If you were born in the '40s you were a child of the '50s and a teen around the late '50s or early '60s.

And I was there, in and amongst it.

It was the golden time, for me and for the country.

If I had to choose, then or now, I'd pick then.

Some things are better now, some not. The big one I'd miss from now are the medical advances.

But, overall I'd take then. It really was a better deal. Lot more fun.

1965 was the high point. Down hill from there.

Yeah, I agree 100%. Graduated HS in '65. I doubt we will ever see times like the '50s and first half of the '60s again. It was an incredible time to be a kid and grow to adulthood. The drug and hippie age of the late '60s changed everything.

We could ride our bikes for miles and never worry. Doors could be left unlocked. Nobody had to carry a gun to protect themselves. We really weren't worried about the cold war. AND, we could actually hitch-hike without worrying about Chester-the-Molester! We were all proud to be Americans.

..great minds must think alike...

I was born in 1950, graduated H.S. in 1969. Grew up in rural North Texas. Add to that, my Dad was born in 1897, he had just turned 54 when I was born. My Mother was born in 1916, and was 34 when I was born.

Times were definitely different during the 50's and early 60's. I can actually remember having beds out in the yard and sleeping outside during the summer.

America lost something, and sometimes I believe it happened right after JFK's assassination.

Whether that is when it happened or not, I do not know. I just know that when it happened, it snowballed and there was no going back.

Our innocence, our trust in others, our trust in our government was taken from us.

There are a few parts of that time before I don't miss. The culture was different, for instance, in that smoking and drinking were more popular by mountains and miles than today. DUI or as we called it, DWI, was real common. And if you crashed, there was no such thing as seatbelts in cars.

Anyway, in my opinion, today's children are treated much better and with more respect. Things then were literally, children are to be seen and not heard. To deviate from that was at your own peril. And, back then everything from gov't to family was a lot more autocratic and authoritarian.

It was just a more spartan time. And you could get in trouble a lot easier. And people were a lot more judgmental about behavior in general.

I rate it as a good thing compared to today, but law enforcement was really tougher then. That's why in a nutshell why more crime today. Because back then it wouldn't have been ALLOWED.

You could go all thru high school and never hear of drugs. They existed but only on the fringes of society. Abortion existed, but was very rare and illegal. "Gay" didn't mean homosexual. We knew what it was, but it wasn't discussed publicly. But if you wanted to get a fight started, calling a guy that was certainly the way to do it. And fist fighting generally was a normal thing, and after school on the playground was the usual spot for "duels".

Capital punishment was real common. They executed not only for murder but for rape and armed robbery. And they did "still watches". I bet youngsters today don't know what that means. Hint - summary execution of armed robbers. And the cops in my town were willing to shoot at cars with fleeing felons.

Discipline in schools was handed out by high school football coaches. Paddling was routine. In one school it was said if you saw the coach coming for you, you had two choices. Stand and fight or run.

We never worried about the "bomb" at all. We only concerned ourselves with dating, sports, partying, fast cars, getting into college, fraternities, and picking which branch of the service. You knew you were going in since conscription was still in effect. And we DIDN'T mind. In fact most of us enjoyed ROTC in school (I was real proud of getting named capt of the rifle team). ROTC was mandatory in both high school and college, and most of us looked forward to the military.

This was before Vietnam and when one spoke of war, it might mean Korea, but generally it meant "the big one", WWII. You might say we were born out of that and all our relatives, neighbors and older friends were in it. In fact as small children it was a big deal in play with and in their old uniforms and war relics brought back from Europe and the Pacific.

A lot more people had guns, but there seemed less gun crime.

In fact, as an eight year old I actually played cowboys and indians with real Colt SAAs. We knew all about them, and to be careful they were unloaded. We did used to wish we could find some blanks though...and remember how as children you used to properly dispose of a broken plastic model warplane using firecrackers...and remember the A.C. Gilbert chemistry sets and how frustrating it was that they had the sulphur ingredient and we could find charcoal with no problem, but we just couldn't figure out where to get our hands on any saltpeter to make what we really wanted...

I was born in 1942 and we had atom bomb drills along with fire drills but I don't remember any kids getting freaked out.We did learn stuff though .Today's news talks about HS graduates in NYC -80% can't read !!!
Many of the moral and ethical standards we had are gone, along with many things that made "communities".

