Back to the 50's

 
 

Byter Shirley sent me the following email, which I will post in two parts, the second part tomorrow because of the large number of photographs in it.

Much as many of my posts look at historical events, photographs and people, and at the origins of things, I am not a person who looks to the past to say how bad the present is.  Certainly there is truth in some of those messages, such as “Remember when we used to go to sleep with all the doors and windows open to catch the southerly?”  Looking back to bygone days simply to moan about what has been lost is a quick means to unhappiness and bitterness. Life’s journey is similar to driving a car:  you look through the windscreen at where you are and to where you are going, you don’t travel forward with your eyes fixed on the rear vision mirror.

That said, I am posting Shirley’s email because of the simple question she asked when she sent it:  “Remember these days Otto?”  Shirley and I are showing our age because I remember them all, even to the extent of saying that the penny depicted appears to be a Pommy penny.  Also, we didn’t call them shanghais, to us they were slingshots.  (And I don't agree with the pic showing the child being spanked).

This is the email sent:

Back to the 50's!

None of you blokes would remember these . . .

All the girls had ugly school uniforms

It took five minutes for the TV to warm up

Nearly everyone's Mum was home when the kids got home from school

Nobody owned a purebred dog

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny

Your Mother wore nylons that came in two pieces

All male teachers wore ties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels

You got your windscreen cleaned, oil checked and petrol served, without asking, all for free, every time.

Mum cooked every night and nearly every meal was meat and 3 veg with a roast on Sunday

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They threatened to keep children back a year if they failed the school year. . . And they did!

When an FC Holden was everyone's dream car . . .

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked

Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles?

Playing cricket with no adults to help the children with the rules of the game

Bottles came from the corner shop without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger

And with all our progress, don't you wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savour the slower pace, and share it with the children of today?

When being sent to the headmaster's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you at home

Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.   As well as summers filled with bike rides, cricket, Hula Hoops, skating and visits to the pool, and bonfire nights with REAL firecrackers.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, 'Yes, I remember that'?

I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a Double Dare to pass it on. To remember what a Double Dare is, read on, and remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

Send this on to someone who can still remember the Lone Ranger and Sgt Bilko

(Continued tomorrow).