Ya know, as I limp toward my doddering 60s, I am amazed at the changes

[Old Troop]

that I've seen in a mere 57 years. Some are good, some are bad, but they are all remarkable. Start with my home in the late '50s/early 60's; dad was a bus driver, mom a homemaker (at the time). Our next door neighbor was a lawyer, on the other side, a salesman, across the street an engineer for Raytheon and next to him a fighter pilot. Think you'd see that now? I remember seeing so many people with braces on their legs from polio; in August we weren't allowed to go to the fresh-water beaches because that was polio season. My brother nearly died of measles and our doctor, Dr Merriam came to the house every day to check on him. Dr Merriam had been subject to a gas attack during WWI and constantly coughed - he and my father argued about who had had it worse at war. We had a single phone in our house, a party line. As kids, we'd try to listen in on other people's conversations. Eventually someone would tell mom and we'd be punished. Now my kids and their kids see polio, if they even think of it, as something as ancient as the Black Plague. We carry out phones on our belts and are never out of touch with anyone. A lawyer, a bus driver and a jet pilot would never live in the same neighborhood now and certainly wouldn't get together over beers to put up a new fence.

[old mark]

1. I'm sneaking up on 64. Our family doctor made housecalls in a Bentley,

with a liveried chauffer who brought specific medicines the doctor requested in from the car. He was the first black man who was ever in our home (around 1954). We didn't have a TV for many years after they became popular, but my grandmother loved to sit next to the huge old Philco floor model radio and listen to the daily programs...soap operas and mysteries, sometimes pretty scarey stuff.
Milk was delivered to the front door in glass bottles and a guy came around every week selling fruits and vegetables from his farm.
My dad worked at Sears as a salesman and owned a bar and several rental houses. He never bought a new car in his life. We had an old blue late '40's Plymouth coupe for a long time,(similar to this one)
http://www.pbase.com/rpdoody/image/103078057

and later a '49 Buick 4 door sedan with seats like sofas. My dad made a lot of money and was able to retire at 55.
He is now 94 and lives near Galviston, TX in a retirement community where he tells the ladies he is 72...


mark

[Curmudgeoness]

2. I have also had these same thoughts. I am also 57, and dad was

a mill worker. Our neighborhood was like yours, a mix of professionals, business owners, and blue collar workers. It was a good time to grow up for the most part.

I don't remember polio scares, and we had no polio cases in my little part of the world that I knew about. I do remember having the vaccination---twice since the first one did not do anything. I still have the scar. I was a little older when the Sabin oral vaccine came out and the whole town went to the high school to get it. I still have the cards they gave us as proof.

I hope that your "limping" toward your 60s isn't due to polio, and it is just aging.

[trof]

3. I'm crashing towards 70 and I echo your observations.

I remember public swimming pools closing in Birmingham because of polio outbreaks.
Bummer for us kids.

Turns out I probably had a 'mild' case of polio back then, according to my neurologist. Diagnosed a few years ago. He said symptoms could have been "like a bad cold". Got a slight limp due to calf muscle atrophy.

We got doctor house calls in the 70s and 80s, but she was our daughter's godmother, so that doesn't really count.
;-)

I was very close to my great-aunt Lucia (my granddaughter's namesake).
She was born in 1890.
The changes she had seen were mind boggling.
Human flight, for one.
Wow.

I was a pilot and tried to explain to here how airplanes fly.
She maintained that it was just PFM.
Pure Effing Magic.

When I took off in a 747 at max gross takeoff weight I sometimes thought she might be right.

[old mark]

10. My dad was born in 1917.His first flight was in a jet airliner in the 1980's...nt

[lunatica]

4. I'm 63. I was living in Mexico thinking the US had gold paved streets

I had servants.

Isn't that ironic?

[femmocrat]

5. I remember those party lines!

There were several families on ours and one was very rude. When they wanted the phone, they would tap the "button" (what was it called?) relentlessly. If we wanted the phone and they were on, they wouldn't hang up unless we said it was an emergency.

We lived in an ethnic neighborhood... all of the men worked in the mill and ALL of the women were SAHM's. My dad was a small business owner, though. My cousin, who was several years younger than me, did have polio. He must have been one of the last cases.

I also remember doctors who made house calls when I was a very young child.

[texanwitch]

6. I don't remember the polio scare and I am the same age.

I do remember getting the sugar cube at the local church.