You guys are bringing back memories, we had the routine air raid bomb drills in school, fights where a part of passing, normally in an alley by school. Police would rough you up so given the chance you'd make a run for it but if ya got caught you had a bigger price to pay, I never feared what the police would do only what my father would do after he found out, the elders respected the law and unless they witnessed it the police was always right. The only drug I recall was LSD,our thing was getting drunk, don't remember pot or the stuff that is going around now a days. It was a privilege to join the military and most of us did it without our parents knowledge it was our way of passing into manhood, just about everyone's father and grandfather did their duty, now a days we elect presidents who don't understand the meaning of a Salute let alone military traditions, I agree certain things are better but given the choice I would rather be in the good old days

I mentioned high school ROTC and the rifle team. Army ROTC was mandatory starting in the 10th grade (and Air Force ROTC where I went to college) . At that point you'd be right at 15 years old. Now think about this.

We had an armory with a rifle range in a public city school (then an all White school - since racial busing was put in, it's been for many decades an all Black school, with no shooting going on - none that's supposed to happen anyway).

The rifles used were Winchester Model 52s in .22 caliber. We also had the 30-06 WWII Garrands, but we never shot those. They were just used for drill and for instruction on maintaining and cleaning (we were graded on disassembly and re-assembly). We didn't shoot them because they'd be too noisy indoors and the range backstop couldn't handle them.

Anyhow, the way the shooting training worked was, ALL male students took part and were graded on marksmanship. But (and this is the interesting part), here you are at below today's legal adult age and being handed a gun and bullets in a public school and told to show what you can do.

There was absolutely no evaluation first of each student or training or instruction in safe gun handling or instruction even in how the gun worked. Think about that. There was no hearing protection or eye protection whatsoever and no lead fumes exhaust system at all. And the whole thing's indoors.

You lined up and waited your turn, and the lights went off, and spotlights showed up on the targets which were cardboard man shaped figures that were suddenly raised from boxes downrange. The boxes had sand to catch .22 fragments and the final backstop was a sloped armour plate also set in sand.

You had only a few seconds to get the shot off and show you could knock down these targets.

The thing was, nobody NEEDED to be told how to operate the gun or fire it.

We were in those days ONE with our guns because of our gun and hunting culture that existed to the degree that EVERYONE was just assumed to understand such things...

There were also no required hunter safety classes in that time. The closest thing to it I remember was in the Boy Scouts. At Philmont Scout Ranch (it still exists) in New Mexico you did some range time with .22s run much the same as in our public school. And you were handed a card that said NRA Safe Hunter. I still have that card. And was 14 then...what a different world..

I'd take today anyday, if I wasn't so damn old.

Many of the moral and ethical standards we had are gone, along with many things that made "communities".[/QUOTE]
++++++++1

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
I'd take today anyday, if I wasn't so damn old.

For sure....!

And we used to say the Pledge of Allegence every morning in school followed by a short prayer.

Joe McCarthy, the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear war drills at school, polio shots, smallpox vaccinations, medieval understanding of heart disease, cancer, even simple ulcers, landline phones and long-distance charges, black and white TV and just a few channels, no computers, no Internet, no seatbelts and steel dashboards, cigarette smoke everywhere, dopey eyeglasses. Let's not even think about what the United States was doing covertly in Latin America, Iran and Africa in the name of stopping the spread of Communism. No thank you. Today's world has its challenges for sure, and I am glad I was born in the early 1950s, but would I want to go back? Not for a minute.

Times change it does not stand still.I think a lot of todays problems are because we have twice as many people as when I was a kid.That and creeping Socialism.

We always see the past through rose-colored glasses. The times are neither all better or all worse, just different.

quote:

I think a lot of todays problems are because we have twice as many people as when I was a kid.That and creeping Socialism.

Plus 1000 on both those thoughts.

We WWII babies who were white middle class, in a country with 1/2 the population of today, lived in America's golden age.

It ended with JBJ and as Bruce sings:
"Look around
This is your hometown".

No grand-children thank the Lord !

See me in the summer of 1967, graduated, cruising in my K-motor black over white 1957 Ford Fairlane 500...

McDonalds had a burger, order of fries, or 22oz coke; your choice, for 15-cents each.

Fast forward three years, I am home from my first year tour of 'Nam, thirty days at home, then back.
1st day home, my Father and I are car shopping.

1968 Blood Red Roadrunner Coupe. 383, colum shift Torqueflite, PS, PB, benchseat, the build sheet under the back seat read $2968 retail. I paid $1650 for it.
I got 13 speeding tickets in that 30 days.

