Life demands of the 50's

[DLCTEX]

I've had a little down time recently, and in the wanderings of my mind I wandered back to my childhood. I recall trying to learn to ride a bike on an old relic with no tires and a bar so high as to make the ground unreachable for a five year old, talk about incentive to keep going! It's a wonder I was able to father six sons . That may have been the impetus for my becoming adept at hoop rolling. For those so deprived as to be unknowledgdable(no, I didn't say ignorant) of hoop rolling, I'll explain. The old horse drawn wagons and wooden wheeled implements had metal rings fitted around the wooden hubs to add strength to the stress areas. In 1950 these were plentiful in our area, and became a form of entertainment before TV came along. The idea was to start a hoop rolling and then propell and guide it by pushing with a forked stick. By keeping the fork just below center, you could keep it going indefinitely, even at a fast trot. I say indefinitely because factors beyond your control could come into play, such as being out run by the hoop on a steep hill, or a dumb dog deciding to catch the hoop, things like that. When you reached the level of expertise that allowed you to hook a thumb into the waistband of your cut offs and rest your arm while keeping up the pace, you entered an area of potential disaster. Just an instant of inattention could result in your being empaled on the forked stick as the ground leaps up and grabs your stick and educates you in the methodology of pole vaulting, which fact is not usually grasped until long after you finally regain the ability to suck air in and release it with regularity. If I had a nickle for every mile of hoop rolling I put in, I'd retire now. There were so many things calling for attention, such as can walking, stilts, lauching rocks with a long board teetered over a fence, pumping water out of the horse trough with a pipe teetered over the edge,building fences with boards to contain a large herd of Horned Toad
"cows",racing tumble weeds,jumping into dust devils,burning ants with a magnafying glass,stealing watermelons from Old Man Rieves Patch, cave building (trenches covered with boards and buried),capturing a baby hawk for falconry(baby buzzards have an excellent defense system, puke, don't ask), besides keeping your hand in as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong, Lash Larue, then the resposibility of training puppies and pestering cats. These are justa few of the things demanding attention almost daily in the 50's. Why with all the responsibilities I had, I don't know why I never listed the experience on my resume, I probably would have wound up as CEO of a large corporation.
Any other CEO material out there? Wall Street Waits! DALE:coffeecom

[NVcurmudgeon]

Dale, from your resume, you must be near my age, (70.) With a few regional and suburban vs. rural differences, I did most of those things. I used to get my cowboy movie fix at the big kids show every Saturday morning, featuring a western, a serial and a jillion cartoons. Admission was a quarter (1946-50) and if you had another quarter, you could eat yourself sick. Real rubber inner tubes were available for scrounging at the corner service station, so we made rubber guns from a board and a clothespin to launch band of inner tube with a knot tied in the end. That was an age when 9 or 10 year olds could go hiking in the hills all day, without freaking their mothers out. If you were a little bigger and had a bike you could ride to the city pier for a day of fishing. We had such freedom in those days! Never did get very good at hoop rolling, though!

[Junior1942]

Ah, the good ol' days of the 50s. Im 64. Picture shows in this little town cost 10 cents. We'd smear a penny with mercury to make it look like a dime, and the old lady in the ticket booth couldn't tell the difference. Remember Lash LaRue? He gave a whip demo once in the theater, and someone stole his car.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Hanging around the rail head trying to get a ride on a steam train, occasionally being successful and having a longgggggggggggggggg walk home :D. I was with my cousin Terry once and a steam train driver gave us a ride. I got to drive the train under his instructions and Terry got to be fireman. Boy, I'm 59 and whenever I see Terry at a family gathering, there is no way we can resist talking about the day we drove the steam train. Used to get rusty bits of old discarded corrugated iron roofing material and using it as a sled down the sand dunes behind my Grandma's place. I winded myself so badly one day I could breath out, but could not breath in. I'll never forget it, I blacked out eventually and then came to some time later. Did we mention this to Grandma? No way! Limped home and licked my wounds under the house until I felt a bit better.

