Reblogged from The Texas Connection
I recall those fabulous 50's! I was born in the early part of that decade. The 60's weren't all that bad either. Maybe I was too young to really recall the 50's hardships. I know my parents climbed the economic ladder but I also recall a time when kids could be kids, we took yearly family vacations and many weekend trips. Both my paternal and maternal grandparents lived very meager lives and so did a few aunts and uncles, but for the most part much of my mom and dad's siblings were also climbing up to success from those meager beginnings.
Just like the TV Series, Happy Days, we had our cool kids...the Fonzi's and we had our tightly knitted groups of friends. Most lived in our neighborhoods. We rode bike's, went swimming, and had many adventures together and our parents did not worry unless we were late coming in during our curfews or for supper. Even working mom's still thought it best to sit down at the family dining table than to go out to eat every night or bring home something ready made. I had chores that had to be done besides my homework along with my siblings. We were latch key kids and no one thought much of it.
We thought we had it all with a baseball, bat and gloves under the Christmas tree. We had Western Flyer bikes and they had their places to be put up at home and while at other friends houses. If we had a nickle or dime we had lots of money to buy a Coke or a bag of candy. We swam in rivers while dad fished and many times I liked to fish with him. We all slept in a tent on the river bank. Even on those camping trips and visiting Grandma and Grandpa, we three kids along with cousins at times walked down the back roads and small town streets meeting local kids along the way.
I recall going to work with mom in the city. I occupied my entire day going in and out stores while she slaved over her job keeping books for an insurance company. I knew how to get on the bus or walk for blocks all by myself and had few worries.
I look back on those days and wonder...am I just thinking my youthful days were so great because I was just simply too young to know any better or were the 50's really that prosperous? I do recall on one outing my mom and dad gripping about a rise in gas prices...I think it had climbed to something like a quarter a gallon. Oh if we had those prices today!
Being of an inquisitive mind and loving history, I began to research back thru the days of my youth. Trying to decipher whether or not that decade was indeed all that great. Maybe after our parents grew up in the Great Depression economy, they just knew how to manage finances and saved better than we learned from them and passed on down to the next generations? Maybe some new invention boomed the economy? Maybe after WWII our economy and place on the world stage surged to the top and we were all thankful our men were not off fighting and dying in some foreign land. Our dad's were home safe and sound. Maybe we were just "thankful"?
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