Growing up in the 50's

I remember growing up in the 1950’s, the days of PEZ dispensers, Hula Hoops, YoYo’s, and marbles, especially marbles. At the school yard each weekend there was a carnival of marble games and you could either play or be played. “Hit one get em’ all” was the barkers cry as concessionaires lined up 5, 6, or 7 marbles and challenged shooters to take a shot from a distance of about 10 feet. Shooters would pick their challenge based on the number of marbles in the prize, and the distance between the marbles. Obviously the closer the spacing, the better the odds of hitting one of them. More often than not, it was more advantageous to be the concessionaire and that is usually what I did. I bagged thousands of marbles this way.

These were also the early days of A&W Root Beer in 1 gallon glass bottles, and a time when McDonald’s was still bragging about “1 million sold.” Today, they just say “Billions and Billions.” I could get a hamburger, fries, and a coke for 37¢. 15¢ for a burger, 12¢ for fries, and 10¢ for a coke! I remember that gasoline was selling for 23¢ a gallon, and if there was a gas war going on the price could drop into the teens.

Sometimes I think those were the “Lazy, Hazy, Crazy days of summer” that were made famous in song. War games in the wooded shorelines of the Sacramento River or, for the delight of passing boaters, building pornographic shapes with the blue/gray clay that was prevalent along the river’s banks. I remember days floating with the current on inner tubes, with fishing lines tied to our toes and the long walks back on the hot dusty levee roads.

As time went by, it became the era of Bobby Sox and Blue Jeans, and dancing the bop to the music of Gene & Eddie (Gene Vincent & Eddie Cochran). Gene’s big hits were “Be Bop A Lula” and “Woman Love,” the latter giving him the bad boy image of the time. Eddie’s big hit was “Oh Julie.” Gene & Eddie toured England in 1961 and during their visit they were involved in an automobile accident. Gene survived, but Eddie was killed at the age of 21. For many of us, “that” was the other “day the music died.”

At about this same time, I became aware of Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and the infamous Jerry Lee Lewis, who I saw at the Sacramento Municipal Auditorium when he was in his prime. I received my first “Hi-Fi” record player as a Christmas gift and from that time on, I was a music junkie. I remember going to the Tower Record Shop on Broadway and spending hours thumbing through all the 45 rpm’s and taking one or two at a time into the listening booths. I would gently remove the records from their envelopes, being careful not to leave my fingerprints on the grooves and place them on the turntable, then gently lower the arm onto the record surface. The records cost about a dollar each, which was a handy sum in those days.

Carnation Co. had a creamery on or near “L” street in downtown Sacramento. It was about two blocks from the State Capitol building. There was a soda fountain attached to the creamery and if you had the enormous sum of 35¢ you could have one of their delicious milk shakes. Sacramento had a small “China Town” and a train depot where all the hobos gathered. Sacramento was always shipping the hobos to San Francisco, and San Francisco just kept shipping them back. I don’t think they ever resolved the issue, which was good for us kids, because in our later teens we enlisted the help of those hobos to buy our liquor for us. To give you and idea of the Laissez-Faire attitude of the time, I will relate the events of one of our New Year’s parties. We had been drinking and were driving to a new location when we were pulled over by the police. The police didn’t cite us but they confiscated our bottles of liquor and sent us on our way. A few miles later they pulled us over again and gave us our liquor back and wished us a happy new year!

I guess my youth was about as close as you could get to a Huckleberry Finn experience and looking back, it seems like it was not only the age of innocence, but also the age of naiveté. The world has become a much more dangerous place than it was then. Back then, we had just come out of a war that left us strong and the rest of the world devastated and other countries didn’t mess with us. Punishment for crime was swift and sure, and everybody was working thanks to the construction of the “Inner-state Highway” system started by president Eisenhower.

I blame liberal thinking for taking all this away. We started coddling criminals until we have more of them on the streets than in prison, and the ones in prison are living the life of Riley! There is no deterrent to keep them from going back once they are released! We have taken the same tack in our dealings with the rest of the world and are too concerned with what they think of us. This has gravely weakened our international status.

Today, unemployment is reaching catastrophic levels because, instead of investing our money in the country’s infrastructure like president Eisenhower did, and like what was promised during the recent campaign, the idiot we have in the White House gave our money away! Somebody needs to tell him that you get a tree to grow, not by watering the leaves at the top, but by watering the roots! We are the roots.