Growing Up in the 50's and 60's in Philadelphia and Delaware County: Things were different back then

Growing Up in The 50's and 60's in Philadelphia and Delaware County

Things I remember:

1.  Tastykakes

2.  soft pretzels

3.  steaks and hoagies

4.  people who sold roasted chestnuts on the street in the winter

OK, those are the ones you were probably expecting.

Looking back, our lives were different in the 50's and 60's, at least to me.

1.  Cars had a single, front seat. These were a make-out heaven.  One hand was for driving and one was for holding.  Why did we go from a bench to bucket seats?  Shouldn't we have voted or something?

2.  It was a time when I knew how to talk about music.  If someone recorded a dozen songs and made those songs commercially available, they would have "made a record".  Apparently use of the word "record" for such a collection confuses people now.  Records came in albums and albums had album cover art, and text on the back and text, occasionally, on the paper sleeve that the record came in.  When you bought a dozen songs, you used to get so much more than what you get now when you download.

3.  If you heard the word Cappuccino, you would assume it was a good Italian family name.

4.  It was a time when the only air bag in your car was when Uncle Elmer was driving.

5.  It was a time when cars were works of art - fins were in, and if your friend's parents had a Hudson Hornet, you got to ride in a cross between a hearse and a mechanical beetle.

6.  It was a time when vocabulary was rich - sampling history, entertainment and politics in daily analogies.  This unfortunately has all gone out the window like high button shoes. 

7.  There were formal battles everywhere, and you had to choose.  These were more important than whether you were a Democrat or a Republican!  Which side were you on?  The Beatles or the Dave Clark 5?  Pepsi or Coke?  Arco or Texaco?  Chevy or Ford?  Catholic or Protestant?  Ivory or Dial? American Bandstand or Aquarama?  Penn Jersey or Pep Boys?  The Bazaar or Jerry's Corner?  Thom McAn or Father & Son?

8.  People actually felt good about putting a tiger in their tanks.

9.  There was ABC, NBC, and CBS.  That was really it. 

10.  Newspapers were great, there were lots of them, and they were a part of our daily lives.  We got the Philadelphia Inquirer (the morning paper), The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (the evening paper) and the Delaware County Daily Times (on Thursdays).

11.  Radios were AM.  You listened to the music on the radio out of a 2-inch speaker during the day, and an ear bud late at night or, if you were lucky, a bed speaker that you put under your pillow.

12.  Nothing was stereo.

13.  People drank everywhere - in bars, in cars, on porches, in yards. 

14.  The world was black and white - TV, magazines, newspapers, and photography.

15.  People owned clothing that was formal (and often wore it); men had ties, jackets, suits, and vests in their closets.  They were probably purchased at Robert Hall (when the value goes up, up, up / and the prices go down, down, down . . . (you can finish it))

16.  Comfortable shoes were called sneakers, and had no connection to tennis.

17.  People held doors for others.

18.  People let you cross the street, in the absence of laws.

19.  Central air conditioning had little meaning.  You can't cool a house down by running cold water through your radiators.   (FYI, radiators are in houses, not just in cars.)

20.  People ate hot breakfasts every morning.  One utilized a range to do this.

21.  "Drugs" meant aspirin or Alka Seltzer.

22.  Cars rotted.

23.  People made do with what they had, and were not ashamed of it.

24.  People liked stories about World War II, airplanes, and private eyes.

25.  You didn't fuck with grandparents.  You appreciated them.

26.  If you were going to take a trip, you'd likely get a map at the gas station.  People knew how to fold up gas station maps, and took the time to do so.

27.  If they looked like headphones, they were called earmuffs.

28.  Santa was real.  He had helpers who dressed up like him.  End of story.

29.  Snow fell deeper.

30.  Rain rained harder and longer.

31.  We wore lots of ties.

32.  Boys and girls went on dates if they wanted to be together.

33.  Clocks had hands.

34.  Clocks and watches had to be wound up daily.

35.  Church was mandatory.

36.  Family was everything.

37.  Just because you die, it doesn't mean your television show won't continue to air at the same day and time.  See Lawrence Welk.

38.  Money went a long way.  It seems like, while we had less money, we more often ate steaks.

39.  Billboards and ads for smoking and drinking were everywhere.

40.  People smoked and drank on airline flights.  Cigarettes were given to everyone, free, on flights.

41.  Cameras had flashbulbs, and you could only use them once.

42.  James Bond movies were based on Ian Fleming books that you had already read.

43.  People read.

44.  People shopped at the Food Fair or the Acme. 

45.  The Food Fair gave out Top Value Stamps with every purchase.  Some other stores gave out S&H Green Stamps.  We would lick stamps, fill books with them, and redeem books of stamps for everything from underwear to new cars.

46.  Mom's meals were threesomes.  If you had meatloaf and mashed potatoes, there was a corner of your plate that would be empty, so you also had corn or green beans too.

