1950s: walking into a friend's home

The mother often is smoking a cigarette. She is ONLY a homemaker and resigned to her fate often. She has a beer and is watching soap operas and calling her other homemaker friends on the phone.

You have to be very careful what you say to her because she is easily offended and also she is drinking beer so you have to watch out because she could easily hit you or your friend who is her son.

This was my experience about 50% of the time visiting the homes of friends after school. I wasn't raised rich obviously and it wasn't always safe where I lived but I also wasn't poor either even though I did know some very poor kids that often didn't have enough to eat and often were scrawny at school and malnourished.

At 8 years old (1956) you could buy an incredible amount of  of gum and candy for 25 cents because Candy bars were only 5 Cents or 10 cents at most. Even when I was 13 years old (1961) and riding home on my bicycle I could buy often 2 Bubble gums for a penny even then. So, I would put one piece of bubble gum in my mouth whenever the old piece lost it's flavor until I had somewhere between 13 to 25 pieces of bubble gum in my mouth riding home on my racing bike that was a 10 speed then.

In 1963 I was 15 and a sophomore at Glendale High School, (the one that John Wayne Went to). IN November 1963 I was in Gym and I heard that the president of Mexico had been assassinated in Gymn but when I got to my English Class after Gym all the girls in my English Class were crying because President Kennedy they just had heard on the radio that he was dead.

The boys were used to going "Stiff Upper Lip" for the girls in being supportive to them then because we were supposed to be TOUGH then so they could lean on us for support in bad situations. But, I remember thinking to myself if President Kennedy could be assassinated how could I expect to live to be 20 and how I didn't want to die a virgin. (Which is pretty humorous from looking back at this point of view from my present 70).

But, Kennedy's assassination nearly created World War III then and I think all of you should know this. Because Americans were very ready for war with the Soviet Union over them assassinating President Kennedy then.

But, of course our government lied to us to prevent a war (which makes sense because what good would 500 million people on both sides nuked and dead or more and maybe the world an asteroid belt too ever since?