I m glad i was born in 1953 and got to live most ofthe 50s

[Grace]

My sister is 2 years older than me and is always trying to be 22 again (she'll be 50 this year). I love being my age and have no fantasies of going back.

Ah, but wouldn't it be fun to "go back" for a few weeks with the knowledge you have now, but in your 22 year old body?

 

[Mr. H.]

I guess it all depends on where you lived. I was born in the 60's & lived on a farm in the rural Midwest & it seemed like everything was ok until just after Thanksgiving 1979. Thats when Jimmy Carter put a grain embargo on Russia. It had little effect on Russia but devastated the USA farming community. All around farmers went bankrupt, families went on welfare. Neighbors were trading us government cheese for eggs from our chickens. Suddenly nearly everyone at school including us were on the free lunch program.

Farm land prices dropped 85% in months. You could not get a loan. Farm auctions were everywhere & that is where you had to go to get stuff because store prices were to high. People were crying as their stuff was auctioned off. It was tough getting fuel, fertilizer, herbicide, pesticide & seed to put in a crop. Some people we knew committed suicide. Neighbors were trading stuff for farm animals to butcher so they could feed their families. We grew, canned & butchered everything we ate for over 2 to 3 years. We could afford nothing from the stores. The only candy I got all year was from a birthday party at school. Most of us wore second hand clothes that nobody else wanted. It was the worst time I have ever experienced.

The entire community celebrated at the polls as we all voted for Ronald Reagan. Everything was very different a year later. I have never seen such a positive change in my life as I saw that year. Things never recovered to pre-embargo levels due to Brazil becoming the new agriculture trading partner of choice for Europe since the USA could no longer be trusted as a reliable trading partner. Brazil turned millions of their Amazon Rain Forest into farms to feed the world after Jimmy Carters stupid stunt. But at least the USA farm community was no longer living in crisis poverty mode, but did have to rely on farm subsidies for many years later to keep things going.

This sounds hauntingly familiar.

Oh yeah... he basically did the same thing to the U.S. petroleum industry with his Windfall Profits Tax.

 

[Mad Scientist]

My sister is 2 years older than me and is always trying to be 22 again (she'll be 50 this year). I love being my age and have no fantasies of going back.

Ah, but wouldn't it be fun to "go back" for a few weeks with the knowledge you have now, but in your 22 year old body?

I see what your saying but to be honest, I don't keep in contact most everyone that far back in my past. It's like my dads wife said about not going to her H.S. reunion:
"If I really wanted to see those people over the last few decades I would have stayed friends with them, but I didn't". And you know what? She's right.

Times change, people change. You can never go back. Someone famous said that.

My H.S. yearbook was recently posted online (classmates.com) and I looked up a couple of my old flames. I saw the picture of the girl who broke my heart in H.S., the one I was madly in love with and dropped me like a bad habit. And as I looked at her picture and saw her face for the first time in 30 years you know what I thought? "What the **** was I thinking? This girl wasn't that hot". I found the girl I dumped to be with her and knew right away I shoulda' stayed with her. (Who knows how it would have worked out anyway)

So really, it's best just to have your fond memories and just leave it at that.

 

[sparky]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ0iFAwRPYk&feature=player_detailpage]YouTube - Eddie Money - I Wanna Go Back (Official Music Video) WIDESCREEN[/ame]

 

[Granny]

and all of the 60s - cause everythingafter that mainly blows


how bout a little of that///////////////

I'm older than you, but I have to agree ... the 50s and early 60s were much better all the way around - we were actually a free nation back then. You're right - everything after that just turned to crap. We were up to our ankles in shit by the mid-60s and have since sunk in up to our eyeballs.

And, yes, I have issues with Jimmy Carter's presidency myself.

 

[The Gadfly]

The fifties....yeah, that was a simpler time. The sixties? For me, that meant going to war, and coming =home to find my country turned upside downI guess it was the best of times, or the worst of times, depending on where you were. It's hard to explain, how it feels to go and be a stranger fighting in a strange land you don't understand, and then come home, and find you're still a stranger, in a strange land, that you don't recognize anymore....

 

[American Horse]

My sister is 2 years older than me and is always trying to be 22 again (she'll be 50 this year). I love being my age and have no fantasies of going back.

Ah, but wouldn't it be fun to "go back" for a few weeks with the knowledge you have now, but in your 22 year old body?

I was nine in 1950. HERE I was in 1959, an 18 year old from Bloomington Indiana 250 miles from home working as a stonecutter in Joliet Illinois; a Rebel without a cause.