Taking a bucket and walking along the train line looking for dropped coal for the stove and heating fire. It took me a couple of years to wake up that if I filled the bucket up as I walked away from Grandma's house, I had to carry it back. D'Oh! I eventually started putting the bits of coal on the sleepers and when I reckoned I had enough, I turned around and walked back picking it up and putting it into the bucket. I borrowed a spare bucket off the railway guards and used to collect two buckets, felt like my arms were going to rip out from the sockets. I used to hide the spare bucket load in the backyard and when I was sent out next time, I'd lurk in the orchard behind Grandma's eating fruit or over at the Chinese market garden stealing strawberries. Stagger back with a belly full of fruit and give Grandma the bucket of coal. She woke up to me I think, because I was sent out one day for coal and sat out back gorging myself on ripe peaches. Staggered back in with a bucket full of coal and a belly full of peaches and found Grandma had cooked a big apple pie, made me sit down and eat a bigggggg piece covered in whipped cream from her cows. Boy I thought I wolud bust that day :D

Did I mention that there was no fence on the railway line, didn't need one, no one was fool enough to walk down there witout keeping their eyes open for trains.

We used to do the mercury thing as well Junior, our pennies were about the same a two shilling coin (1 shilling = 12 pennies). I got the tar whaled out of me with the cane, pulling that one at school. No one thought how dangerous the mercury was.

We went to the movies on Saturday, used to get two shillings, one shilling and three pence got us into the good seats upstairs, six pence got us a big ice cream cone and three pence change got us a bag of lollies. Bliss!

[DLCTEX]

I'll be 62 in July, in 1949-50 the Saturday afternoon movie cost 5 cents, which we came up with by scrounging pop bottles for the 2 cent deposit. Three bottles got you in the movie with a penny for a piece of bubble gum. This was at my Grandmothers in Gustine, Tx. When at home it was too far to town for movies, so we listened to The Shadow, Lum and Abner, The Lone Ranger, etc. on radio.Dale

[Maineboy]

Dale, I hope everything works out well for you. It seems that whenever I'm facing a crisis my my mind wanders back to my childhood. I guess that's a normal thing.
Things WERE different back then. I was born in 1950. I remember that in the summer, we left our houses at about 8:00 AM, came back for lunch around noon, unless we were on some great excursion and we took a sandwich and a jar of water with us, then didn't come home again until suppertime. Mom hardly ever asked where we'd been. We had a big patch of woods nearby and our big thing was building tree houses. We'd start construction on one as soon as the snow left the ground and work on it for a few weeks. When it got done, it became our headquarters for the summer. We'd often sleep out in it or in home made tents (a card table, or two, or three, with a blankets draped over them and held in place with rocks and bricks). Then in the fall, just before the snow came, we'd tear the tree house down and store the lumber. The following spring we'd build another tree house with it, this time higher and deeper into the woods.
Another thing I did often was go fishing. There was a little brook not far from the house and we could often catch enough small brook trout for mom to cook up. Man, I can still taste them. There's a little brook near where I live now that no one fishes. I think I'll give it a try when the snow is all gone water level drops some.

[castalott]

I 'm not quite as old as you guys but close....

remember these....

homemade blackberry jelly with real butter on grandma's homemade bread....

eating the best preaches in the orchard instead of putting them in the basket...

picking apples in the fall.....

hunting 'wabbits' with rifle after a snow....

putting a watermelon in ice water before all your neighbors showed up to visit...

watching BIG fields of lightning bugs...just amazing!....

looking at the stars and lightning storms...

enjoying freedom as meant by the Founding Fathers.....

[454PB]

I have two grandsons, one 11 and one nearly 5. The idea that they could head out into the neighborhood or the woods on thier own and be gone for most of the day is ridiculous in today's world. I did things like that all the time as a kid. I even watch them nervously when they are out shopping with me, recently in our home town, several sicko's have tried to grab kids out of shopping malls and Costco. One girl was selling Koolaid on a street corner and a guy tried to lure her into his car. kind of sad, huh?

[1hole]

[dale clawson;...scrounging pop bottles for the 2 cent deposit. Three bottles got you in the movie with a penny for a piece of bubble gum. ... we listened to The Shadow, Lum and Abner, The Lone Ranger, etc. on radio.]

Dale, you bring back memories of a time before the "liberals" made everything better by teaching kids all about what they were "entitled to" and "to resist authority", etc.

