Here are things you might have heard down at the Malt Shop in 1955. You can thank the Federal Reserve and crooked politicians for what has happened since.
Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging 7 cents just to mail a letter?
If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.
When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 25 cents a gallon? Guess we’d be better off leaving the car in the garage.
I’m afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL or DAMN in it.
I read the other day where some scientist thinks it’s possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas.
Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $50,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn’t surprise me if someday they’ll be making more than the President.
I never thought I’d see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They’re even making electric typewriters now.
It’s too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet.
It won’t be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.
I’m afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.
Thank goodness I won’t live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to government.
The fast food restaurant is convenient for a quick meal, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.
There is no sense going on short trips anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $2.00 a night to stay in a hotel.
No one can afford to be sick anymore. At $15.00 a day in the hospital, it’s too rich for my blood.
If they think I’ll pay 30 cents for a haircut, forget it.
SSS says:
I turned 30 in 1955. You brought back many fond memories. Thank You.
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3rd January 2013 at 8:45 am
Stucky says:
Actual 1955 article. You might have to zoom in to read it —- (ctrl +)
The last item says it all. Women knew their place back then. Now they don’t. That’s how we got in this mess.
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3rd January 2013 at 8:52 am
Stucky says:
Playmate of the month June 1955. No nips. Back when SSS was runnin’ the joint.
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3rd January 2013 at 9:01 am
sangell says:
My father bought our first house in 1956. He paid $15,500 for new 3 bedroom 1 and half bath home. It was tiny by today’s standards. Dad had an Oldsmobile. Mom didn’t have a car of her own so if she needed to do something she drove dad to the bus stop to go work. We got airconditioning a few years later and mom got a 1961 convertible Cadillac. It was beautiful but my father hated it. Too flashy for him so he was reduced to a Austin A-40 some English compact ( I think the 40 part of its name stood for 40 hp!) If it snowed, it was too light and weak to get up the hill to our house so he would have to leave it down the street and walk the final 200 yards or so home.
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3rd January 2013 at 9:03 am
Zarathustra says:
I was born a few days before 1957. I really don’t remember the ’50′s. I don’t even remember the cuban missile crisis. I do however remember JFK’s funeral procession. It was broadcast in color on TV and seemed to last forever. I will never forget it, nor the day we were all let out of school when it was announced that the president had been assassinated.
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3rd January 2013 at 9:17 am
Stucky says:
1962 Austin A-40. The “40″ stood for the number of times you have to take it back to the dealer in the first year.
Should of kept the ’61 Caddy !!!!!!!!!
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3rd January 2013 at 9:28 am
Maddie's Mom says:
Stucky,
I can always count on you for a good laugh. Thanks
“His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.”
Thanks to TBP I can deliver on that one!!!
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3rd January 2013 at 9:38 am
sangell says:
Beginning of women’s lib, the 1960′s Stucky. Mom got the ‘good’ car, dad gets the POS. Mom’s caddy was baby blue with leather seats the same color. The windshield was enormous and the horn so loud lesser cars would scramble to get out of the way! European cars were all junk then.
Another car story. My father, weary of his Austin’s inabiity to climb a hill with any snow on it, went to the auto dealers in 1964 to look for another car. In the show room of the Ford Dealer was a 1964 Cobra with a Ford 289 with triple carbs in it priced at $6000. I was old enough to be car crazy by then and I ran over to get my father to come look at his next car. He said it only had two seats in it to which I had no answer except ‘so what, the speedometer goes up to 180mph! He didn’t buy it. I never let him forget his mistake. Many years later I would remind him, “Dad, remember that car I told you to buy? You know what they are selling for today? How much do you think you could get for that POS you bought instead?
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3rd January 2013 at 9:52 am
flash says:
Heard over creamed wheat and waffles, sometime in the distant past.
I think forced busing will be a great experiment in socio-engineering a New America . What could possible go wrong?
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3rd January 2013 at 9:56 am
Eddie says:
I was born in 1955. My Dad was the owner of a gas station. He made aboout eight cents a gallon on his gas sales.. Now, fifty-seven years they clear a nicklel if they’re lucky.So, while gas went from a quarter a gallon to $3-4, the cut of the profit to the small businessman dropped to a level that made it impossible to stay in business for most non-corporate operators.
When’s the last time you filled up at an independent gas station?
This is the story of small business in America in a nutshell, as far as I’m concerned.
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3rd January 2013 at 10:34 am
sangell says:
I remember too that ‘gas’ stations also had full automotive service . You got your tires, batteries, mufflers and anything else done at the gas station. I imagine many stations made more money doing auto service and selling tires and batteries than they did on gas sales. As late as the 1970′s I would drop my car off at Rudy’s Chevron for an oil change or tune up while I went to work and go across the street after work to pick it up.
