Red Baron

OK- christmas is over, but I do notice one thing that has been a theme in my life. I can't think of a luckier time in history to have been born when we were - reminder, this is a 50+ forum-(I was born in 1947) . 50's& early 60's were REALLY great to grow up. - late 60's early 70's were something history books will study forever, late 70's and 80's perhaps a bummer, but now is the real time I enjoy in my life. I NEVER dreamed I'd still be riding a bike at this age. Ain't it wonderful - Anyone else feel this way?

michaelwlf3

I remember when I was a kid reading about all the cool things that would happen in the 21st century. I calculated how old I would be in the year 2000 and said "I'll be too old to enjoy it!"

DnvrFox

Anyone remember the serious children's reading books in about 3rd grade (For me, that would be about 1947) where they had the pictures of a flying car (like a helicopter) in everyone's garage and predicted that would be the standard mode of transportation in the future?

I think the 50's were great in the US for white families. I'm not so sure that African Americans and some other minorities would agree.

All-in-all, a much simpler time.

One of the big differences I see is that as kids we were outside ALL of the time, running, biking, getting rid of energy. The streets were full of kids doing stuff, especially on Christmas day.

We went for a walk yesterday, (the weather was beautiful) and the streets were empty. Where were the kids on their new bikes and wagons and coasters, sharing these things with other kids in the neighborhood?

Bop Bop

I was born in NYC in 1949. Growing up in the "Big City", the term "Big Apple" had not been thought of yet was great and very similar to what the "Fox" described above. Kids all over the streets playing, riding bikes, playing handball and my favorite childhood game "Scully".

There was the music of the 50's (today we call it the "Oldies", still listen to it today, try WARX.com, there from MD), then came the 60's and the whole world changed, Nam, Civil Rights, Womans Lib, the Hippies, etc. Most inner cities, especial in the late 60's where a crazy place to live. Alot of good came from the 60's, but at a huge cost.

In the 70's my priorities changed, got married and started raising a family. My world stayed like that until 1999 when both kids left home. Since then it's been the wife and I.

DougG

Well, many of them were probably taking part in sports, but it was highly organized, expensive, competitive team sports that are mainly driven and supported by their parents. I spent much of my teen summers playing pick-up baseball games at local playgrounds and fields, not on some "travelling team" that is run almost along the lines of a professional team sport. And I got there by riding my bicycle, not packed into the back of an SUV. It's no wonder that a lot of kids get burned out on sports by the time they are old enough to actually play in high school or college.

Doug

Litespeed

Being a kid in the 50's had it's advantages. I remember playing outside with the only other girl on the block. We played Monopoly, hopscotch, pogo stick, we had homemade stilts, home made skate boards (from a 2 x 4 and old roller skates with a key that came apart). We lived near the ocean so during the summer all our times was spend down at the ocean climbing the cliffs. Then we would go to an empty parking lot and look for lizards. We would stay outside until 9 pm. None of the other kids (and their weren't many) had bicycles, don't know why. I got my first bike from a neighbor who had outgrown it. It was a big orange monster that probably weighted almost as much as me, took me a year just to learn how to ride it. Since my girlfriend didn't have a bike I hardly rode mine at all, maybe a dozen times. Didn't get back into bicycles until I was 45 after selling my horse. Now I wish I had been into bicycles all my life, it was kind of hard to learn at an older age. Yesterday I went down to a preserve and did see a few families with their kids and their families with bikes, riding the bike path.

Hal Hardy

All is not lost. Up the street from me are some younger than normal families for this area. There are about a dozen single digit aged kids that clog the street with bike riding including a small ramp for trick riding, b-ball with a mobile hoop, and a tire swing in one of their front yards. That swing is used so much that the lawn is all torn up under it. It's been decades since I've seen that kind of innocent freedom.

norton

DnvrFox, the flying car! in Mechanix Illustrated! the Future as infinite Progress! How I loved that vision as a 10 year old. Of course back then we didn't have the mind-boggling & spirit-numbing ground traffic jams of today. Be careful what you wish for. Can you imagine traffic jams in the air? It would take Hieronymus Bosch, the painter of the medieval "Garden of Earthly Delight" to do it justice!

DnvrFox

Well, I was speaking specifically of Christmas Day. Around here, they don't have organized sports on Christmas Day, at least not yet! But I get your point for all the other days!

