Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s

[Jeff S]

If you lived as a child in the 50's, 60's or 70's. Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have...

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking to town as a young kid!) We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and Then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable.

We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth, and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame, but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight......... we were always outside playing.

We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games at all, 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, Personal Computers, Internet chat rooms ... we had friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it? We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't, had to learn to deal with disappointment.... Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.....Horrors. Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law, imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them. Congratulations! Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

[Jimbo]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

that sounds like the Philippines of today.  That's one thing I really like about the RP - good old fashioned freedom!

I think about that when I see school buses in America stopping at EVERY driveway with mom standing there watching over them.  They can't even let kids walk to the next street corner by themselves.

Jim

[Jeff S]

... in response to In some ways,, posted by Jimbo on Jan 5, 2003

Isn't it amazing. I'd have been soooo embarrassed if my mother had to walk me to the bus stop - then waited there til the bus came. Where did all this fear come from? There can't be more perverts now than 40 years ago - just more publicity.

My wife spent two hours each way - on public transportaton changing trains several times commuting from Yokohama to Tokyo in grade school. I'm talking a 6 year old in Tokyo rush hour subways without adult supervision.

I wonder if we're doing kids a service or just stunting their development. Is it a surprise that 25 year olds aren't mature enough to get married these days.

Welcome home, Jimbo. I enjoyed reading your adventures. Ever do any wreck diving? I have quite an extensive database of southern California shipwrecks if you're interested.

- Jeff

[Jimbo]

... in response to Re: In some ways,, posted by Jeff S on Jan 6, 2003

[This message has been edited by Jimbo]

Thanks Jeff,

A SC shipwreck database?  Sounds great.  You sure got a
lot of boating hobbies!

Maybe next time I'll get wreck certified in Coron.  They've
got Japanese wrecks there.  I'd really like to see some
planes too, some Zeros!

Jim --transfering in HK

[The Walker]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

Leaving soon for Argentina. Vicky is as excited as if it were Christmas Eve.

As for the children of the 50's and 60's, I am guilty. I was born in early 1953. I remember "duck and cover" drills in elementary school in fear of nuclear attack, so it wasn't all good.

I was shooting as soon as I could hold a gun, had a bb gun by 4 and a .22 rifle at 6. By 8 I was putting meat on the table. These days allowing a child to hunt squirrels with a rifle alone at 8 is child abuse, I'm pretty sure. But there were few deviants roaming the lands. These days I am afraid to let my grandson out of my sight, for fear some deadly deviant will get him, there are so many. I betcha Judge Lynch could solve a good deal of this problem.

I skateboarded when that was new (by then dad was transferered to California) and we had no skate parks or pads or helmets, and I got pavement rash weekly. We made our own boards in shop class out of wood and plywood and old roller skates. I was on the scene when Silly Putty, the Frisbee and the Hula Hoop all became popular. Also the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Beatles and the Stones. I saw Mattel, Barbie, McDonald's, Popeil, Ronco and the Pocket Fisherman come on the scene. In fact, we used to go to one of the first McDonald's restaurants. They had on the menu: fries, hand-mixed MILK shakes, the orange drink of their own recipe, Coke and 7-Up, the fish sandwich, single and double hamburgers and cheeseburgers, and the hot apple pies (fried then). No Big Macs or fancy theme sandwiches. The only chain restaurant that had theme sandwiches was good old Jack in the Box. Even Planter's peanuts had a chain hamburger store called the Topper. But there were no nation-wide chains then. Pizza delivery was few and far between and almost no one ate carry-out Chinese outside of California. Most hamburgers were eaten at home. Mom didn't go in for TV dinners, thank heaven. She was a graduate of the Cordon Bleu. We only ate McDonalds when we were out running around shopping or something. Remember the old 5 and dime stores? Almost every one had a short-order bar in it (fast food was not a phrase then). Come to think of it, there WAS one nation-wide chain back then. A&W root beer stands. Many of them had car hops on roller skates in the drive-in section and served root beer in frosted glass mugs.