If I could be that 18 year old - what I know now, would be potentially useful but probably not very well accepted; I know when so many of the people that were alive then would die, and how. Information that I doubt very much those who could benefit from it would accept that knowledge.

There was that young lady who I'd had a huge crush on to no avail, who in her second marriage would live next door to me and mine, with the knowledge that I'd had that huge crush many years before as a teen. I know that one night in the middle of the winter her son would go into the garage and start the engine of the family car, and he as well as his mom and dad would perish because of it.

Another of those people, my best pal would be in Methodist Hospital in Indy, for the second time to have part of a cancerous (tibia) bone removed from his leg. That was on Saturday, October 5th, when I would hitch-hike up from Bloomington to see him there. On the way I'd hear the news on some stranger's car radio that the Russians had just beaten us into space with the launch of their satellite, Sputnik-I. It had happened the day before but a news report had been delayed by the Russians. They were always cautious with information about their launches; they never announced beforehand.

Sorry to seem overly morose, but what amazes one, upon reaching the relatively young age of 70, is how many, not to mention relatives (which has it’s own pattern), but how many friends go on before.

On the whole, though, it was idyllic, as we spent our long ummer days , practically every day HERE.
Recognize it?
It figures prominently in the movie "Breaking Away;" but it was our place, not the kids in the movie.

Here's the trailer to Breaking Away - the entire movie reflects our home town in the 50s.

Here's another video of our hometown and the quarry in the film; Breaking Away to Bloomington

 

[ginscpy]

and all of the 60s - cause everythingafter that mainly blows


how bout a little of that///////////////

Me too! It was the last best time to live as a child in this country. People left their doors unlocked. Most white neighborhoods were crime free. Still got a decent education that didn't make up shit about those bad white people and how they hurt all the minorities. Good times!

Once the propagandist made the bombing of Hiroshima look like an evil thing that only cruel Americans would do yet cover up what the Japs did, then the country went to hell.

Didnt need 911 or Amber Alerts in the 1950s

 

[Zona]

and all of the 60s - cause everythingafter that mainly blows


how bout a little of that///////////////

I'm older than you, but I have to agree ... the 50s and early 60s were much better all the way around - we were actually a free nation back then. .

Especially if you were black. My parents must have had a ball back then. Oh yeah, the good ol days.

**** that.

 

[HUGGY]

I m glad i was born in 1953 and got to live most ofthe 50s

Ya........ I'm sure you were real well informed by the time you were 6!

 

[Grace]

My sister is 2 years older than me and is always trying to be 22 again (she'll be 50 this year). I love being my age and have no fantasies of going back.

Ah, but wouldn't it be fun to "go back" for a few weeks with the knowledge you have now, but in your 22 year old body?

I see what your saying but to be honest, I don't keep in contact most everyone that far back in my past. It's like my dads wife said about not going to her H.S. reunion:
"If I really wanted to see those people over the last few decades I would have stayed friends with them, but I didn't". And you know what? She's right.

Times change, people change. You can never go back. Someone famous said that.

My H.S. yearbook was recently posted online (classmates.com) and I looked up a couple of my old flames. I saw the picture of the girl who broke my heart in H.S., the one I was madly in love with and dropped me like a bad habit. And as I looked at her picture and saw her face for the first time in 30 years you know what I thought? "What the **** was I thinking? This girl wasn't that hot". I found the girl I dumped to be with her and knew right away I shoulda' stayed with her. (Who knows how it would have worked out anyway)

So really, it's best just to have your fond memories and just leave it at that.

I was invited to my HS reunion. I said "no thanks. I was a loner then, and I'm a loner now. You were snots when I was doomed to be with ya and now you are old snots".
Still, I'd like to go back for a few days with the smarts I have now but in the body I used to have. I'd **** with 'em.

 

[ginscpy]

I watchedthe Beatlles on Ed Sullivan

And there other concerts .
Ferget about the girls fainting 0 thats a given..

But the guys and the cops were having a goodtime also
BEATLES FOREVER

 

[editec]

YUP.

If you were WHITE the 50s probably looks like halcyon days.

If you were BLACK or some other minority, things probabaly don't look quite so good.

 

[brokenarrow]

YUP.

If you were WHITE the 50s probably looks like halcyon days.

If you were BLACK or some other minority, things probabaly don't look quite so good.

Unless you were one of those thousands of WHITES that got drafted and fought in Korea. Some didn't come back.

What would you rather be.....A live minority or a dead white?

 

[American Horse]

I m glad i was born in 1953 and got to live most ofthe 50s

Ya........ I'm sure you were real well informed by the time you were 6!

