Years Gone By

This article could be for my generation but this reporter would hope that some younger folks will read this and wonder how we older people survived the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.

I remember the Jackie Gleason Show.  It was a show that families watched in the 1950’s.  The worst words one heard then were to his neighbor, Norton, and that was “One of these, POW, right in the kisser.”  It was a live show and I remember the night when Jackie fell and broke his leg and the show continued until the end.

After school, most kids went home and watched the Mouseketeers starring Annette Funicello or the continuing saga of Dark Shadows.

Goodness, who could forget the Gene Autry show and the Andy Griffith show?  Of course, everyone can still watch Andy and Barney late in the afternoons before the news.  The Lone Ranger and Tonto are also back on TV on certain channels.  Roy Rogers and Dale Evans always ended their program singing, “Happy Trails to You until We Meet Again.” When I think of these shows, I am graciously reminded that my generation enjoyed really “clean” comedy, westerns and drama.

If you’re over 40, one couldn’t possibly know that these programs were in black and white.  One could hardly see them on some days because of all the “snow” on the television screen.  Folks would spread the “rabbit ears” far apart, hopefully to get a better picture.

Many neighbors gathered at our home to watch the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth.  It’s hard to believe that she has been the Queen of England for most of my lifetime.

Back in the 1950’s, my mother would cut up chicken, chop hardboiled eggs and then spread mayonnaise on sandwich bread using the same cutting board.  It’s a real wonder that we didn’t get food poisoning!  She used to defrost hamburger on the kitchen counter, our school lunches were wrapped in wax paper (not in icepack coolers), AND we didn’t get e-coli.

The term “cell phone” would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell and a pager was the school’s public address system!  Boy, have times changed!

We all had to take gym, not P.E., and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top $9.95 Keds only worn in gym class. We wouldn’t dare wear tennis shoes to school; only black and white oxfords or penny loafers with the penny showing on top.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches!  What an archaic health system we had back then.  Remember the school nurse who always had aspirin on hand and an empty cot or two?

What did we do without Benadryl when we got a bee sting?  We could have died! We played “King of the Hill” on old gravel piles and swung on long grapevines out in the woods.  If we got hurt, Mom would pull out the Mercurochrome and paint the injury.  Oh, the sting!

Now, it’s a trip to the ER, followed by a 10-day dose of expensive antibiotics and a call to a lawyer to sue the contractor for leaving a vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.  

We didn’t act up at the neighbor’s house either.  If we did, we got spanked there and again when we got home.  Not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family.  How could we possibly have known that we needed group therapy and anger management classes that are so popular today?

How did we survive?  The late comedian Red Skelton always ended his show with “Goodnight and God Bless.” He couldn’t say that now!

Why aren’t clean movies, clean TV shows and clean comedy ever made any more?  Parents need to stand up for their children’s future thought and actions.  Clearly, our country is in trouble when nothing is censored.