Another thing that was big back then, which has fallen off lately, was the drive-in movies. With the rush to THX and all, drive-ins are a dying breed. I saw a ton of movies in them as a child. We wore our pajamas to the drive-in because we would always fall asleep on the way home. The drive-in snack bar was cheap and good and had a wide variety of foods and beverages. Later on, a good part of dating and romance was accomplished in the drive-in. I learned a lot about love in the drive-in movies. ;-) Monster movies were the rage and I saw a bunch of Godzilla and other monsters eating Japan one bite at a time, and classics like the Creature from the Black Lagoon series, B-grade sci-fi movies like Robot Monsters from Mars and Mars Needs Women. Of course there were all the Frankie and Annette beach movies like Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini. Also cheap werewolf and vampire movies and the queen of B-grade monster movies, Infra-man. That was before the time when drive-ins became a hangout that showed only triple-X movies. Back then, any drive-in that dared to show triple X would have been burned to the ground. About as sexy as they got was the Mondo Italian movies like Mondo-Teeno. But the best part about the drive-in was the playground down by the screen and the Roadrunner and Pink Panther cartoons before the coming attractions started. Those were the days of James Dean and a young Marlon Brando, of Elvis movies and Beach movies, and made-in-a-week sci-fi movies.

And we had Saturday morning cartoons! Space Ghost, King Kong, Astro Boy, Hercules, Tobor the 8th Man, George of the Jungle, Bugs Bunny and Tweety and Scooby Doo and Pixie and Dixie. All the rest. None of us ever dropped an anvil on anyone from watching cartoons. Besides, all there was on was ABC, NBC and CBS. You had to figure out which cartoon was the best, as there were no VCRs to tape one show while another was on. We had vinyl albums with real cover art you could see without a magnifying glass, and cheap 45 rpm singles. TV was black and white. Walter Cronkite did the news, and FM radio was for classical music only. American Top 40 had caught on, and Dick Clark looked remarkably like he does now (he must be either an alien, a vampire, or Dorian Grey's brother) on American Bandstand which back then was based in Philadelphia. Transistors had made small-portable radios for the average kid, with their two-inch, tinny sounding speakers, and a nine transistor radio was the bomb. You could still buy tube radios and the tubes for them. Almost all TVs were tube based, until about the same time color TV came on line, when transistors made an inroad into television sets. Even then, the power transformer in the back was likely to be composed of tubes. Zenith and Motorola and RCA were the brands. You had to manually defrost most refrigerators, ovens were NOT self-cleaning, and Easy Off oven cleaner would take off your hide if you weren't careful. It was applied with the included brush and taken off with gloves and a sponge, on mom's knees. Floors had to be manually mopped and paste-waxed intil the mid 60s when polymer-based instant floor waxes came along. The car either got Simonize or Turtle Wax or Johnson's paste wax (which was used on everything from shoes to cars to floors to furniture, and still is). God Bless America, the mini-skirt and the bikini arrived in force. Although in most schools up until the mid 70s, school dress codes forced girls to wear skirts that would touch the ground if they kneeled. Long hair on boys became common, but was still not allowed in most schools in the midwest until the 80s.

Cars. Cars are wimpy now. I can remember when the cubic inch displacement was exceeded only by the horsepower. The Corvette, the early Camaro, the Hemi, the Super Bee, the Satellite Sebring, the GTX Judge, the Chevy II, the Nova, the MUSTANG!, the Barracuda, the Buick GS Stage One, the Chevelle SS 396, the 4-4-2, the GTO, the '56 Chevy hot rods. Hurst Mystery Shifters, Holly 4-barrel carburators. Don "Big Daddy" Garlits. The Snake and The Mongoose funny car wars. The Rat Fink. Craig Breedlove and the Spirit of America on the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Being paddled in school and then paddled when you got home, too.

