I’ve seen these “nostalgia” lists before and usually find them interesting. My neighbor sent me one a few days ago. It talked about people’s lives and things they experienced if they were born in the time frame from 1930 to the mid 1940s. I fall into that category and I (and my associates) are members of “the smallest group of children born since the early 1900s.” I didn’t “extensively research” that, but I am ready to believe it.
I won’t bore you with the entire list, but there were a few things listed that I hadn’t thought about for a while — here they are, along with my comments….
“You are the last generation, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the impact of a world at war which rattled the structure of our daily lives for years.”
I remember hearing the “war news” every day on the radio — In fact, I remember near the end of the war, that it seemed like that was the only thing people talked about and even though I didn’t grasp the real importance of it, I could sense that it was really big! I remember asking my parents if there would be “news” when the war ended. That sounds like a funny question, but the war was so all-consuming that I never remember hearing any other “news” that wasn’t war-related. I don’t remember the depression, and never realized how much effect the war had on our lives, I wasn’t old enough to know about things older people “missed,” and the sacrifices they made during those war years, but I remember the news — the never ending “war news.”
“You are the last to remember ration books for everything from gas to sugar to shoes to stoves.”
I do remember ration books. In fact my parents kept some ration books for years and years after the end of the war. I don’t know what ever happened to them — they probably got tossed out somewhere along the way. As I remember, they were little books that had pages of what looked like little “stamps” — much smaller than postage stamps and there were different colors for different rations… maybe blue for cotton products, yellow for sugar, white for gasoline, etc. I’m not sure of the details as to how they were used, but I think each “stamp” allowed you to buy a certain quantity of the rationed item, and obviously you could only purchase so much of a rationed item per month, so they must/may have had a date on them…
“You are the last to see the gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors whose sons died in the war.”
I remember these, too. Fortunately, Maysville was a small enough town that there weren’t that many serving in combat. Also, Maysville was a farming community and many farmers were exempt from active duty, because their jobs were considered essential — growing food for the population, as well as the military. But I do remember the stars, although I obviously didn’t understand the significance of them at the time.
“You are the last generation who spent childhood without television; instead, we imagined what we heard on the radio. As you all like to brag, with no TV, you spent your childhood “playing outside.” The lack of television in your early years meant, for most of you, that you had little real understanding of what the world was like.”
There’s a lot in this statement — it would be easy to write a lot about TV, radio, and “playing outside.” So I’ll just touch on a bit of it… Both faithful readers know that I was eight or nine years old before television even existed in Oklahoma. The first television station west of the Mississippi was established in Oklahoma City and officially began broadcasting on June 6, 1949 — on channel 4. The station broadcasted from 7 pm until 9:30 pm Sunday through Friday. Saturday broadcasts were added four months later. The TV station’s first “studio” was in the ‘Little Theater’ of the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Oklahoma City. The TV picture that we saw was often less than perfect, to say the least. But if there was just a shadow there, people were pleased with it… they’d never seen anything like it.
No one, especially no kid, had their own radio. Most people, who were lucky enough to have radios, had a “family” radio in their living room. It was often in a large cabinet that served as a nice piece of furniture. What I listened to on the radio was what the family listened to. There were a few “kid” programs on some afternoons and on Saturday mornings. Some of the kids programs I remember were Little Orphan Annie, The Lone Ranger, Buster Brown (“he lived in a shoe”) and the Green Hornet. Some of the “family” programs I remember were Truth or Consequences, Mr. and Mrs. North, The Red Skelton Show, The Shadow, Mystery Theater, and my grandparents always faithfully listened to The Grand Ole Opry. I don’t remember listening much to music on the radio, mostly it was just “big band” music. As far as “playing outside,” that’s just what we did. We played outside — there was no little league, soccer was unheard of, and there wasn’t any public playgrounds in Maysville… we just played in our “yards” and in the street.
As far as not having any real understanding of what the real world was like — we didn’t. Just about only “news” we were exposed to was via the radio and newspapers. There were no 24 news sources available. Most of us in Maysville had never traveled very far from home and were not concerned with what was happening in another country somewhere. When we went to the movies on Saturday afternoons, after the cartoon and before the (usually a western) feature there was a newsreel, but the “news” was at least a week old and talked about events and places that, as a kid, we were’t familiar with.
“Telephones were one to a house, often shared (party lines) and hung on the wall in the kitchen (no cares about privacy.)”
We had a telephone, but it sat on a table in the hall. There was no dial on the phone — you picked up the handset and an operator asked, “number, please.” Except in Maysville, the operator just asked you who you wanted to talk to — “long distance” (out of Maysville) calls were very rare. My parents didn’t get a wall phone in the kitchen (with a dial) until some years after I’d left home.
“Computers were called calculators, they were hand cranked; typewriters were driven by pounding fingers, throwing the carriage, and changing the ribbon. The ‘INTERNET’ and ‘GOOGLE’ were words that didn’t exist.” Obviously, the Internet didn’t exist — computers didn’t exist. I never saw one of those hand cranked calculators. My dad had an adding machine in his store, but I don’t think it did anything except add — it might have been able to “multiply,” but that really just involved a lot of addition. Numbers were punched in on keys and then a handle was pulled… the keys that you had punched down, popped back up. I remember it being kind of noisy.
“Newspapers and magazines were written for adults and the news was broadcast on our radio in the evening by Paul Harvey and Gabriel Heater. As you grew up, the country was exploding with growth. The G.I. Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow.”
When I was young, I don’t remember reading newspapers and magazines much — I read the newspapers mostly when required by some school project. I mostly just looked at the pictures in magazines. I never heard of Gabriel Heater, but I do remember hearing Paul Harvey on the radio. I was aware of the G.I. Bill, but I never knew much about it.
“New highways would bring jobs and mobility. New cars averaged $2,000 full price.”
I remember when the nation started building the Interstate Highway System — a lot of these “super highways” were referred to as “freeways.” No Interstate Highway was built near Maysville before I left home. I remember the first new car my dad bought after WWII ended. Cars were in short supply and my dad was lucky to be able to get one — I think knowing someone in the car business helped. That car cost less than $1,000. The first new car I was able to by for myself cost less than $2,000.
“Polio was still a crippler.”
Polio was considered an epidemic when I was young — it created a lot of fear and near-panic and I remember a lot of my activities being restricted, as well as those of my friends. I remember the announcement of the Polio Vaccine.
“You are “The Last Ones.” More than 99% of you are retired and we feel privileged to have “lived in the best of times!”
I guess I agree with this statement, but it could probably be made about every generation. When I think about the way the world changed during my dad’s lifetime, the changes may have been just as radical (some, maybe more so) than the changes I’ve experienced. Now think about the changes that David and Kelly can remember, and our grandkids are still young but the changes during those short years are staggering….
So while this list was interesting to me and prompted this trip down “memory lane,” similar lists could be put together about any generation — things are never like they “used to be,” and that’s not a bad thing. Change is constant….none of us is the same person that we used to be — hopefully, we’re better.
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