The Best Decade EVER?

by Edward Tofil -
Every once in awhile you have to stretch the legs and stroll down memory lane. Let’s take a look at the 1950s:
From “Give ’em hell” Harry to “I Like Ike” John Cameron Swayze would keep you advised. He’d tell you what was going on with Stalin, McCarthy and Hoover too. Later on the newscast you’d hear about segregation, forced bussing,  McCarthyism or what Elvis, Marilyn or The Rat Pack were up to. Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson or James Dean were newsworthy as well.  You’d watch this around the three channel TV (with tubes) while eating a brand new TV Dinner. Sometimes the transistor radio had to do the trick. By the way, the leading advertisers back then were the tobacco companies.
Some of your favorite shows may have included Superman, The Lone Ranger, Daniel Boone, The Honeymooners, Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy, Uncle Miltie or The Mickey Mouse Club. For variety we sought out Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen or Arthur Godfrey. You could also ride in one of those great cars of the fifties and go to the movies. There you could catch The Marx Brothers, Gene Autry, Lewis and Martin or Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.
For entertainment you had skate parks and soda fountains where the 33 or 45 r.p.m. records would be played on a record player or juke box. You could eat at McDonalds or get a 5 cent burger at White Castle. Perhaps filling up the car with 33 cents a gallon gas on your way to the drive-in would be a good idea. Fun time consisted of board games like chutes and ladders or the hula-hoop, comic books, jax and Mr. Potato Head. Reading those comic books by the way could lead to a purchase of x-ray glasses or sea monkeys.
A treat would be seeing Jackie Robinson play in a Dodgers-Giants game then catching a good humor truck on the way home. At the house you could call Grandma on the new rotary phone and ask her if she has any new green stamps for you to paste. Mom will be coming home from her job at the silk mill soon so don’t let the animal crackers spoil your appetite.
What a great time it was, when things were simpler. It’s the way it was and the way it is; as new and improved come along we lose a bit of who we were. As Ronnie Milsap says let’s get “lost in the fifties tonight.” It’s nice to do occasionally, for old times sake.