REMEMBRING THE 50’S

 It was a time when people respected their elders, when men made enough money to support their families and women could stay at home and raise families if they chose to without having other women berate them for not "working" outside the home. Kids felt safer because most people were, and stayed married. 

That period certainly wasn't perfect however, yes, I remember the 50's fondly. In fact, I became smitten for the first time in 1956 watching the Ed Sullivan show. So excited I was, that I ran into my mother and grabbed her by the hand to show her a loose-hipped, gel-haired swooner named Elvis and declared "That's the man I'm going to marry". I was seven.

Elvis was not only a singer. He was a bona-fied sex symbol that blended black American singing and dress style and mannerisms with his own. He was so influential that young men began to wear their hair like him and began dressing like him. And who could blame them. Elvis drove girls into a wild frenzy. He made them faint.
I was only 9 and I could feel it. I mean, I wanted to marry him after I took a look at those loose hips and sultry eyes.

Yes, things were different back then. Mores were stricter. Families were closer. Religion was more important. You took responsibility for things you did.

Kids came home to mothers instead of sitters or an empty house. We rode bikes everywhere without fear of being abducted by strangers (not that it never happen), were polite to adults, went to church on Sunday with our families, respected the flag and loved our country. We ate home-made meals of pot roast, meat loaf, spaghetti and casseroles seated around the table together. And unlike my father's generation where children were seen and not heard, we talked and played cards or checkers with our grandparents when we visited them, went to the movies with church groups, and if you had a mind to, even discussed current events , the latest movies and what you were doing in school at the dinner table.

My mother, along with all the other mothers, wore a dress when she went to the store...or anywhere, even at home until the late 50's.

You didn't go out without your hair being combed, or in pajamas. Your bra straps never showed unless you were a certain kind of woman...or trailer trash.

My dad went to work in a suit along with every other man in the neighborhood, and showed us how to put in a good day's work on Saturday as my brother and I pulled weeds and trimmed the hedges along side him. My mother taught me how to vacuum, set a table, do the dishes (it wasn't clean if I didn't sweep and mop the floor), iron, clean a bathroom, the door jams and windows.

When I remember the 50's, I think of how girls took "home economics" so they could learn to cook and sew. The boys took shop...auto and wood.

Children dressed in nice slacks and dresses for school, even into junior and high school until the late 50's early sixties. If you dressed inappropriately, your parents were summoned and you had to go home and change. It was meant to be and was... humiliating. Dress code and dress standards were common. They took a lunch box to school, and when they got to Junior High they could order food in the snack bar or cafeteria. Remember hot dogs and jello?

The kids in my upper-middle class neighborhood...not the slums, got jobs in the summer picking fruit or working wherever they could find a job so they could buy a car, or put gas into a car. The younger boys cut grass! Nowadays, working is beneath most teens because they don't have to. Their parents just give them everything.

Our heroes were usually our parents, not movie stars or rock stars. And we got our self esteem from a job well done, excelling in a sport, a job, a new skill learned or school.


But some time in the fifties, things began to change. Our clothing and hair styles changed along with our heroes. Angry, edgy actors like Marlon Brando, and others with identity and sexual orientation issues like bad boy James Dean took the place of our parents as heroes. Marylin Monroe with her full breasts and pouty lips drove men mad and women to the doctor for the latest sheep urine injections.

I remember the 50's film actresses and print and cat-walk models were not at all like the hollow-eyed, gaunt women we see today with their boyish figures. Instead, they were slender but curvaceous and their clothes were designed to accentuate those attributes. Grab an old copy of a magazine and see for yourself. And the sexy sirens all had natural busts with small waists. The Rosiland Russell, Marilyn Monroe shape was definitely IT. Today, they would be considered zaftig. Women...especially stars, looked like they were supposed to…curvy...voluptuous. Hey Hollywood, haven't you watched the Discovery Channel lately? They say science has proven that men...who like women, are attracted to curves for a reason!