are so different now.  I never see kids playing with toy guns like I did as a kid.  My daughter in law doesn't want any "gun gifts" for my grandkids - I respect her wishes.  Not sure if this is a good thing or not or it will contribute to a kinder gentler world.  but I remember as a kid there were a few years there where I almost never ventured out to play without my Colt 45s or - yes, indeed, my Daisy pump action BB gun.

I was born in 44 and looking at old pictures of the neighborhoods, there were no back yard fences. We just ran from one yard to the next. Fences are a newer thing for back yards. People were more open and....well..... neighborly. Don

Born in '48. Had a great time. Blue-collar neighborhood; friends everywhere. Not

poor, not affluent. Urban. Seaport; industrial. (Mobile, Alabama.) Working-class; beach house; alligators; fishing; boat or two; water skiing. My Lionel set - and a real layout built by my father - in '55. (2055 Hudson; sidings; scratch-built (father) buildings.)

The 50's were a lot of things, and I enjoyed myself then and in the decade that 

followed. But romantic? Nah. Been there, done that. Four TV channels (one local

UHF); rabbit ear antennae; starched collars in Sunday school; heat; automobiles that looked old in five years - and we never heard of road salt.

This old guy will take cable/satellite/whatever TV and TMCC in his trains anytime. 

EVeryone talks of the 50's but what made them great was we had HERO'S THEN That we looked up to-policemen and firemen-john waYNE-every tv show was good vs evil-westerns,baseball players,etc.-remember the early version of dragnet-we had a lot to look up too.our dads were gods aftyer being in ww2.

these days the kids have what is called the anti-hero is look at-a bad person just shy of being in prison.

how many remember school rumbles like the jets and sharks-every thursday we had one after school.i remember the police coming to our homeroom to pick up this jd or that jd who we knew was always in trouble.the cops gave them what was called blue tickets-they had to come to the police station with their parents and talk to a counselor . if you got several of the blue tickets you went to reform school.

-the good old days-where's the lone ranger and john wayne when we ned them the most-joe

D500, I look at this way. You didn't have TV before that. Automobiles, a big deal when the new models came out every year and Sunday School most likely did you some good. Technology will get better but will people get better? Don

Well, we sure don't have the "problem" of many heroes today!  I cannot think of one living person on the national or international level who I would consider a hero, either real or imaginary.

Close as we come are the young men and women serving this nation today, and I often wonder what even motivates them to do so.  Lots of sacrifice; little reward.

Well, I liked Stormin' Norman a lot . . .

My heros are still the grunts who volunteer and I agree with Lee regarding Stormin' Norman who brought credibility back to our military. 

I also agree about "Stormin Norman". In the 50's he would have rode a white horse.

One of the best threads I have ever seen. I am enjoying the stories and the nostalgia immensely. I have so many thoughts I do not know where to begin. I imagine, the beginning would be a good start.

i was born in 1949 and grew up across the street from Yankee Stadium. I could watch the games from my window as we had a perfect view right over the right field Yankee bullpen. The "El" ran right by our house and, though visitors thought the sound was deafening, I rarely paid attention to it. When a Yankee, particularly Mickey Mantle, hit a home run, the furniture would rattle and I ran to see who hit it.

We played street games all the time. Sewer ball, stoop ball, stick ball, Johnny on the Pony, ring o' Leavio, stick ball, you name it. We saw the ball players all the time. I have an autograph book with all of the old Yankees. Guess what? All the autographs were free. Some of the greatest ball players of the era would line us up and sign until we all had several autographs. When the last kid got one, they would ask if there was anyone else.

I said stick ball twice.

We loved stickball.

The football Giants were kings and Roosevelt Grier used to put his arm around me when he saw me. Yogi would smile and Whitey Ford would roll his eyes. Casey Stengel would always call me, "Kid." If I had no ticket to the game, I could always sneak in by Gate 6. 

The guard was a big, fat guy who would yell at me but could never catch me. I went to the games myself at the age of 9. 

Every birthday and Hanukkah I would get trains. Our apartment was tiny,but my parents always let me set up the trains at Hanukkah time. I slept in the foyer and that is where the trains would go. My dad worked for the NYC Transit Authority and would take me down to Penn Station and put me on the GG-1's. Right in the cab. I remember how small it was and how huge the locomotive was.

Each year the highlight was the new catalogue of Lionel trains. I knew that meant another trip down to the Lionel showroom on 23rd St. I will never forget that huge steamer front that greeted us at the entrance.

you lived by yankee stadium in the 50's-wow-we had relatives in long island-we lived in sYracuse and it took us 8 hours back then to get to the island-i will always remember being on the cross county parkway at night and seeing yankee stadium lite up with a game on-my imagine went wild-mantle-yogi-casey stengel-whitey ford-etc.

playing the milwaukee braves-hank aaron-lew burdette-eddie mathews-warren spahn.

remember ej korvetes-i remember my uncle buiying me a roy rogers fix it stage coach.my most cherished item as a kid.

remember hot humid nights where we went to the ocean at night aand walked the boardwalk at jones beach-eAting coney island hotdogs vwith brown mustard and fries.they had load vspeakers blasting 50's music-still hear johnnie burdette singing DREAMING-randy and the rainbows-denise denise-SUCKS GETTING OLD

Sorry but I love the topic. Going to Yosemite and feeding the animals. The filming of Abbott and Costello's last film on our side yard. My sister and I in the same side yard. I'm the good looking one on the right. It's a good excuse to pull out some old pictures and remember. Don

Yes, Kenn, on an individual level, many or most will have their personal heroes.  I was referring to that title being applied more broadly on a national or even international level. But it's just like our recollections of the past...different reflections for different people, and all equally valid.