Dchiefransom

Although they are much more high tech today, two wheel scooters that kids push around with one foot are still better than the gas powered ones. You're right, we did grow up in great times. If your parents let you run/ride all over the place and anything happened, society chalked it up as an accident, and didn't try to fry the parents as being "bad". I didn't see as many kids outside either, but then, I grew up in Michigan, and we'd be headed for the local hills to go sledding with all our friends after consuming a gigantic Christmas dinner.

Dchiefransom

Are you kidding??!!!!! I delivered a magazine Friday with a pic on the cover of a car with four airplane blades, one on each corner of the car, like a VTOL personal aircraft!!!!!! The idea is still around.

Figaro

I tend to agree with most of your outlooks about the history of our lives (I was born in 1945). I have no great affection for the fifties, other than the music and technicolor. I remember too many anti-Semitic incidents in my young life. And those occurred in NYC! Since 1980 the outside world has mostly been a bummer for me. Recently, I've been thinking about the cycles of history, feeling that if I were born in 1825 I would feel like I feel today. After coming of age in the optimism of the revolutionary period from 1830 to 1848, by the time I was 60 I would be in an age of conservatism, imperialism, greed, and environmental degradation like today. Despressing, but at least I can take hope in the upswing in the cycle.

But there are good things happening today that I never thought would be happening. After 25 years of making a great life together, my partner and I can actually get married in some places. But, with the exception of Massachusetts, not in the USA. So we're planning on getting hitched in Quebec in the summer of 2006 when I'll be there to race my bike in the over-60 category at the OutGames in Montreal. Now, that's something to look forward to!

When I was young, I never thought I would be in the great shape I am in now. I thought that when I got to 50, I would be walking with a cane permanently rather than riding 150 miles a week, surfing, and teaching yoga. OK, OK . . . I've convinced myself that I was born at a good time.

norton

Greetings from Massachussetts! Biking seems to be a great rejuvenator for people of our maturity & wisdom(witness this reminiscing thread). For me, a mere 1/2 hour at 70-80% of my max juices me for hours. What a wonderful natural elixir of youth! I suppose if I was riding longer & slower preparing for a century, I would need that for my fix. Oh well, it's all good!

webist

Born 1951. Remember vividly looking at the Shephard and Glenn launches from Daytona Beach area school. Rockets messed up TV reception so we went outside. Everyone, including the teachers was mortified at the first split of the rocket stages. Thought they had blown up. Later we learned otherwise of course.

Not real sure there is much point to arguing whether it's good to be alive at one time or the other. I'm alive now. The alternative, I suppose would really suck.

Prosody

Where is that car that floats on air. I feel cheated. And the moon colony? The one-piece outfits with the V shape across the chest? The space hotel? World peace? All the broken promises of comic books and futurists. Predicitons for today's kids have different flavors: nuclear winter, global warming, disappearing ozone layer, social breakdown, corporate dictatorships (hail Haliburton!).

From a T-Bone Burnett song about the '60s: Keep all the bad, destroy the good.

Bop Bop

Webist,

Funny you mention Sheppard and Glenn's flights. I can remember as a kid going to Washington, DC and visting the then flegling Air and Space Musuem. It was in a silver quanset hut (military type house). The major attraction was Alan Shepards' Friendship 7 Space Capsule. Man was that a ton of years ago, about 40 or so.

richmyer

Mazel tov! Young love is always wonderful--and real love is always young.

Olebiker

You ought to check out my neighborhood. When I come home in the afternoon I routinely have to slow way down so that I don't plow through the basketball game going on in the street in front of the neighbor's house or run down a kid running an out pattern in the front yard football game.

Very few of the kids in my neighborhood are overweight. They play too hard.

alanbikehouston

Certainly, folks born around 1950 or so had easier lives than the folks born around 1920. That generation had to get through the Depression and WWII and then had to deal with the kids born around 1950.

I can see some advantages to being born around 1980. My knees would feel better, and I would have hair.

shokhead

Dont forget, those kids belong to us,give or take a few years so maybe we arent doing something right. Wow,growing up in mayberry what did i get,color tv,nope,computers,nope,7.1 home theater, better concerts venues.
Afraid to walk down the street after dark,nope,afraid to walk to school,nope,afraid to drink or swim in water,nope.
Being bombed,some thing never change.

DnvrFox

Again, I was writing specifically about Christmas day.