Remembering

I guess growing up in the 50’s wasn’t so bad.  Like most generations, I look back with a bit of nostalgia but at the time I didn’t really appreciate it as much as I do now.  Things were not as transitory as they are today, or at least I didn’t think they were.  Big Ben five and dime stores were there and they had been there since the beginning of time, or at least it seemed that way.

It had only been a few short years since the end of WWII, but it seemed ancient history to me back then.  I didn’t realize that the hobos who were so prevalent had probably just been released from military service and were having a hard time readjusting to civilian life.  War surplus stores were everywhere and one of my favorite pastimes was to browse through these warehouses where you could buy anything from canteens to trucks.  Ammo belts, mess kits, bayonets; it was a young boy’s delight.  The strange part is I never fully comprehended where all the stuff came from or that a world war had just ended.  I thought military surplus would always be a fixture of my world like the five & dime.

Supermarkets were just coming into their own but there were still many mom & pop country stores, even in a metropolis as large as Sacramento, CA.  They all seemed to have wooden floors and a musty odor that was not offensive, but particular to small country stores.  Sometimes you would tell the grocer what you wanted and he would collect it all for you, but most had adopted the newer procedure of allowing the customer to collect their own goods from stocked shelves.

Service stations were just that, not like the gas stations we have today.  In the 50’s, when you pulled in to “fill her up” with your choice of Ethyl or Regular, you would drive across little black hoses that would cause a bell to ring alerting the attendant that he had a customer.  The attendant would pump the gas, wash all the windows, check the water level in the radiator, check the oil level, and check the air pressure in all four tires, and all this for twenty cents a gallon!

Macy’s, Harris’, Montgomery Wards, J C Penny, they were all there but some of them are no longer with us today, or have taken on new identities.  Levi’s was there as was Keds “tennis shoes” but you could only get them in black canvas.  McDonald’s was just beginning and they still posted the number of hamburgers they sold on their signs.  I can recall when they reached 5 million and then 10 million and finally they sold so many they quit bragging about it.  Coffee cost a dime, as did a phone call or a bus ride to anywhere in town.  Haircuts were about a dollar unless you went to the barber college where you could get butchered for 25 cents.

All this reminiscing reminds me of one of my favorite “Twilight Zone” episodes where the harried 20^th century executive longs to get off at a quaint “turn-of-the-century” town called Willoughby.  I can hear the conductor now, “Willoughby, next stop Willoughby.