I thoroughly enjoy reading these individual accounts of things remembered from a 50s childhood (the true topic of this thread).  Even the smallest things bring back memories I can relate to, even though our individual experiences were different and in many ways unique.

"Johnny On A Pony," that was a tough game the way we played it!  Ya done tweaked my memory, Scrappy.

Pete

Pete,

My team never lost. I was the biggest guy and could jump pretty well.

When I landed, everything and everybody was splattered. Oh, the humanity.

Eliot

I share many of Eliot's experiences at the Stadium. Though I didn't live so close (we were in the north Bronx near the failed Freedomland) I did go to High School a few blocks away. Yes, the vernable Cardinal Hayes which produced many American luminaries like Regis Philbin, Martin Scorcese, Kevin Loughery, Jamal Mashburn and Jim Policastro! At 13 years of age we were allowed by our otherwise overprotective parents (as a member of New York's Finast my father 'saw it all') to travel by bus and subway to Yankee games...even on Friday nights. Amazing, huh? For 15-cents on the subway (thirty for us guys in the dreaded 'two fare zons") and a buck and a quarter for a general admission ticket we'd have a great time at a game. Not too much in the way of food purchases as we'd bring the sausage 'n peppa sangwhiches from home. It was not unusual for my friends and me to go to a game Friday night....back on Saturday and still again for the Sunday doublheader...all for under ten bucks. And like Eliot we were treated to players signing autographs near their parking lot or WALKING to the Grand Concourse to the Concourse Plaza Hotel where many lived. Summer baseball had the same wonderment that trains had for those few short weeks at Christmastime.

Was that the same game as Buck Buck? You would line up in a row braced against a telephone pole or flagpole and keep you heads down as one guy after another would run and jump on the row trying to collapse it. Used to play that at lunch time at Our Lady of Fatima in Baltimore. Never got seriously hurt but the nuns did look at us like we had something wrong with us!

Jerry

They certainly would not be able to find toy guns without red stoppers at the end of the barrels.

What, me worry??

Jerry,

You are correct.

Buck Buck is the same game.

eliot

Here's a few toys and games. Just enjoy and no politics please. Don

People were height/weight proportionate but didn't know it.

We played Johnny on the Pony in Brooklyn too and had to get put on the disabled list when a landing went wrong.

This is the funnest thread in a long time.

Alan

Did you ever whack an entire roll (or an entire box for the truly adventurous) with a hammer? Sounded like a bomb going off!

Or we used to take 2 bolts, one long and one short, and a nut, partly thread the nut on one bolt, fill the nut with cap dots , screw the other bolt on and throw it into the air, we called them hand grenades.  

Ahh, explosive devices and no parental interference, those were the days!

Jerry

The Fifties were a blast.

Reading these posts have brought back a lot of great memories for me. I am the oldest of five brothers, most of us two years apart in age. My younger brothers always got hand me downs as we passed along our bikes, wagons, scooters, skates, sleds, baseball gloves, footballs and other sporting equipment. I can remember playing cowboys and indians with the cap pistols and holsters. Cowboys on TV were popular back then. Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassity, The Cisco Kid and the Lone Ranger. Shows like Daniel Boone had everyone wearing coon skin hats. It's amazing how we could play all day just using our imagination. The lucky friends of mine who had trains always let us join with them as they ran the trains at Christmas time. I remember taking a bus downtown with my mother and marveled at the train displays set up in the big department stores. We all watched the Mickey Mouse Show, Captain Midnight and Winky Dink where you put a plastic sheet over your TV screen and drew pictures on it. We lived in a multicultural neighborhood where everyone was family. During the summer every ethnic group took turns cooking and feeding the neighborhood. The Italian and Polish families cooked home made dishes and being Jewish, my father would buy all kinds of deli foods. No one locked their doors and everyone looked out for their neighbors. Moving to the suburbs in 1957 when I was 10 years old was like starting all over again. I had to make new friends and readjust to having real ball fields to play on instead of an alley. Some of the kids in the neighborhood were kind of snobby at first but we all learned to get along together. We were the second family to move into our court or cul de sac and my next door neighbor, Charles who was my age invited me to have dinner with his family. It was the first time I had ever eaten chile! 

I learned early on that if I wanted something I had to work to earn it. With five boys to raise things were tight financially. My father took me to a sporting goods store where I saw a first basemens glove that I wanted really bad. It was about $25 which was a ton of money back then. I spent most of the summer cutting grass and saving everything I could until I had enough to buy that glove! When I went back to the store and purchased the glove I had the greatest feeling of accomplishment that you can imagine. It was a life lesson and taught me about the value of money. I went on to earn enought money to work my way through college without asking my father to pay anything. I've always been proud of that accomplishment. 

Yup. Then we'd walk around practically deaf for a while before doing it again. We also dropped bricks on whole rolls, and even covered them with model glue and lit them on fire.

Sometimes at the lake house in summer, my wife will have a fire going on the beach. I've been known to toss a roll of caps or a few fire crackers in the fire when she isn't looking. Good times when it goes off!