47.  "Big Brother" was part of 1984, the future.

48.  Barbie didn't have a job or much of a back-story.

49.  Fox was an animal, not a network.

50.  Dress shoes and black socks went along with shorts just fine.

51.  There were small stores that sold mostly milk, called Wawa.

52.  It was enjoyable to go to the movies.  You didn't have the urge to kill anyone near you.

53.  Drug stores sold ice cream and soda, but not radios and grills.

54.  You could walk to a corner store for milk, soda, ice cream, canned goods, bread, and candy.  Within 10 blocks there was probably a butcher store where you would buy your meat, as well as a barber shop, pharmacy, bakery, and hoagie shop.  You knew where a drive-in movie was.

55.  Men wore leather shoes, and when the heels or souls wore down, they were replaced by a shoemaker.

56.  A gallon of gas was 29.9.  That's cents.

57.  You weren't afraid to take a bus, trolley, or the El into town.

58.  If you said, "into town" you meant Philadelphia, if you said "into the city" you meant New York.

59.  You never needed exact change for anything.

60.  Most places didn't take credit cards, and most people didn't have them.

61.  People sent each other cards - you bought them at card stores, and sent them using U.S. postage stamps.

62.  You had to lick the back of a stamp to get it to stick.

63.  People stopped at red lights, and often at stop signs. 

64.  We didn't always make a distinction between local and national treasures.  Couldn't you get black cherry wishniak or Tastykakes anywhere in the country?  Didn't everyone know who Sally Star was?

65.  Ovens were things that were used weekly, and not just storage areas.

66. You knew not to buy a Dixie Cup unless you got the little flat wooden spoon too.

67.  Food came to you.  Mr. Softee (or the competition, some pirate guy) rode through your neighborhood every day in the summer.  Perhaps someone came to your street with a truck or a station wagon, and sold the things they grew on their farm.

68.  You bought a converter box to attach to your TV to get additional fuzzy channels, UHF channels.

69.  You could dream through catalogs.  Every house had the year's Sears catalog, probably a Penny's Catalog, a Top Value or S&H Green Stamps catalog, and perhaps a Radio Shack or Heathkit catalog.  So many dreams!

70.  Books had hard covers.

71.  Schools required students to protect their schoolbooks.  In addition to buying pencils and pens and paper to start a school year, you probably also bought paper book covers, which were wrapped around the books' hard covers, to protect them.  This was not an option.

72.  Your high school played football on Thanksgiving Day.

73.  Penn football and Eagles football were played in the same stadium.

74.  Ice could be purchased at Ice Houses.

75.  We ate liverwurst, and liver, and baloney.

76. A Volunteer Fire Company was an important, integral part of your neighborhood.

77.  Families found things to do on a weekend that were free.  We could walk around the feet of William (pronounced "Billy") Penn on the top of City Hall, or go see the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall, or tour the Mint, or go to the airport and watch airplanes take off and land.  (There were even observation decks above some gates at the airport where you could not only watch planes come in, but listen to pilots talking to the tower on the radio.) 

78.  At "Christmas time", you went to Wanamaker’s to hear the organ play and to watch the Christmas show.

79.  At Christmas, you went to 69th Street to shop, to see one or more Santas, and to let the kids slide down a two-story slide that was built inside of a big shoe. 

80.  Lawn mowers were muscle powered.

81.  The weatherman on TV was on the faculty at Drexel - Wally Canan the Weather Man.

82.  You couldn't have imagined that the boss with the hot sauce would last for many decades.

83.  The only really "coffee shop" you knew was one owned by Eight O'Clock, in Manhattan.

84.  If you really, really wanted to splurge, you drove into town to Bookbinders, to spend too much for some pretty good food.  (Get the snapper soup!)

85.  Cigarettes (and occasionally, cigars) were usually purchased from a vending machine (when a pack was 40 cents).

86.  In the summer, everyone would roll their car windows down just a little, and roll them back up every evening as the sun was setting.  If you didn't do this, your car would explode and your windows would blow out.

87.  The mummers.  Still drunk, still very difficult to explain to outsiders.

88.  There were department stores (not just Wanamakers) like Gimbels and Snellenburgs.

89.  Code for "going to Wanamakers" was "meet me at the eagle."

90.  They were Schmidt's, Schlitz, Esslinger's, Rolling Rock and Ballentine.

91.  The Mayfair!

92.  Matchbox cars were 50 cents or maybe more, but were worth every penny.

93.  There was a White Tower in Darby.  (I was shocked to learn that most were called White Castles!)

94.  "Real" Vanilla ice cream, from Dolly Madison and perhaps Breyer's as well, had black specks in it (vanilla beans) and little pieces of ice as well.

95.  "We" made train engines (so cool) at Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton.

© 2012 John Allison