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3rd January 2013 at 10:45 am
Gayle says:
1955 memories (I was in 3rd grade):
I was ill the year before, and the doctor came to the house
The household acquired a television
Young kids like me played for endless hours outside and rode bicycles all over the neighborhood
We rode around in the backs of pickup trucks
Moms were at home during the day
People under 12 years of age paid 25 cents to see a double-feature movie plus newsreels and a
cartoon and movie theaters were free of ads except for previews of coming attractions
We shopped in small specialty stores in a pleasant downtown commercial area
Woolworth’s was a magic place
Families rarely ate in restaurants
The social climate was generally optimistic except for the pesky Russians and emerging civil rights
conflicts
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3rd January 2013 at 10:57 am
Administrator says:
Gayle
Thank you for the very nice Christmas card.
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3rd January 2013 at 11:04 am
ThePessimisticChemist says:
@Eddie – “When’s the last time you filled up at an independent gas station?”
My hometown still has one thats family owned and operated. The gas is typically more expensive, but its full service, they can fix a flat tire in record time, and their is always coffee brewing.
One of my friends was the grandson of the guy that owns the place, and I used to chip in and help fix tires or service cars on busy days.
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3rd January 2013 at 12:06 pm
ragman says:
sangell: I had exactly the same conversation with my parents in about ’67. The 289 Cobra was $4k. We had very little extra money so the Shelby was out of the question! I was 8 in ’55 and had an incredible childhood in South Florida. We had an old B&W tv, no air conditioning and the family car was a Willys. We basically had few restrictions and the kid played outside. Times certainly have changed.
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3rd January 2013 at 12:19 pm
NickelthroweR says:
I wasn’t born quite that early. The year I was born, 1966, my father bought our 3 bedroom brick home (right across the street from the park) for $11,000. My father worked at General Motors and could afford to send his three children to a private school. My mother did not work outside of the home. That left her plenty of time to be involved in Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts and the music and sports programs her children were involved with.
By the time I was in High School, most of that had changed as the mid-west was turning into the Rust Belt that we are all familiar with today. I watched cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Toledo descend into poverty and chaos.
Sometimes I think it would have been better to have been born later as I got a taste of how things should be but those days are gone. BTW, my mother likes to remind me that her 3 day hospital stay for my birth came out to $210. Go spend three days in a hospital today and see what that bill will come out to.
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3rd January 2013 at 12:28 pm
Didius Julianus says:
I was born in 1960. Consumer culture: remember getting original GI Joes, Lost in Space robot, Voyage to the bottom of the Sea sub, HO trains, etc for various Christmas times in the mid 1960s to very early 1970s. First Christmas tree I remember was an all aluminum job (wow)! Parents bought a house in 1967 in a good middle class Ft Lauderdale, Fl neighborhood for $20k, a 3 BR 2 bath home with a “Florida room” in addition to a living room and on a corner lot.
Dad was the only worker and started as an insurance salesman (life insurance) and ended up high in that industry’s corporate structure before a reversal of fortune in the mid 1970s. Eventually he recovered half way decently and now my parents are in retirement, seemingly content but sucked into the mainstream version of most stuff, quire a contrast to the seeds my dad planted with me so long ago…
We also rode our bikes all over the place, played outside a lot but also loved to watch Saturday morning cartoons and all the “classic” 1960s TV shors such as Batman, Star Trek, etc.
Had many good dinner time conversations with my Dad on history, politics, etc. These set the seeds for my eventual full awakening.
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3rd January 2013 at 1:09 pm
Didius Julianus says:
NickelThrower:
Thanks for the reminder. Was in the cub scouts, boy scouts, pine wood derby, ice cream socials at elementary school, 4th of July parades with our bikes festooned with red, white and blue decorations, playing cards in our spokes to make a racket, rough and tumble free style football (more like rugby I see now that I am in New Zealand) and we had a very un-PC name for it. Early morning family cook outs on the beach, The Sean Connery James Bond movies. Not understanding the protests re the VietNam war (too young, Dad too main stream).
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3rd January 2013 at 1:12 pm
Muck About says:
1955 was a fine year. I met my sweetie in Spanish class, got a football letter and figured out a couple of really great places we could go to smooch…..
I suppose that’s why Ma Nature designed us to grow old and die – the world changes to the point we don’t feel very comfortable in it, are left behind by the times and are soured on it by all the stupidity and cupidity that seems to multiple much faster than the population.
Now I just live day at a time, hold my sweetie every chance I get and wonder if we’ll be dead and gone before TSHTF.. Hope so..
MA
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3rd January 2013 at 1:51 pm
efarmer says:
I was born in 1955 as well. For another twelve years our family, which grew to ten, lived in a two bedroom former school house with no indoor toilet. Outhouse was a walk in the snow. In the winter our feather quilts would freeze to the center wall. My younger brothers shared the top bunk while I had the bottom.
