What was it like back then?
Darian |
One thing that was the same for me as for you was the pace of change. As a pre-schooler, I did not, as I recall, have a TV available. Sometime in the late 40s, a round cathode ray tube found its way into my house. It was about ten inches across and featured a rather grainy image, usually of someone in a poorly lit studio somewhere, reading a radio script. By the time I was the age that you are now TV had come of age. An enormous console, including a 19 inch diagonal screen, occupied a place of honor in the living room. Color had come of age too, and some programs were broadcast in this vivid new medium. In Chicago there were four stations available. SitComs and variety shows, many in black and white were the standard fare. There was also some high tone culture coming onto the market, too. And fabulous news features like "You are There", a historical mockumentary series, where they would do stuff like interview George Washington while he was standing in the boat crossing the Delaware on his way to an appointment with destiny. There was a noon-time show called Uncle Johnny Coons, which featured Crusader Rabbit, a favorite of mine. Uncle Johnny also had a show on Sunday where he read the funny papers out loud. One day as the show ended and they turned off his ON-AIR light he said "Well, that ought to hold the little B@5t@rds for a while." That episode ended his TV career, at least in the Chicago market. Even then, the evil Walt Dismal spread a synthetically cheerful miasma across the young psyche of America. I cried my eyes out at "Lady and the Tramp" and regularly watched the budding bosoms of Annette Funicello on the Mickey Mouse club. Some things never change. There were no video games. When it came to obsessive, solitary past-times, all I needed was a tennis ball. I would play catch with myself against a wall for hours. There were also pinball machines. They were considered a somewhat disreputable pursuit and so appealed to me greatly. I became adept and was able to monopolize one cheaply at the bowling alley for quite a while by winning free games. I also went nuts for bowling and used every cent I could scrape together to buy a few lines. I went out for little league. Played second. I used to partner with my Mom in bridge. We would visit her Bridge buddies, and play a few rubbers. There were almost no computers. The intellectual basis for them was just forming in the academies of the time. They had a huge roomful of vacuum tubes, called Univac, that had less computational Oomph than your PSP. The problem of User interface had barely been thought of, and punch cards, a 5"x8" numbered grid, into which you punched holes, was the preferred method of introducing data into the system. Only the high priests of computerdom were allowed to commune with these great clumsy beasts. If you had told the boldest thinker of the time that in 30 to 40 years every man woman and child would have one of these on their desk top, he would have laughed you out of the room. When I was about 15, that would be 1960, my friend Richard Hall enlisted in the AirForce and became a medical tech in Biloxi, Miss. I missed him. I decided to visit. I bought a bus ticket and went out of town on the 'hound'. Well, I woke up next day in Mississippi having to take a serious leak. I jumped off the bus and went to the bathroom. When I came out, I felt sort of strange and out of place, but didn't know why. I looked around and noticed that all the people were Negroes (that was the acceptable and polite way to refer to African American people back then) and they were looking at me funny. Some lady I had been speaking with on the bus came up and told me, very embarrassed, that I had come to the wrong waiting room. Oops. I guess I had stumbled into the "colored" waiting room. I thanked her and split. Wow, apartheit, in America, what a shock. |
Anna |