I remember my consternation when the price of a Saturday movie in north Florida jumped to .15 in the early 50s but my friend and I made it anyway. We lived maybe two miles from the mid-town movie AND the beer hall that paid .02 for each bottle returned. We would push our bikes along, one on either side of the highway, untll we each had 13 bottles. Those bottles bought us a ticket, a "coke". a candy bar and a piece of gum. If we got lucky and found another 2 bottles we would forget the gum and get a box of popcorn for another nickle. we would buy the eats one at a time because there was a .01 tax on any purchases of .10 or more. The sales tax was .03 on the dollar but it started at a dime and that was burden to poor kids with "working fathers"!

After the movie we would ride off to find our friends, sometimes though the black part of town, everyone being peaceful and respectful on both sides, and play cowboys and indians with cap guns until near dark before going home. We would get a tongue lashing for staying out so long our dinner was cold and making mom wait for us before washing dishes but no one worried about our safety.

Ah, how well kids lived before the liberals began to fix society to be politcally correct.

[Char-Gar]

Let's see.. humm.. 50's huh?

1) No supermarkets only grocery stores with boxes etc. on shelves to the ceiling. Ladders and long grippy things to get the cereal boxes down from high shelves.

2) Tube radios that took a few second to warm up and come on.

3) The FBI In Peace and War, Inner Sanctem, Sky King, Lousiana Hayride, Judy Canova, Fred Allen, Jimmy Durante, Walter Wenchell and Gabreil Heater.

4) Nickle Saturday afternoon movies, a nickle box of popcore and a nickle coke.

5) No such thing as calculators, plastic bag and most of everything else in our present day lives.

6) Cash registers with a crank on the side

7) Cars with running boards

8) Catching fire flys in jars while the grownups played Dominos on the porch at night.

9) Never ending Summers

10) Teachers with paddles that knew how to use them

11) Sleeping with the windows open and a fan going to stir up the air

12) Men's bathing suits with belts,top and womens with skirts.

13) Men's garters to hold up their socks

14) Sitting on top of the ice cream freezer while somebody else cranked.

15) Safety Sally's signs at the school crossings.

It was a different world, a very good, innocent and peaceful work for a Texas kid to grow up in.

[waksupi]

How about the old WLS Barndance, and music on Saturday night, straight from the Grand 'Ol Opery. THAT was real country music.

[Dye]

No body mentioned WCKY Cincinati 1 Ohio and the guaranteed bug killer .

Be carefull Dye

[Bigjohn]

Now, I'm not as old as some of those who have posted in this thread but I can remember the end of that era.

No Supermarkets, you went to a grocerygeneral store to get most of the weekly shopping, sugar that was measured out of a bulk bag, biscuits from a large box, fruit in wooden crates and everything weighed and packed in paperbags.

Roaming the town playing with friends, feeling for taddies after the rain in muddy water, the old party line phones and the radio plays for entertainment.

I also remember the cousins casting boolits with gas fired pot and ladles; about .30 cal. and maybe .38 WCF.

Digging tunnels between two holes then up to ground level and putting a roof over the trench to make the tunnel.

Walking around barefoot looking for scorpions, snakes and other bugs.

Steam engines, desiel electric locomotives and DC-3 aircraft.

A mum who would say; "If you don't behave, I'll tell your father and he'll give you the strap." And of course a Father trying his best to feed the family while mum was in hospital bring the next addition to the family into the world. Had to put up with some running custards and junkets at those times.

Aww shucks fella's; I'm getting all choked up just think about them times; memories are bring forth a tear or two. Wouldn't it be good if we could live a little of those times again just now and again; for old times sake.

Must go before I start to cry, sniff!

John.

[Four Fingers of Death]

The fish and chip shop used to buy clean newspapers at 1 penny a pound. I used to salt the newspapers away and head down there every month or so with my sister. We'd come away with 1-2 shillings and spend it on ice cream cones and lollies. Sit around with a belly ache after that.

If you returned beore late afternoon, Mum thought that there was something wrong or you wanted something. Once you finished your chores around the place we disappeared into the backyard and beyond.

Having a rotten peach fight with my sister and little brother in the backyard, getting covered in slop, laughing fit to bust and washing off under the hose.

Going outside and down the back to go to the toilet.

Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping the soot and coal dust fallout from the numerous steam powered trains off the paths.

Mowing the lawn with a push mower, trimming the fence line with a pair of crutching shears, mannnnn! that was painful. My old man was handy with all sorts of tools, did carpentry, plumbing, electrical work at home, but didn't have a clue about sharpening. Those old shears were as blunt as all get out. I made a point of learning how to sharpen suff when I grew up, everything I own is like a razor now.

