time and perspective
Apr. 28th, 2013 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curmugeonI saw a post on Facebook about what you would say to someone from the 50's if they entered the world today. Well, as I was around in the 50's I can relate. I enteredd school in 1953, we didn't have direct dial phones, color TV or any TV for that matter was at least a year away in our home. Mom was a stay at home mom. Dad was the breadwinner. The first car I remember was my Dad's 1940 Chevy coupe. Gasoline was real cheap. We were far from rich having just bought our second home (my Dad had built our first house), moving to the town of Franklin Maine. I attended a four room school house. There were two grades for each room. I started with 1st grade, no kindergarden was offered. We had prayer in schools, in fact we had a repeat of Sunday school every Monday that was presented by the lady from the First Congregational Church. As students we celebrated Arbor Day, had the Maypole Dance and received May Baskets..
I saw the first polio vaccine, the smallpox vaccine, knew a girl who had to drop out of school because of heart defect (repairing a valve in the 50's was not common.), experienced bullies, got in fights, spent time at an uncle's house and met his wife's (my aunt) gay brother. I spent time on my grandfather's lobster boat, sailed the Atlantic during a winter storm.
Some of the things we did as children were we spent a lot of time near the shore, be it the ocean or the local lake. We caught fireflies, we picked wild berries, we played cowboys and indians.
Later in my school years I saw and heard my first rock and roll as the older students would play their 45 rpm records on a small portable record player during lunch. We played baseball, we got in trouble. In winter going to school became more of an adventure. We rode the bus and sometimes the bus would get stuck or just not come. We skated on ice that covered a field every winter when the creek flooded. I remember getting my first flying saucer, they were aluminum then, and sliding down Blueberry Hill, I remember walking along a path beside the creek and fishing for trout. I remember picking a cup of blueberries so we could get Mom to make Blueberry Cake. I remeber walking up the gravel road to visit Grandma Butler, she always had fresh molasses cookies. She lived about a half mile up the road. I would climb her apple tree to pick the apples near the top of the tree. She had one apple I still miss today, a Wolf River. It was a pie apple Each apple would weigh a pound or more. We were used to many heritage breeds, as apple trees could be found where old homesteads had once stood.
The years between 1953 and 1959 were special, I heard the changes in music, I saw my first jet plane, we got TV, and we lived a good life.. later we would move across the country, I would see segregation in the south as it was before civil rights, and experience the cultural shock of going to California. December 1959 was the beginning of a new era in my life, a time of profound change. More on that;ater, maybe.
I saw the first polio vaccine, the smallpox vaccine, knew a girl who had to drop out of school because of heart defect (repairing a valve in the 50's was not common.), experienced bullies, got in fights, spent time at an uncle's house and met his wife's (my aunt) gay brother. I spent time on my grandfather's lobster boat, sailed the Atlantic during a winter storm.
Some of the things we did as children were we spent a lot of time near the shore, be it the ocean or the local lake. We caught fireflies, we picked wild berries, we played cowboys and indians.
Later in my school years I saw and heard my first rock and roll as the older students would play their 45 rpm records on a small portable record player during lunch. We played baseball, we got in trouble. In winter going to school became more of an adventure. We rode the bus and sometimes the bus would get stuck or just not come. We skated on ice that covered a field every winter when the creek flooded. I remember getting my first flying saucer, they were aluminum then, and sliding down Blueberry Hill, I remember walking along a path beside the creek and fishing for trout. I remember picking a cup of blueberries so we could get Mom to make Blueberry Cake. I remeber walking up the gravel road to visit Grandma Butler, she always had fresh molasses cookies. She lived about a half mile up the road. I would climb her apple tree to pick the apples near the top of the tree. She had one apple I still miss today, a Wolf River. It was a pie apple Each apple would weigh a pound or more. We were used to many heritage breeds, as apple trees could be found where old homesteads had once stood.
The years between 1953 and 1959 were special, I heard the changes in music, I saw my first jet plane, we got TV, and we lived a good life.. later we would move across the country, I would see segregation in the south as it was before civil rights, and experience the cultural shock of going to California. December 1959 was the beginning of a new era in my life, a time of profound change. More on that;ater, maybe.
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Date: 2013-04-29 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-29 04:04 pm (UTC)