What life was like growing up in the Los Angeles Area in the 1950s and 1960s

In Los Angeles 4400 people weren't dying everyday from the smog  like in Beijing now but likely over 100 were who had asthma or other breathing problems.

But, generally there was 90% or less pollution in general all over California. Unless we are talking about to the sides of roads before the $1000 dollar anti-littering law came into being sometime in the likely 1960s.

So, for example, I could go to a mountain stream many many places all over the western United States and lay on the ground and suck water directly into my mouth to drink from it, or I could make my hand a cup and get a drink that way or I could get an actual cup or canteen and fill it at many streams and springs throughout the western United States.

I'm not sure when all this changed it was a slow process.

Things we didn't have in the 1950s and 1960s:

Personal computers
No Cassette tapes until Sears came out with a large cassette recorder around 1965
no DVDs
No CDs
no Ipods
no Ipads
no internet
No Cable TV at first

So, if you weren't in the greater Los Angeles area over most of the state of California there wasn't even TV or phone lines in the 1950s unless you were at a town that had broadcasting antennas and you had an aerial on your roof or a little one next to your TV. (The little ones only usually worked in cities like Los Angeles area where Mt. Wilson had broadcasting aerials over about 100 miles so you could then get ABC, NBC, and CBS and maybe 5 or 6 other station if you were lucky.

Color TV was just so bad during the 1950s almost no one bought them because they looked like black and white with a few colored lines drawn in around people. I remember when I watched the first color TV some rich friends of my family had who was an Electrical engineer. It was okay but really disappointing compared to going to a color movie at a theater in town. They also had a cord where if I pushed a button on the cord it changed Channels. This was a really big deal because Remotes didn't happen until people got cable much usually. So, Cable coming into places like Los Angeles and Palm Springs in the very late 1960s was a really big deal.

Also, there was no satellite reception live from overseas either. I think the Nixon, Kennedy debates was one of the first times TV went all across the U.S. live.

But, what I liked better about the 1950s and 1960s was there were so many less people than now. Most of California then was empty and wild. For example, even in the 1970s there was basically nothing much between San Diego and Escondido and there was nothing much between Escondido and Oceanside and Vista either. So, in the 1970s I rode my dirt bike through much of these areas on dirt roads when I went to Palomar College from 1971 to 1973. This likely was my favorite Junior College I ever attended in San Marcos. The most progress I made as as student during one era was here at San Marcos where I got 45 units there even though I eventually attended UCSC in Santa Cruz which is the most intellectual school of the entire UC system and most graduates of there tend to get advanced Graduate degrees and the mascot of UCSC is a Banana Slug wearing glasses which is supposed to be a joke.

Is life better now? For me, I would say I liked it much better in the 1950s through the 1970s than now because there were so many less people and less pollution generally than now. So, I miss the Wild California I loved before Droughts and Global Climate Change settled in after around 2000.

However, there is also a lot of progress regarding race relations and relations between men and women and all minorities in California.

So, I likely would say, "Coastal Californians are likely the most hospitable to people of other countries than anywhere else on earth."

This is because Californians are likely the most adventurous group on earth as far as world travel goes too. So, they are used to visiting other cultures and don't freak out as much when they meet someone from a different culture. As long as people are peaceful they are allowed to stay alive and live in California generally speaking.

However, what happened in San Bernadino is changing this to some degree and California and the rest of the U.S. are buying guns more than they ever had before right now. I don't know whether this is bad or good when a bunch of people who likely have never seen a gun up close before buy one.

Guns are really dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced. It's like giving a car to a non-driver and watching what happens then.

But, generally speaking I miss a lot the way California was in the 1950s through the 1970s. And I miss living in Mt. Shasta in the 1980s too.