Dad bought a petrol powered lawn mower so he could cut Grandma's lawn for her on the way home from work as she got older. When she died, he bought the very basic lawnmower home and gave it to me, boy I thought I'd died and gone to heaven :D Actually thanked Grandma when I said my prayers before bed the first time I used it.

You also never, ever said that you were bored, you were given a job right smartly. In fact, you made sure you bolted as soon as you finished your chores so you didn't score any other jobs.

Watching TV at night in the electrical shop window near the hospital when Mum was having a baby. Imagine leaving a 9yr old minding his 6 yr old sister outside a shop in the city at night nowadays. We didn't have telly (they came out much later in Australia) and we thougth it was great.

On school holidays, Dad would drop us off at La Perouse on his way to work just before 800am, meet us at the wharf at lunch time and have lunch with us, then pick us up at 500pm and take us home. I was about 10 and my sister was three years younger. We explored around the wharf, the boats and the rocks in the bay and had a great time. At Christmas time, I used to take the kids down to the Sydney CBD every year to see the Christmas displays in the big shops.

Parents would get locked up now if they let that happen.

[Bret4207]

I'm not an old codger like some of you, but- I can recall being sent to the movies with my younger sister with $2.00 in my hand. That got us in the movie, a soda and some candy, with change left over.

A few other thoughts-

HOT doughnuts, HOT cars, everyone smoked, log trucks with 3-4 logs filling the trailer, cable dozer Cats, cable shovels, the TV repairman came to the house, double stack antennas, our first color TV, PAUL HARVEY (still here today), hardware stores sold guns, fishing gear, traps, housewares, packages tied with string, greasing wheel bearings and everything else that might possibly move on a car, getting 20K out of a set of tires and bragging about it, going 500 miles over 2,500 and worrying about not changing the oil soon enough, setting points every 2 weeks, mowing 6-8 acres of "lawn" with a 6 hp Rugg rider with a 30" cut, those shear type grass trimmers and our first electric trimmer!- a Disston ( all the neighbors talked about that), cardborad oil cans that collapsed when you tried to punch a hole in them with the "right" type of spout but always worked with a screwdriver, DDT was wonderful, 2,4,D was wonderful, Miracle Grow was high tech, my Dad complaining when a bushel of clams went up to $7.00, SALT POTATO'S!!!, skiers who came to town, stayed and spent money and didn't talk down to you like they do now, the scandal when my aunt divorced, the local contractor who just hooked his loader bucket over the tailgate on his dump truck, lifted the front wheels on the loader and drove around without the slightest problem, finding my first Playboy in the same contractors truck, discovering who it was that got to pull the old septic lines out of the ground after he dug them up (me! my first paying job), putting a penny on the tracks and waiting for a train, myself and the former DA of my home County finding out that a 22 WILL go off if you smash it between two rocks, Communists, Communists, Communists.

[Bob B]

You fellows make me feel late middle aged,I will be 72 in August. Bob B

[Junior1942]

How about chamber pots? We called them "slop jars." My maternal grandparents kept theirs under grandpa's side of the bed. During a weekend visit with them my brother and I slept on a quilt pallet in their bedroom. One of us used the slop jar in the night and didn't slide it back under the bed. Next morning grandpa got out of bed and his feet turned over the FULL slop jar and sent its smelly contents all over the bedroom floor.

PS to 1hole: our greatx10grandchildren will live well when they pay off the debt made by this generation's conservative leadership.

[Newtire]

How about the old WLS Barndance, and music on Saturday night, straight from the Grand 'Ol Opery. THAT was real country music.

Hi Waksupi,

Was that WLS in Chicago? Remember listening to Dick Biondi the (Wolfman Jack of the midwest). I remember alot of those things like the 2 cent pop bottle deposit.

[Scrounger]

Thanks for the memories, Junior. I'd almost forgot that; well, back to the therapist... We must have had similar upbringings and now have similar political philosophies although I hate the word Democrat as much as I do Republican. I try to look beyond the label.

[waksupi]

Yep, WLS from Chicago. We were close enough to get it after sunset.

