'50s In The Rear-View...

As today dawned, so did my foray into the world of being a sexagenarian.

On reflection of the past five decades in my life I realized several things, chief among them being how much our world has changed.

I remember when school lunch boxes were metal, along with highway construction traffic barrels,  and seat belt laws didn't exits...nor did car seats for kids. I remember our home phone being on a party line...meaning we shared the line with several other families in our neighborhood.

I remember getting on the school bus and being greeted by the driver, Jerry, who always seemed to be smoking a cigarette. I remember my first grade school, Raemelton, conducting bomb drills during the Cuban missile crisis. Not tornado drills, but bomb drills...as in 'nuclear'.

I remember being in class at Raemelton when the principal announced over the loudspeaker that President Kennedy had been assassinated. I remember several teachers crying, too. I also remember being upset that television coverage of the Kennedy assassination preempted Saturday morning cartoons. No Huckleberry Hound or Deputy Dawg for me that morning.

I remember Dad teaching me how to box with boxing gloves when I was six years old...and nailing him square in the nose when he wasn't looking, he being on his knees in our living room as he gave me instruction. I also remember the wild ride to Mansfield General Hospital when I ripped my hand open trying to climb onto the garage roof that same year, Dad behind the wheel, horn blaring at every intersection. The surgeon, Dr. Myron Reed, told Mom and Dad he'd stopped counting sutures at number sixty while repairing the damage. I also remember going to his office to have the stitches removed several weeks later, the Doc smoking a cigar as he worked.

I remember watching Walter Cronkite delivering the evening news on TV, always commenting somewhere along the way about the war in Viet Nam. I also remember his closing line at the end of every broadcast...."and that's the way it is, (insert date)...". I also remember watching live coverage of the 1968 Democratic Convention riots in Chicago, where thousands of anti-war protesters clashed with police in the streets. Today's anti-Trump protests pale in comparison ( thankfully ).

I remember when people were ashamed to be on welfare or public assistance; now, two generations later, for some it has become a way of life. I remember abortion being illegal, the Cold War dominating the news, the Rolling Stones being banned from the Ed Sullivan Show for song lyrics; I remember when patriotism was a thing to be proud of and those who burned our flag reviled in the media for it. I remember a girl wearing a paper dress to Mifflin School in sixth grade...and it promptly getting torn. Female students having to call a parent for a change of clothes because their skirts were too short. Corporal punishment administered by teachers when a student misbehaved. I remember when we carried our books by hand; no book bags or back packs. I NEVER remember school shootings happening when I was growing up, and seemingly every home having a firearm.

I remember going 'Trick-or-Treating' with my sister Joyce...without our parents... and it being dark outside as we did so, because no one feared for the safety of kids in our neighborhood back then. I remember kids riding bikes without wearing helmets, toy guns that didn't have orange-tipped barrels and being able to buy a Hershey bar for ten cents.

I remember gasoline being a dollar per gallon, when $500 was more than enough for a week-long vacation as we traveled out West...by car. I also remember sleeping at night along the highway in our brand-new 1962 Chevy Bel-Aire station wagon somewhere in New Mexico near Albuquerque, and seeing the Grand Canyon during that trip.

When I was growing up, we weren't wealthy in terms of possessions and money by any stretch of the imagination, but our family never went hungry, we always had clean clothes and a roof over our heads. There were plenty of kids my age in our neighborhood, we had woods behind the house that had a creek running through it and parents looked out for not only their own kids but every kid their children played with.

It was a happy life, a childhood I'm thankful for.

Here's hoping the next sixty years are just as happy.