Food was from the garden and the pasture. We all had chores and worked our asses off. Ended up with 5 valedictorians and we all have at least a bachelors, two doctors.
Why? We read. We read all the time. No video games, no TV. Books and board games. Our folks made us think.
I wouldn’t have traded any of it for the world. The memories we share when we get together are priceless.
EF
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3rd January 2013 at 2:03 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
I have had the oddest upbringing….
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3rd January 2013 at 2:53 pm
AWD says:
If we could only turn back the hands of time. 1955, before boomers wiped out the country.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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3rd January 2013 at 3:20 pm
Stucky says:
AWD
This was a fun thread to read. Thanks for stopping by and shitting all over it. Asshole.
Seriously, thanks. No one here had any idea you blame boomers for everything. What a surprise. We live for your thoughts. Surprised you didn’t post any pics of fatties from the ’50′s.
I liked it better when you exiled yourself. Try it again sometime.
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3rd January 2013 at 3:39 pm
ThePessimisticChemist says:
Its disingenuous to lay all of the blame at the feet of the Boomers.
Who was responsible for the ultimate suppression of states’ rights? Not the Boomers.
Who was responsible for the formation of the Federal Reserve? Not the Boomers.
Who started Medicare, SS and welfare? Not the Boomers.
Who completely destroyed the non-interventionist foreign policy ideals of our founders with imperialistic aggression in both the Old and New world? Not the Boomers.
About the only thing I can blame the Boomers for is being so lazy and stupid that they couldn’t see that their actions were perpetuating a century of bad decisions. They had an opportunity to fix the country and instead put the pedal to the floor. Give them credit for that, but for the love of whatever god you pray to, do NOT inflate their egos any further. This mess is a lot bigger than the Boomers.
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3rd January 2013 at 3:55 pm
Administrator says:
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3rd January 2013 at 4:06 pm
Administrator says:
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3rd January 2013 at 4:07 pm
Administrator says:
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3rd January 2013 at 4:09 pm
Administrator says:
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3rd January 2013 at 4:11 pm
sangell says:
Not everyone was nicer in the 1950′s. Here was Vic Morrow in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle pulling a switchblade on his teacher ( Glenn Ford)
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3rd January 2013 at 4:30 pm
Administrator says:
Best band name ever:
Vic Morrow’s Head
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3rd January 2013 at 4:35 pm
marissa says:
We moved to Texas from Chicago in 1961. I was eight.
I remember taking the train down through the prairie (America still had a functioning train system then) with my great aunt. As a little girl from Chicago I remember being shocked when the train pulled into Pawnee Oklahoma, it was desolate, dusty, unpaved; I remember the ragged and shoeless children Indian children I could see from the train window, I had never seen such destitute people before.
I remember Dallas in those days all the toilets and water fountains were labeled either ‘white only’ or ‘blacks only’. Business had signs posted ‘No blacks allowed’. I went to all white schools as colored children were not allowed to attend white schools.
Good times for some of us, but not for others?
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3rd January 2013 at 4:37 pm
AWD says:
Stucky, still sensitive about our boomer issues huh?
Where’s colma when you need him
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3rd January 2013 at 5:36 pm
sangell says:
Jesus Chrysler wasn’t a bad band name either.
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3rd January 2013 at 5:43 pm
howard in nyc says:
zara, you and i were born within a few days of one another, the waning days of 1956. my first crystal clear memory is that weekend in november 1963. but mine is of seeing oswald get it, live on television (black and white).
the fact this is my first clear memory explains a lot.
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3rd January 2013 at 5:55 pm
Stucky says:
AWD
Yes, I am. I can’t help it.
I didn’t really mean it when I said go exhile yourself. You’re a good guy. But, yeah, your Boomer Bashing does get under my skin sometimes. I should have NEVER admitted that. Now you’ll do it more than ever.
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3rd January 2013 at 7:36 pm
AWD says:
Stuck
Blow Me you fatass Boomer.
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3rd January 2013 at 7:39 pm
AWD says:
Stuck,
Glad you logged out first this time.
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3rd January 2013 at 7:41 pm
Stucky says:
LOL … Wasn’t me.
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3rd January 2013 at 7:46 pm
biggtmofo says:
1955 looked pretty cool in Back to the future when I a youth watching that movie. Doc Brown’s reaction was priceless when Marty McFly tells him that Reagan is president. As my father said that things were better then even in NJ. He has a good point.
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3rd January 2013 at 7:49 pm
stalker says:
Just when I think TBP couldn’t possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this… and TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF! I love boomer articles.
BTW, stuck, thanks for the tip: You might have to zoom in to read it —- (ctrl +).
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3rd January 2013 at 9:28 pm