Surfin' Safari. Restored Woodys. Wipe Out. Flower Power. Woodstock. Hootenanny. AFL/NFL, NBL/ABL, AL/NL. Marilyn Monroe. The first James Bond movie. Elvis, Sonny & Cher together in wolly vests, Mony-Mony, Crystal Blue Persuasion, Smothers Brothers, Laugh In, My Mother the Car, Josie and the P-ssycats, Jabber Jaw; Mercury, Gemini, Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon, Apolo 13 as it happened, Kennedy assassinated, Vietnam, the Draft, Skylab, the arms race, nuclear submarines, the X-15, early space probes like Voyager & Sputnik, the Space Race, Joe Namath and the Jets & the Bachelors Three, Vince Lombardi and the Packers. Green-shaded, slo-mo instant replay. Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays. The first Superbowl. Color Television. The Price is Right. Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby and Sirhan-Sirhan. Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King and The March to Atlanta. The Juneau earthquake. Girl Watching. Playboy. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The Elephant Walk. Beatlemania. H-ll's Angels. The birth of Heavy Metal. The King Biscuit Flower Hour. Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. The Midnight Special featuring Wolfman Jack. Wolfman Jack broadcasting from a zillion-watt AM station in Mexico and heard all over the western hemisphere. Thunderbird Sport Coupes. Convertables. Station wagons. Leaded gas at 29 cents a gallon, no 55 limit and no danged catalytic converters or PCV valves. Gas wars. Julia Child and the French Chef. Captain Kangaroo. Romper Room. Adam 12, Dragnet and Highway Patrol. Rin-Tin-Tin and Sky King and the Mickey Mouse Club. Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies on Sunday afternoon TV, with Shirley Temple movies on Saturdays. TV stations signing off at night and "test patterns". Late night monster movie fests on TV on Friday and Saturday nights. Jeepers Creepers featuring Jeeper's Keeper. TV antennas that turned by electric motor.

Marriages that lasted.

I can go on for hours, but I imagine you are all tired of it by now.

Don

[SteveB]

... in response to Re: Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by The Walker on Jan 5, 2003

I also enjoyed the Sat. morning tv shows: My Friend Flicka, Fury, Sky King, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

[Carr]

... in response to Re: Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by The Walker on Jan 5, 2003

Man, your time machine is awesome. I could taste the food and hear the music just by reading your post.

My childhood back in the PI was spent playing with tin cans on the street.  Then come Friday night, my friends, cousins and the rest of the relatives would gather in our living room to watch Dracula movies. Since my family were the first to have television in our community, my Kuya (older brother) would make 'tickets' which us younger kids would sell to kids on the street so they could watch TV with us. We do this when there's a popular movie being shown on TV--usually Dracula or Darna, a Pinay superhero.  I remember the price of tickets were 25 cents just for watching and 35 cents for movie and drinks.  

Those were the best of times.

[chevy]

... in response to Re: Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by The Walker on Jan 5, 2003

Excellent recap of the good old days.

My favorite was the movie"thirteen ghosts" with those glasses they gave you so you could the ghosts in the movie.

[SteveB]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

We had excellent music also!  Thanks for the memories!!!!!

[Dave H]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

[This message has been edited by Dave H]

Hi Jeff,

That was GREAT! Sure brings back some fond memories. I'm still doing some of those things...but now I remember to put brakes on the go-carts and mini-bikes. Maybe I'll give up worm eating (tequila) for my New Years Resolution. LOL No biggie...my brother used to eat caterpillars. )))

Dave H.

[shadow]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

ate far too many of those lead paint chips!!!

Larry.

[Bob S]

... in response to A few people..., posted by shadow on Jan 3, 2003

chips.... aghghgh

[Zebson]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

Good stuff Jeff, you sound a bit like my Mother who is will be 88 on the 7th of this month, and she used to talk the same way to me when I was growing up, Ha ha.. (How times change)...And yet there is so much truth and accuracy in your reflections, having grown up during that same time you speak of in a rural California neighborhood myself, your absolutely right and it's kind of sad in a way when I think back and then look at the way things are today.

Now things seem way over managed now. It's seems quite out of control sometimes, when I hear the constant wining that goes on from kids and younger adults today about ridiculous stuff. All these controls and regulating of this and that and the lawyers (Opps nothing personal, Stephen and the out of control insurance for everything that is messing up everything, etc.. Still I try to keep my head up too. Anyway I better stop before I go on a rampage, thanks for the memories!!....

Zeb

[Humabdos]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

If we don't stop them we will be wearing helmets in our cars next! Everyday we louse a little more freedom. :-(

Hum

[yorktr]

... in response to Children of the 50s, 60s and 70s, posted by Jeff S on Jan 3, 2003

n/t