The DOT sent me a letter letting me know that my license was suspended for 90 days, and that I had 3 days to turn my license in. I was in Chu Lai. I sent him a reply, telling him I was at LZ Bayonet, and he could come and get it. They were not amused...

Remember Sunoco 360? 112 Octane, and looked like a blood transfusion going in the tank. It was also 34.9 cents a gallon.

Don't get too nostalgic for those prices.

According to the consumer price index, a 15 cent hamburger in 1967 would cost $1.04 now. I don't know how much a plain hamburger costs (it's been a while since I've stopped at a McD's) but today's "Dollar Menu" is a much better value.

The Roadrunner that cost $2968 in 1968 would be $19,800 today. That's a bargain considering that a mint '68 Roadrunner would go for 6 figures at auction these days. But who could sit on a car like that and not drive it for 45 years?

From a practical standpoint a Roadrunner was just a basic, stripped-out Plymouth 2 door sedan with a big engine, some stickers and a cute horn. It could scoot in a straight line but it didn't steer or stop very well. Vinyl bench seat, no aircon, manual windows, AM radio and probably vinyl floor covering instead of a carpet. You got bias ply tires that lasted 20,000 miles if you were lucky. (The back tires probably lasted half that long.) Safety? Seatbelts, that's about it. The warranty was only 12,000 miles and the car lasted 100,000 miles if you babied it. Here in salt country they were rusted out in 4 years. Nostalga and investment value aside it really wasn't much of a car for almost $20,000 in today's money. They don't make 'em like this anymore because nobody would buy them.

You paid the equilavant of $9900 for that used Roadrunner in 1970.

The Sunoco 360 @ 34.9 cents per gallon was a solid bargain that works out to $2.36 today.

Always consider what you were making at the time. It's easy to mix up 1967 prices and 1977 wages, neglecting the inflation spike of the 1970's.

If only we could get 2007 wages, pay 1910 taxes and 1932 prices.

Just a few ramblings.

I was born in 1956 so most of you guys have a few years on me. Can't remember too much of the late '50's and early '60'a from a historical perspective but I do agree with my 'seniors' that things changed in the mid 1960's and not for the better.

After reading some of the stories on this thread, I have to wonder if where you grew up was as much of a factor as when. I grew up in Milwaukee and I doubt that anybody who lived in a large city ever left their doors unlocked. Violent crime and racial/ethnic tensions were commonplace 50, 75 and 100+ years ago. Now I live in a small town where property crime is fairly rare and violent crime is nonexistant.

The "baby boom" generation is traditionally defined as people born from 1946 to 1964 so I was born smack in the middle of it. Vietnam was winding down by the time I registered for the draft and mostly over by the time I graduated from high school. Of all of my friends and classmates, only one enlisted in the Army. Uncle Sam was downsizing at the time. Having lived in both urban and rural settings it seems like military service was (and still is) more common among young men growing up in small town America. If you were a city boy and didn't go on to college (only one of my friends did) chances are you got a job at one of the many large manufacturing companies or learned a trade. Those days are long gone.

Were things really better back in the "golden age" or are we just looking back through rose colored glasses? There was a noticible change and it seems to have taken place in the 1960's. The nostalga movement started in the early 1970's as evidenced by movies like "American Graffiti" and TV shows like "Happy Days." These shows struck a nerve and stirred a longing for the "good old days" that were, at the time, only 10 or 15 years previous. I can't imagine anybody getting nostalgic or weepy-eyed now over the "good old days" of 1997 - 2003. Something obvously changed in the period between 1962 and 1972. What was it and what started it? Vietnam? The JFK assination? The civil rights movement?

Is nostalga a middle-age thing about looking back to the days when we came of age? Do we romanticize about when we were 14 - 21 years old, regardless of the time period when those years took place? Do today's thirtysomethings look back to the 1980's?

Actually, the guy I sold the 'runner to still has it and drives it regularly.

And, I bought a 1967 XKE Coupe in the summer of 1972 to go with it. $3200 for a five year old Jaguar. It had air.

You could take me back to 22 years old, and the summer of 1972 in a heartbeat. Call it "Groundhog Day II" and call me happy.

Going to school on the GI Bill, and baling hay with my dad and brothers.

In 1970 I bought a 1957 2 door Belair from a friend.One owner low mileage for $75.00,as well as a 1959 Impala (remember those fins?) for $50.00.I tell my sons these things + they go ballistic. I tell them that its all relative;in 1970 these were not not classics they were just old cars.

