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Welcome to the Fifties

 Stroll with me....  close your eyes....and go back... before the internet...  before SEGA or Super Nintendo.... before semiautomatics and crack....      way back!
I'm talking about sitting on the curb, sitting on the stoop....  
about hide-and-go-seek; Simon says and red-light-green-light.
Lunch boxes with thermos.... chocolate milk, going home for lunch, penny candy from the store, hopscotch, butterscotch, skates with keys, jacks and cracker Jacks, hula hoops and sunflower seeds, wax lips and mustaches, MaryJanes, saddle shoes and Coke bottles with the names of cities on the
bottom.
  Remember when it took five minutes for the TV to warm up. When nearly everyone's mom was at home when kids got home from school. When nobody owned a purebred dog. When a quarter was a decent allowance.   When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.     When your mom wore nylons that came in two pieces. When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done everyday and wore high heels.
  Remember running through the sprinkler, circle pins, bobby pins,  Mickey Mouse Club, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Kookla, Fran and Ollie, Spin and Marty....all in black and white.  
 When around the corner seemed far away and going downtown seemed like going somewhere. Climbing trees, making forts, backyardshows, lemonade stands, cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, staring at clouds, jumping on the bed, pillow fights, ribbon candy, angel hair on the Christmas tree, Jackie Gleason, white gloves, walking to the movie theater, running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt... remember that?
  Not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back....  paper-chains at Christmas, silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington....  the smells of school, of paste and Evening in Paris.  
 What about the girl who dotted her "i's" with hearts?  The Stroll, popcorn balls and sock hops?   Remember when there were two types of sneakers for girls and boys (Keds and PF Flyers) and the only time you wore them at school was for "gym."    And the girls  had those ugly gym uniforms.  When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking - all for free -- every time!
 And, you didn't pay for air either and, you got trading stamps to boot!  When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.  
   When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.  When the worst thing you could do at school was flunk a test or chew gum.  And the prom was in the auditorium and you danced to a real orchestra.  When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed -- and did!  When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home.  
  Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
 Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was so much greater than the threat.
 Remember when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car -- used to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races?
 When people went "steady" and girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped Band-Aids, dental floss or yarn coated with pastel-frost nail polish so it would fit their finger.
 When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the car and house doors were never locked!  
 Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a..... ."  And playing baseball with no adults needed to enforce the rules of the game.  Remember when stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals, because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.  And,with all our progress; don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace..... and share it with the children of today?
 So send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk..... as well as the sound of a reel mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling, visits to the pool.... and eating Kool-Aid  powder with sugar from the palm of your hand.and my favorite white lipstick,  big hair do's and sock hops.
 
Candy cigarettes  
Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.  
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles.  
Coffee shops with table side juke boxes  
Blackjack, Clove, and Teaberry chewing gum  
Home milk delivery in glass bottles, with cardboard stoppers.  
Party lines.  
Newsreels before the movie.  
P. F. Flyers  
Butch wax  
Telephone numbers with a word prefix ...(Drexel-5505)  
Pea shooters.  
Howdy Doody  
45 RPM Records  
Green Stamps  
Hi-fi's  
Metal ice cube trays--with levers  
Mimeograph paper  
Blue flash Bulbs  
Beanie and Cecil  
Roller skate keys  
Cork pop guns  
Drive ins  
Studebakers  
Wash tub wringers  
The Fuller Brush man  
Reel-to-reel tape recorders  
Tinker toys  
The Erector Set  
The Fort Apache Play set  
Lincoln Logs  
15 cent McDonald hamburgers  
5 cent packs of baseball cards...with that great pink slab of bubble gum  
Penny candy  
35 cent-a-gallon gasoline  
Girls dancing with girls.
The Jitter-Bug.
Poodle Skirts.
Bobby Socks.
Hair Rollers.
Dear Diary.
Transistor Radios.
Cat's Eye glasses (frames)
Penny Loafers.
Charm Bracelets (that told your life story)
Felt bows in girls hair
Tiny Tears dolls
Howdy Beef Burgers

 There, didn't that feel good?  Just to lean back  and say: "Yeah, I remember......." ;D
 

Oklahoma Howdy to Ambassador4Christ,

 ;D  Yes, I do remember. Been there - done that - got the t-shirt. However, all of the t-shirts were plain then (no colors, no pictures, etc.). If you wanted to be cool, you made a roll of the sleeve in the t-shirt or you cut the sleeve off.   ;D

Thanks, I had fun reading that.

In Christ,
Tom

Thank you so much. You have made my day.
My best friend's son, who is now 22, used to ask us what it was like when we were young. Wish I would have had this then. He was shocked at how life was for us then. "you mean there was no video games?" 'Mother May I' was more fun than video games.
I smiled so much reading your post my mouth hurts.
Bless you brother.
Yours in Christ.  Roy.

Very nice post. I wish it were the fifties still.  :)

I enjoyed this also, how about one for the 60's

Brother Love :)