Saturday, November 30, 2019

When I think back on life in the 1950s

It was about as safe at that baby in an overhead cradle on a plane when I grew up. It was just normally like this.

For example, at age 2 in 1950 I remember standing up behind my father in his car behind his driver's seat and every time he went around the corner fast in a right turn I would fall and hit the window winder on the back seat door on my face. But, even then I couldn't cry because if I did my father wouldn't be nice to me. So, I had to tough it out for my father's attention even then. And there were no lighted traffic light signals yet, they all looked like train signals more than anything else which said on them either STOP! or Go! because traffic lights hadn't started yet in the State of Washington where I was born on the west coast of the U.S. They were mechanical and moved like Train signs still do some places on a timer.

Another time my grandfather bought a war surplus Weasel which is basically like an army tank without a top turret with tank tracks. So, when it snowed my father was driving it straight up and down a hill on my grandfather's property in the snow. It worked great. However, I wanted to ride with my father which was a mistake because when we reached the bottom of the snow covered hill it jarred my head into the dashboard and I couldn't help by cry. So, my mother took me from my perch next to my father which upset me a lot because my face was bleeding but I wanted to ride with my father like a man no matter what. This was all pretty normal for me in the early 1950s. This would have been 1952 or 1953 and I was either 3 or 4 at the time.

Since seatbelts were not legally required until at least the very late 1980s or after in most states, in 1960 in my father's 1960 Mercury Station wagon (which was huge like a boat) my friends and I would put down the two back seat (you could take 9 people in it) including the driver. So, it was a long about 9 foot bed behind the driver's seat that was flat. But, my father wouldn't let us lay down there with our heads forward because that could be fatal or injurious in a stop. So, we had to have our heads towards the back of the Station wagon so when we stopped we didn't get injured or die so it was sort of like jumping off a porch for us 12 year olds in the back singing "it was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini" while my father drove us somewhere.

So, like I said life was very very different from 1950 to 1960 in those days. There are very few things the same now at all.

The attitude then was different than now which was then: "Wow! This is so much better than the Great Depression and people starving to death or World War II with people fighting and starving to death worldwide then." This was the attitude then which was mostly gratitude, (at least for those without serious PTSD from World war II) from seeing so many dead bodies and having to kill people for those 5 years. But, they didn't call it PTSD then they called it "Battle Fatigue" or they would say "He hasn't been right since the war!" which meant "Watch out for that Guy!" if you were a kid since anyone had the right to beat you if they didn't like what you were doing then. It was just accepted anywhere pretty much in the U.S. But sometimes parents would fight over stuff like this too. and I don't just mean argue but actually come to blows then. Seeing kids and adults fighting was pretty normal in the world of the 1950s. So, you learned to be very careful what you said and did in this world as a child in the 1950s. Because you couldn't trust most adults to not beat you for something real or imagined then. So, it was harder to physically survive then for a child but now I would say it is almost impossible to psychologically survive as whole person growing up today even though physically if you are middle Class or above you likely won't be beaten up like then in the 1950s. Psychologically, it is much much more deadly now especially if you are a boy growing up now rather than then. In fact, then if you fought people often they became your friends after you fought them because fighting was a way to break through to other people and become their friends over time. Now it's just completely crazy and insane instead and against human nature. When you go against basic human nature you make crazy people who you cannot trust because there are no useful consequences to anyone's actions.

begin quote from:
https://historydaily.org/60-classic-photos-that-shine-a-new-light-on-history/6