Glad a cure was find.

It was a good time to grow up, even with the bad.

The freedom we had to go out and play all day and come home before dark.

[Archae]

7. What am I nostalgic for?

Well, I'm 51.

Houses are better.
Cars are better.
Medicine is better.
Schools are better. (Mostly)

What do I miss?

Good movies.
The 70's were the true golden age of movies.
Jaws.
Disaster movies.
Star Wars.

Good TV shows.
I've always been a PBS watcher, love the program, "Nova."
Connections.
Network stuff, Dukes Of Hazzard.
Six Million Dollar Man.
Battlestar Galactica. (70's version)

Great tunes.

[dawg]

14. Have you watched the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica?

I loved it.

[murielm99]

8. I remember all the braces from polio.

Polio was more common than divorce when I was a kid.. There were hardly any single mothers.

I am 62, and I still don't know how to swim. My mother was afraid we would get polio if we went swimming.

I remember party lines, too. We had party lines in the rural areas around me until 1979.

[grilled onions]

9. At 60 Here

There was a time when neighborhoods did not resemble Monopoly boards. There could be a large house,a small house,a new one and an old one and no one cared. They allowed fences,clothes lines and almost every roof had a tv antenna. During the day most men were working. Kids were able to walk to schools because many were close to homes. Not everyone loved their neighbor but there was more love then there was hate. Less crime and more jobs. Appliances lasted longer and could be easily repaired. Made in America was common and made in Japan was always a joke about junky merchandise. Kids were able to imagine a future back then. Resources seemed to be there--gas,oil,water,coal seemed almost never ending. If you dreamed a job, a career you could get it with hard work. Homes too. Today life is more more complicated. Nothing is guaranteed. Seniors are scared,hungry. The middle agers are worried about their parents and concerned about their kids futures. The young may be too young to realize what a nightmare they are growing into but they too will discover it just as their parents and grandparents have.

[ellenrr]

11. 63 here. I remember polio. I also remember trick-or-treating

Interesting comment about different classes/professions hanging out.

I didn't have that experience, everyone in my neighborhood was poor.

I remember going trick-or-treating and loving it every Halloween. Back then the "fear" was pretend - we would say a monster lived in a certain house that was set back from the road. Now the fear is real, and at least in my neighborhood, t-or-t has changed. I see young toddler kids out in the afternoon with their parents, and as it gets a little later I see teen-agers who are too old to be t-or-t.

When I was a child we used to go out by ourselves late at night.

I remember the party line. Haven't thot of that in a while. You pick it up, and hear someone talking. lol

[old mark]

12. I really did walk a few miles across town to school for most of my grade school...

and never had any problems.
Now, it would be very dangerous for a kid to walk through many parts of my former city alone...some parts would be dangerous for anyone walking alone.

mark

[Submariner]

13. I remember in '54 shuffling my feet making baby steps because my

legs were partially paralyzed. While shuffling from one school classroom to the next, the Nun told me to stop making fun of crippled people or I would burn in the flames of hell for eternity.

At recess, my legs finally caved and I tumbled down a flight of stairs and ended laying at the feet of 2 more Nuns telling me to get up and stop fooling around. When I started crying that I can't feel my legs, they called my mother who took me to the Children's Hospital in Boston where I was diagnosed with polio. I despise those f'ing bitches in their penguin costumes to this day.

[Old Troop]

15. I'm so sorry to hear of your experience. Mine with nuns was pretty

negative too, but nothing like yours. By third grade, mom had had enough and devout woman that she was, pulled us out of parochial school while telling the nuns that it was they who were going to hell.

[Old Troop]

16. By the way, I wasn't being nostalgic (well maybe a little); I was trying

to express my wonder at the changes that we've encountered in such a short time.

[JitterbugPerfume]

17. I remember the first time I watched TV!

I remember FDRs death and chanting on the way to school for DEWEY! Imagine a 7 yr old Jitterbug saying

Vote for Dewey , he's our man

throw old Truman in the garbage can!

I remember seeing sugar stamps in moms kitchen drawer left over from the depression . Mom never threw anything away.

There are still trees in the grounds of my hometown Hospital that my daddy helped to plant in the 193os. Even as a Republican , he was a union man and admired FDR . Imagine something like that happening now.

I have lived through some changes in the past 70 years and most of it was awesome.