I deer hunt with a young man that grew up in western Tennessee

He is 76 this year.......he tells me that the good old days were not really that good

They were better if you were a white christian heterto male.

quote:

Something obvously changed in the period between 1962 and 1972. What was it and what started it? Vietnam? The JFK assination? The civil rights movement?

I believe it was the combination of what happened during the time frame encompassing JFK's Assassination up thru Nixon's Resignation and subsequent pardon by Gerald Ford.

During that time, we had Kent State, RFK's Assassination, MLK's Assassination, Vietnam, the Johnson Presidency, Watergate etc. etc. etc.

Another aspect, at least in my opinion, was the growth of the Fourth Estate and the effect it had and has had on the way Americans view themselves and the rest of the world.

I can remember many things from the 50's and 60's, but I can't say that I would want to go back.

Just some food for thought:

quote:

The Seventeenth United States Census, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States to be 150,697,361, an increase of 14.5 percent over the 131,669,275 persons enumerated during the 1940 Census

quote:

The United States will enter 2012 with a population of roughly 312.8 million people (or exactly 312,780,968 people, if you want to be pedantic), according to the U.S. Census Bureau's end-of-2011 estimate.

That works out to a difference of 162,083,968 more Americans between 1950 and now, and 181,111,693 than in 1940 and now.

quote:

Originally posted by Leo L.:
They were better if you were a white christian heterto male.

Explain

Some things were better some things not.

All of it, then, since and now are better than the future methinks.

ted,

you must have slept thru the part about calling gay men "faggots & queers" and blacks "ni--ers" and other racially demeaning names.

For middle class America, the world came to an end in the mid-seventies. Cherished beliefs that your children would grow up, at least graduate from HS, get a job, marry, buy a house, and raise their children while spending their entire working life at the same place. Retiring and getting a watch, and a secure retirement pension. Moms stayed home, and raised the kids while Dads were at work. People didn't just take a notion to kill a school full of children or slaughter a movie theater or McDonalds full of other human beings because they had an unpleasant childhood.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
ted,

you must have slept thru the part about calling gay men "faggots & queers" and blacks "ni--ers" and other racially demeaning names.

For middle class America, the world came to an end in the mid-seventies. Cherished beliefs that your children would grow up, at least graduate from HS, get a job, marry, buy a house, and raise their children while spending their entire working life at the same place. Retiring and getting a watch, and a secure retirement pension. Moms stayed home, and raised the kids while Dads were at work. People didn't just take a notion to kill a school full of children or slaughter a movie theater or McDonalds full of other human beings because they had an unpleasant childhood.

Hmmm

For some folks raised ion different parts of the country, it is hard to really understand what it was like to grow up in a town and go to school, with no blacks at all and only an occasional Mexican.

It is also hard for many younger folks, 50 and under, to conceptualize growing up and not being around other kids from broken homes. Or being around families where the Mom's all stayed home and took care of the house and family. Divorce was very uncommon.

Sundays actually were a day of rest and older people, no matter who they were, were treated with respect.

I certainly miss my youth. My grandson, 23, ask me about what I used to do, all the time. I don't know though, if I would want to go back. Especially to a two channel, 12" big screen television set.

Anyone ever pull the cover off a TV, turn it on, see which TUBE was not lit up. Take the tube out, make a run to the TV/Radio repair shop. Get a new tube. Try to get the tube back in one piece. Put it in. Turn on the TV.... YES, it works. Check both channels and find the Saturday Baseball game. Tune the outside antenna to where you can see the game better, even through the snow storm.

Ted, Idaho Sharpshooter is right. In 68 we had a very large riot. There was tension for years over it. The town I lived in did not have a black family until 1972 and I was friends, and played basketball with the son. I remember getting stopped by the police (in my wonderful 1958 Ford Fairlane I paid $200 for) just to see if I was ok, or if the ni--er was giving me any trouble. It was embarrasing. To "get me back", he took me to his old high school, that was all black, to watch a basketball game. This "cracker whitey" saw the other side as well.

Most of the rest of it was good. B&W TV for the three channels we had, WHEN you wanted to get off your ass and change the station. Wait....no remote???? We were allowed one hour of TV during the week, total, and TV on weekends was limited to whatever Dad wanted to watch.

