Ah Yes...Life in the 1950's

 

 

 

So many fond childhood and teenage memories play in the attic of my mind.

 

In the 1950s we played outdoor games. Any type of game with a ball. We'd play jump rope;hide and seek and ringaleevio; hopscotch; bicycle riding; roller skating (steel wheels clamped to the shoes, hopefully someone had a key); tree climbing.

Some kids had swing sets or like me, we just tied ropes and car tires to trees to swing from.

 

When the opportunity was available, we'd go swimming down at Ross Park. In the winter we went sledding;  tobogganing; ice skating or we built snowmen or snowforts. we had playful snowball fights. In between these activities, we'd just hang out and chat, perhaps play stone school or twenty questions.

In the 1950s we spent most of our time out of doors, but when that wasn't possible, we played board games;card games; puzzles, and dominos. We also had toys of course. Which type, might depend on the age group. All the same kinds of toys kids today are familiar with like blocks; cars and trucks; stuffed animals and dolls. We  also had misc. things like coloring books; ball and jacks; clay; marbles; Slinkys (the metal ones); gyroscopes;  kaleidoscopes; View Masters; Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets.

 

We'd clip playing cards with clothes pins on our bicycle rims just to hear that fun 'clickedy clack' sound'; we'd also smash empty Shasta pop cans on our feet and go walking around in them...just for the fun of it- and it was fun! Ah yes, hopscotch; jacks and ball; rollar skating; all the innocent things we did for good, clean fun in the 1950's!

 

Oh, I'm sure, it may seem silly to kids of today's era; but to us, it was sheer pleasure and real fun!

 

We'd play “Mother May I” on the front stoop of our porch at night, then go mischievously knocking on doors and run before we got caught.

 

“Ain’t Nothing But A Hounddog”, by Elvis Presley, and Paul Anka’s, “And They Called It Puppy Love”, were popular tunes,

heard though the sounds of a portable radio, or your black and white television; while “Burma Shave commercials played casually over the air.

One of the billboards for Burma Shave read:

“Shaving brushes you'll See’ Em’ Soon, On a Shelf in Some Museum... Burma Shave”.

 

Or the Pepsodent commercial with Bucky Beaver:

“You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent” .

 

 

If you even had a television in those days, a few of the most popular shows were:

 

Ed Sullivan’s ,“Toast of the Town”

Dick Clark’s , AmericanBandstand

“I Love Lucy”, with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz

and. “The Honey Mooners”, with Jackie Gleason.

 

I gotta' tell ya', watching these shows on a new black and white TV set, were far more important and a bunch more fun than doing home work.

 

 

 

I remember when Elvis Presley first played on the Ed Sullivan show. Mr. Sullivan had booked Elvis for three shows, but his pelvic gyrations caused much discussion about the suitability. Mr. Sullivan said he wouldn’t want him back. But... but later Mr. Sullivan changed his mind when Steve Allen had Elvis as a guest, and had twice as many viewers as Sullivan.

Mr. Sullivan paid Elvis $50,000, for three shows in 1956.

 

 

Silly Putty; Hula Hoops; Etch a Sketch; Mr. Potato head; the hula hoop; these were just a few of the new toy inventions in the 1950's....along of course with the Barbie Doll.

              ~

 

On an early Sunday evening after watching “Amos and Andy “on our black and white TV, we’d gather all our comic books that we’d buy at the neighborhood candy store for ten cents apiece and go around our neighborhood and trade with the other kids.

Some of my favorites were:

 

 

“Archie and Veronica”

“The Lone Ranger”

Walt Disney comics: Mickey Mouse; Popeye; Donald Duck,

just to mention a few.

 

Life seemed so much more safe and easy in the fifties. Most of the shows on television were about cowboys.

 

The good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats and it was easy to tell them apart. The good guys never did bad things, and the bad guys never did good things. The television shows that were not about cowboys were about happy, loving families, such as Leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet, or they were about superheroes, such as Superman, who was always on the side of right and his personal faults never tripped him up.

Yes, the 1950’s was a time of innocent joy and fun.

The magic of Fifties suburbia when socks were darned, baths were shared and kids innocently without getting into trouble with the law roamed free and wild. Only now...do I really appreciate what a glorious age it was to grow up in!

For all who were there with me...we had a very good time…didn’t we?

_____________________________________________

   

 

by LadeeAnne~anne P murray

aka Patty Murray in the 1950's

 

Reviews

[demureminds]

This sounds like a fun life haha. Mine was just television shows and not very good ones at that... But some of these games are not that foreign to me really, and I kinda miss when games weren't always technology based.
I also love the description in this, it really seems to bring you back into that era and imagine what it was like. Additionally, the poem also gives you this warm feeling of happiness (:

[anne p. murray- LadeeAnne]

Thank you Melinda for your lovely comments and for stopping by and R&R my story

[Warrior]

Great story telling. This did justice in the realm of getting the message across. Great message. There's lot of times where a story can have a great message to aim for, and have a lot of under lining things but then no one gets it, and if no one gets it, then the point has failed. But in my opinion this did well to get the message across. You made it clear, which is why I think it's good. Keep up the good work. And beautiful imagery, I mean the pictures you added were great for visual effects, I could imagine the whole thing as I was reading. Everything you did was great and it added color to the experience good job once again.

[anne p. murray- LadeeAn..]

Just a glimpse of the days of my childhood in the 1950's; fun, memorable, safe, innocent and on so carefree and delightful