Cranky Old Fart from the Fifties

Me, of course -- I remember things like Truman running for President against Dewey in '48, the song "Shrimp Boats are A-Comin", 6" round TV screens with magnifying glasses, the Korean War, and all that stuff. My good friend Jeff Duntemann's July 4th meditations on the U.S. set me thinkin' about what it was like in them far-off and ancient days.

A lot of old crocks my age & older have this rabid case of nostalgia for the 50s, when the Mass was in Latin, people dressed nicely, and were polite to each other -- go watch some "Mayberry RFD" or Lassie re-reruns for some examples. Sex was dirty, and the streets were clean. The screaming, in-your-face punks that masquerade as political protesters now would have got thrown in the jug for disturbing the peace in the 50s.

I remember those times very clearly (roughly 1948 through 1965) -- and don't have quite the nostalgia that my contemporaries and elders seem to have. It _WAS_ a cleaner and politer time, without doubt. People were expected to act like grown-ups, and after political campaigns were over, we settled down to the business of America -- which was Business. I confess to still liking the music of the early 50s -- the tail end of the swing era -- better than the ear-busting noise popular nowadays. Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa", anyone?

I also remember the downsides, too -- the US had the most booooring President in the world. When Dwight D. Eisenhower would give a speech, the sales of sleeping pills took a nosedive. JFK got elected because he was a young smart-mouth with a sense of humor, unlike Ike.

Yes, there was discrimination, and rednecks -- but whoopie-doo, we still got both, and loudmouths on both sides. We _were_ working on it in the 50s, though -- boring old Ike sent the National Guard to desegregate Little Rock High School in the mid-50s. Civil Rights did not suddenly appear as an issue in the 60s.

The worst thing about the 50s was the Cold War Hysteria -- fear of the Soviet Union and nuclear war led us down the road toward destroying the real Civil Rights of the Americn people. A screaming demand of absolute security has driven the US to emulate its one-time enemy (and the European Parlour Pinks) in locking down tighter and tighter control over everything we do.

Kids born in the late 60s and the 70s grew up with the certain knowledge that they were going to die in a nuclear war -- thanks to their parents and grandparents' 50s Cold War hysteria. They are in their 30s and 40s now, and I get the feeling sometimes that they don't quite know what to do with themselves. The Yuppie thing of "eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" may be a consequence of that. Certainly the dark undercurrents in contemporary culture -- explicit violence in movies, computer games, and things like Columbine have their roots in the 50s Cold War paranoia.

The 50s were, objectively, the most law-abiding, peaceful, and serene era in U.S. history -- totally unlike the brash, contentious and uncultured 19th Century, the slightly stuffy early 20th, the craziness of the 20s and the grinding poverty of the 30s. The late 60s -- what we think of as "The Sixties" didn't start until about a year after JFK was assassinated -- and following decades have simply been examples of the U.S. returning to its riotous redneck roots.

I would like to see a higher standard of politeness and responsibility, as well as tolerance and good humor, spread across the U.S. -- and to be fair, there still is a lot of that, especially in the Midwest, which we bi-costal folks sometime have a bit of trouble imagining. I guess as a Senior (62), I'm just gonna have to set an example -- when I'm not busy cackling and complaining. ;-)