Wait a minute Huggy; as I recall you made that very same claim about being informed about Joe McCarthy and McCarthism at something like the same age. But you were different? Not ?
You have sole rights to being a child prodigy?

 

[rdean]

and all of the 60s - cause everythingafter that mainly blows


how bout a little of that///////////////

PLUS, American males born in that year did not face the DRAFT.

Lucky sods.

People born in 50, 51 faced the LOTTERY and the very real possiblity of getting their asses shipped to Viet Nam.

What a difference a year makes, eh?

Things like the above are why I lagh and luagh and laugh at people who tell me they are MASTERS OF THEIR OWN DESTINY.

There was still a draft but I believe those born in 53 and after weren't drafted. Thank you, Mr Nixon.

Wrong. I was born in 1953 but wasn't drafted because of my number. I enlisted anyway in 1975 when the draft had just ended. It was a way to see the world, defend the country and get a college education. It worked out exactly as planned.
Being in the 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery, 8th Infantry Division was some of the best times of my life. I worked in S2 and my MOS was 82C. My clearance was "Secret". Had breakfast with the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Mr. Hoffman along with 3 other soldiers surrounded by machine guns and Secret Service, a fantasy come true.
The Vietnam war had just ended, but we were involved in constant training exercises just west of the "Iron Curtain" in a divided Germany.
The stories I have of barracks life could fill a book. It was the first time I was really exposed to people of other races and from other countries. I lived in white suburbia before that.
Like all soldiers, I was in a position to be sent into combat, but was fortunate that I didn't have to endure that.

This is why I believe there should be a draft. People are less likely to send their own kids off to die somewhere over oil. They are much more likely to demand an explanation from Bush or some other Chicken Hawk if it's their own kids in danger.

Plus, I'm sick of rich people who don't want to spend anything to protect their money. If they are going to get tax break, then let their kids sacrifice just like everyone else.

And, there's nothing like sending ignorant racists overseas and making them live with people of other races to change their attitude. There is only one color in the US Army and that's OD Green. I don't know how many southern whites were put into a room with a black guy and ended up best friends.

 

[strollingbones]

o shove the good up days right up your asses.....things i dont miss....

polio...remember polio

o wait....what about th factor....miss that.....infants dying due to blood type

miss hiding under your desk in case of nuclear attack?

miss the divided american.....divided on race....you miss that shit..the riots and all....

party lines....hell you people cant go to the bathroom with that damned cell phone....

paying cash??????????? right you want to go back to them days

 

[Mr Natural]

We had the best of everything.

 

[brokenarrow]

PLUS, American males born in that year did not face the DRAFT.

Lucky sods.

People born in 50, 51 faced the LOTTERY and the very real possiblity of getting their asses shipped to Viet Nam.

What a difference a year makes, eh?

Things like the above are why I lagh and luagh and laugh at people who tell me they are MASTERS OF THEIR OWN DESTINY.

There was still a draft but I believe those born in 53 and after weren't drafted. Thank you, Mr Nixon.

Wrong. I was born in 1953 but wasn't drafted because of my number. I enlisted anyway in 1975 when the draft had just ended. It was a way to see the world, defend the country and get a college education. It worked out exactly as planned.
Being in the 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery, 8th Infantry Division was some of the best times of my life. I worked in S2 and my MOS was 82C. My clearance was "Secret". Had breakfast with the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Mr. Hoffman along with 3 other soldiers surrounded by machine guns and Secret Service, a fantasy come true.
The Vietnam war had just ended, but we were involved in constant training exercises just west of the "Iron Curtain" in a divided Germany.
The stories I have of barracks life could fill a book. It was the first time I was really exposed to people of other races and from other countries. I lived in white suburbia before that.
Like all soldiers, I was in a position to be sent into combat, but was fortunate that I didn't have to endure that.

This is why I believe there should be a draft. People are less likely to send their own kids off to die somewhere over oil. They are much more likely to demand an explanation from Bush or some other Chicken Hawk if it's their own kids in danger.

Plus, I'm sick of rich people who don't want to spend anything to protect their money. If they are going to get tax break, then let their kids sacrifice just like everyone else.

And, there's nothing like sending ignorant racists overseas and making them live with people of other races to change their attitude. There is only one color in the US Army and that's OD Green. I don't know how many southern whites were put into a room with a black guy and ended up best friends.

I knew a guy who was a vet of WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. He was asked to be on the draft board of his local town. He quit because he was sick and tired of being overruled when the rest of the board were giving rich kids deferments.

Rich man's war, poor man's fight. Just like all wars.

 

[LumpyPostage]

I'd hate to live in the '50s. Everything was in black and white and you had to put on a hat to go shopping.