Just my thoughts but I don't care much for today's world: the music, morals, political climate, how we are viewed by the international community, clothing styles, entertainment, auto styles, new firearms, economy, education, constitutional views, etc... The only advantage is great advances in medical care. To live the simplicity of the era up to the 1950s I would take in a New York minute. God, family, country--we have lost all three and there is no turning back. Soon the USA will be a third world country.
Cheers, gents.
Cal

was born in 1954.. grew up in the 60s and 70s.. graduated in 1973 (or would have if i didn't want to take resposiblity for my son and work to feed a wife and son).... got a ged in 1978..... hated hippies in the 60s and 70s.... hate them worse now that they are in our schools and colleges fucking up our america....... never smoked anything in my life.. never took any drugs... even tho i was offered some kind of dope almost every day from some draft dodger........
i still maintain the veit nam war screwed this up for good...... seems like all the hippies turned into marxists and forgot about or was on a mission to fundamentallt transform america... hence little barry and most screwed up administration in american history...........................

Born in 1945, finished high school in 63, college in 68.

Growing up boys always carried pocket knives to school. I had one with 3 1/2" blades in HS, no problems. No one that I knew of ever misused a pocket knife. I once carried a live display board of live ammo cartridges to show. Another friend brought a flintlock rifle to class to show me. Rifles and shotguns were common in cars, yet we never had school shootings, after school deer, quail, rabbits and squirrels were fair game.

We had a "western day" at college and the handguns in western rigs came out, nobody got shot.

We could carry our pocket knives on commercial aircraft with no problems.

Rode bicycles everywhere when younger again with no problems.

I like the medical progress and have been involved in it and would not go back there. Communications are great nowdays, and I love the electronic fuel injection in cars vs the ol hand and then automatic chokes on the cars from our earlier era.

Lifestyles and pace of life was better them, it would be great if we could combine it with some of our present techinology.

I remember the first manned space flight, then later was a young Lt in the USAF when the first moon mission landed, then later was close enough to the Cape to see one of the Saturn launches. I was assigned at that time to an AWACS Squadron in central Fla that first spotted one of the returning moon landers, then 25 years later got to be part of a medical support team for a space shuttle launch.

It's been a great time to be alive too have seen all of this, but then my father who was born in 1916 said the same thing about his lifetime.

One thing that I will always regret, is that I never really sat down and talked with my Father about all that he had seen and experienced in his life.

Having been born in 1950, I have witnessed many wonderful and plenty of not so wonderful changes in this world and this country. I can't help to stop and think about what my Dad experienced, he was born in Tennessee in August of 1897 and passed away in May of 1989.

Dad was 19 when Buffalo Bill died. He was 20 when TR died. He was 13 when Quanah Parker died. There were so many other historic figures that were still alive when he was a young man or teen ager and I never really appreciated such things until after he was gone. I never asked him what he might have remembered about how people reacted at the death of these folks in the area he lived in. He raised my two half brothers during the Depression. I remember hearing him talking about "grubbin" and "coal oilin" mesquites for seventy-five cents a day, sun-up to sun down, 6 days a week, about 6 miles or so from where I am setting typing this.

I remember him and Mother watching the original Star Trek series when it came on TV. I also remember that after watching part of one of the first episodes of the Walton's, he refused to watch it, because he did not remember things being that easy.

I regret that my Great-Uncle Lee never told me more about his time in the trenches of WW1,he told some + I was just a kid but I wish he had told me more.Like my uncle Dick who was in the Pacific in WW2 + my uncle Harold that was a B-17 waist gunner.Some stories were told but not enough.

quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
See me in the summer of 1967, graduated, cruising in my K-motor black over white 1957 Ford Fairlane 500...

McDonalds had a burger, order of fries, or 22oz coke; your choice, for 15-cents each.

Fast forward three years, I am home from my first year tour of 'Nam, thirty days at home, then back.
1st day home, my Father and I are car shopping.

1968 Blood Red Roadrunner Coupe. 383, colum shift Torqueflite, PS, PB, benchseat, the build sheet under the back seat read $2968 retail. I paid $1650 for it.
I got 13 speeding tickets in that 30 days.

The DOT sent me a letter letting me know that my license was suspended for 90 days, and that I had 3 days to turn my license in. I was in Chu Lai. I sent him a reply, telling him I was at LZ Bayonet, and he could come and get it. They were not amused...

Remember Sunoco 360? 112 Octane, and looked like a blood transfusion going in the tank. It was also 34.9 cents a gallon.

Rich,
Not to nit pic but that was 260 Sunoco and damned good gas.Sunoco called it SOC meaning Sun Oil Concentrate.


Stepchild

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
I'd take today anyday, if I wasn't so damn old.

Hey, based on life expectancies, they are saying that 80 is the new 65. I understand that the idea of retirement at 65 was based on how long the average worker was expected to live.

Count your blessings.