[Pilgrim]

During the school year I walked to school (50's & 60's) and after school in the fall I'd grab my shotgun and walk about 3/4 mile from the middle of town where we lived to hunt ducks in the "swamp". Football sure enough interferred with that bit of fun. The coaches took a dim view of my skipping practice to go hunting. In the spring and early fall I'd head to the other side of town and fish in the river for sea run cutthroat and "jacks" (immature salmon spawners). In the summer I had to live out at the summer cabin where my folks spent the whole summer. No other kids within 3 miles, no stores, no theaters, no busses, no dirvers license, and parents who weren't interested in taking me anyplace. I spent most of my time reading, fishing (we were on a lake 13 miles long x up to 2 miles wide), or I'd grab my .22 pump and a box or two of shells and my dog and head up into the woods. No roads within maybe 15 or 20 miles in pretty much any direction away from the house and lake front. Nobody asked where I'd been or what I'd seen and when running into strangers on my way home (sometimes hitch-hiking) nobody even looked twice at the rifle or me. It was lonely, but I miss the freedom. Pilgrim

[axxman928]

Anybody remenber Randy Blake from WJJD in Chicago? Sold every thing from Gypsy
bait oil to tomb-stones. Everybody knew their neighbors on both sides of the
block.The block parties that happened on the week-ends. Everybody used to help
neighbors out. People seem to be to busy now.Guess I'm getting too old.It's a
shame that the grandkids can't experience that part of growing up.Getting kind
of misty eyed. Later. axxman928

[MT Gianni]

Yea but I also remember planting and selling vegetables from a roadside stand at age 5, hand milking 12 head, jumping on an Allis Chalmers tractor to cross cultivate and not knowing what air conditioning was all before the age of 10. I was working in the fields all summer long, usually for relatives, hoeing sugar beets for $25 an acre in the 60's, and not having a lot to show for it. I could wrestle but not play football or baseball because those happened during warm or farming weather.
I still consider it a better day to not see someone than to see someone in the outdoors when hunting or fishing. I appreciate todays gear far more than an old cotton sack for a pack and the ability to actually see more than 3 or 4 pistols for sale at the gun store. Nostaglia is good but we have it pretty good now also. Gianni.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I'd forgotten about the chamber pots (called po out here, pronounced poe, short for pot I suppose), putting coins on the train tracks, sitting about 6' from the track while watching for the squashing and the driver and engineer and guards just waving and not calling the Police. Everybody waved at trains and the passengers and railway workers always waved back we didn't have many buses going distances at the time because of the horrid roads. Setting points, changing oil (still a bit vigirous in that regard), helping cut rust (read filling up with nicky, now called bog, I think you guys call it bondo) out of the car every year for the registration check, leaking windscreens. Helping dad re groove tyres with a soldering iron tool he borrowed off a friend who owned a taxi cab. Changing one tyre at a time because you paid cash for everything. Horse drawn baker and milk carts (we had some vehicular ones as well), stables everywhere in the middle of the ciy in the 50s and 60s, cops riding motor bikes with sidecars, pulling short rubber lead filled batons out of the little pocket near the normal pants pocket when they went into my grandfathers pub to break up a riot. The Black Moriah, which was a big truck sized prison van with two cops sitting on the back and two in the front. Grandpa flattening three trouble makers (the fourth one bolted) who baled him up at the back of the pub when he came to let me in and him throwing the unconscious louts in a heap on the street without calling the police and the louts not calling the police (called copping it sweet) because they knew they'd get another serve off the police. SP bookies in the back of the pubs (SP=starting price, race horse bookmakers, aka bookies), the 'cockatoo' (lookout) sitting on a garbage tin in the lane behind the watching for cops.

Getting take away from Chinese restruants in your own pots and pans (no plastic stuff then). Everything made to last.

[Char-Gar]

Speaking of slop jars.chamber pots reminds me of the time I was spending the night with my country cousin. They put us kids on the "sleeping porch" in an old iron bed with rusty springs. Just about the time I was starting to get drowsey, Cousin Elrod slid out of the bed and got down on his knees.

I figured he was saying his prayers and I didn't want my country Baptist cousin to think his city Methodist cousin didn't have proper manner or good religion, so I slid out of the other side and got down on my knees.

Elrod, looked at me accross the bed and asked, "Cousin Charles, what is it that you are a doing over there?", I said.. well same as you. He said.. "You better not be a doing that because the pot is on this side of the bed.".






The above is a parable and not meant to be taken as litteral truth.