When I was Young

Politics
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When a bunch of rich white guys burned down a poor black neighborhood, they was the bad guys! Now, they are somehow the good guys, you know, ANTIFA…

Peaceful protests were…Peaceful…And the news people reported riots as…Riots!

Police were respected & when they arrested rioters, looters, arsonists, & killers the prosecutor kept them in jail, or at least mommie & daddy had to put up actual money for bail.

Democrats was pro-American, flag, patriotic, & thought Marxism was evil.

Guns was in gun racks in the school parking lot, loaded & nobody ever shot up the school.

People had much more respect for each other, & the young never disrespected the elderly especially. BIG no no!

When you took a job you had better take a lunch, you was going to work or go home.

Your word was something you gave with everyone EXPECTING you to do it, & if you didn’t you was 2 inches tall.

News people was REPORTERS, few of them was commentators who called themselves journalists. Nothing wrong with commentator’s who are honest, but portraying yourself as a journalist while being a commentator is baloney.

News people confirmed a story before reporting. Almost no anonymous reports.

War was something everyone wanted to avoid & end as soon as possible.

It wasn’t all perfect, there has always been bad people, & bad things happen, but we have lost something in this country, it’s sad. This is still a good country, but too many bad things that seem to be getting worse & could take us all down.

If we allow evil to prevail, we are going to lose it all.

PLUS:

A soda was .10 cents, so was a hamburger, fries, & a candy bar, & gas was .21 cents.

A kid could hitchhike almost anywhere safely.

Halloween was pounds & pounds of candy & lasted 4-6 hours.

If you was broke down, rarely you ever had to call AAA, someone would give you a jump, take you to get gas, help change your tire, or offered you a ride home.

We was never, ever bored, & home computers, video games, & cell phones didn’t exist.

We left home in the morning, came home at dark, & nobody worried we was in trouble or missing. We wasn’t.

When we became teenagers we got a job if we wanted a car or go on dates. My first car costed about $50.

Drive in movies…

Almost nobody wanted to miss the fair, especially the demolition derby! Whoever won was a hero!

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Everything I put in there after PLUS: was just mostly for fun!

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You forgot some stuff. I rode my bike and skateboard without a helmet or knee and arm pads. I could be gone all day long with my friends and my parents didn’t worry about it. A lot of people did not lock their front doors at night. You could speak about politics and share ideas even with those who didn’t agree with you.

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Yes! Thanks for this post!

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There was something else. There was never a thought that taking a knife or gun to school was a good idea.
I am a product of the 50’s and 60’s from the west coast. In 1964 my family took a train trip across the country. We went to the NY worlds fair and then took the train south to Atlanta and then back to the west coast. We stopped in Birmingham to change trains. It was the first time that I saw bathrooms and water fountains that were labeled “whites only”. I went out of the train terminal and saw the sings in the shops across the street that said “no coloreds” or “no Negros”. As a kid from California I had no idea that this existed. And throughout the 1960’s I certainly had a better understanding about racial injustice that was happening in the south.

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You could take weapons to school back in the day. On the gun rack. Knives in the pocket. A big knife was probably a no-no, but gun in the rack, ok.

In my dad’s day guns was brought inside the school & leaned on the back wall.

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Some might argue this is the most important documentary ever made.

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It was complicated in those Southern states. Very weird by CA standards. But it also had to do with white Poverty too. From Hollywood, my father put me on a pay phone with my Grandmother in Nashville. I was about 4 yrs old, She told me, “Your Grand daddy refused to shake hands with Booker T. Washington.” and “I used to have to chase the darkies out of the Chicken Coup, with a broom,”

I had never talked to her before and that was what she said. I told my father, “She talks like a duck.”

It took me a while to realize how dirt poor my grandmother was. Her husband died when my father was 15 and he had 3 brothers and a sister. She was super religious.

A little later we went to Tennessee and visited her and I, met her in person.

My father had left home at age 15. Within two years he was a Regional Manager for Swift Premium in Indiana. He joined the Merchant Marines and went around world on ships, became a pilot and was flying transports then became a flight instructor for the Army Air Force. After the war, he moved to Hollywood. Soon he was doing very well. He got married and had kids. We were doing very well. He gave money to his mom regularly and when we visited Tennessee, he was mortified when she started talking about. “Darkies.”

It took me a while to understand she had lived her life always under the threat of getting robbed by “darkies” Chickens, milk, money, “anything that wasn’t nailed down.” --and she was dirt poor. So what does that mean? Bitterness for sure, but proud, so she lived for church activities in a Church of Christ denomination that prohibited singing in Church., especially no organs or musical instruments. As Lutheran, my mom’s religion, I found that no instruments/singing prohibition weird. Singing and music was my favorite thing in Church.

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You miss the Democrats of the 1950s?

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Believe it or not bail was a thing up till recently.

Why did you bring up the 1950s?

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I was taking a guess based on his post what time period he was referring to. 60s?

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Sure I’ll believe that’s the reason

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When we were children, you’d go outside and play…all day long. The mothers of your friends were like surrogate mothers of yours. During Halloween, you’d use a pillow case and about fill it up…without any fear that the candy was tainted. People even made caramel apples…without razor blades in them.

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What’s interesting about Halloween is that “Halloween Sadism” is a total myth, but parents remain way more concerned with razor blades and cyanide in candy than drunk drivers, who run over trick or treaters every year.

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As our country moves away from our Lord, there are many trends going in the wrong direction.

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when I was young the USSR was not trying to be recreated by a major American political party

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I’m 69, sounds like we are from the same era.
Our parents are from “The Greatest Generation”.
Add:
You had to be in the house when the street lights came on or else.
Discipline at school wasn’t a discussion about feelings it was at the end of a paddle. Discipline at home was a paddle, leather strap, hair brush, wooden spoon or anything else within reach. My father was a brick, block and stone mason; a very strong and powerful man, a WWII veteran. He taught my brothers and I about baseball, respect and the value of hard work. But if you deserved a spanking he would grab you by the arm lift you up and let ‘er rip!
“Grandpa, tell me ‘bout those good old days”!
- the Judds

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My mother is only 5’2" tall but raised energized boys. She never said, “wait till your father comes home”. She told us to lay down on recamier or backless couch and she went to the drawer and got her frying pan cord. She folded the ends into her palm because she said the damage is not meant to be permanent. You could hear the cord slicing through the air and when it hit, it broke every corpuscle it touched. You’d go to the bathroom and see the pattern on your butt. She meant business and ruled the roost. She was a part of the greatest generation. :sunglasses:

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That all sounds familiar. Sometimes I had a plastic mask and sometime I had a sheet with holes in it.
I recall when I lived in a small town in the 1950s, there was no thought of locking the door during the day. And as a kid of about 9 I pretty much had free reign of the town without a parent beingthere.

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Time for everyone to see things with nostalgia glasses.

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