Children
of the 30s & 40s The Last Ones -- A Short Memoir
Born in the
1930s and early 40s, we exist as a very special age cohort. We are the last
ones. We are the last, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the
winds of war and the war itself with fathers and uncles going off. We are the
last to remember ration books for everything from sugar to shoes to stoves. We
saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans. We saw cars up on blocks because
tires weren't available. My mother delivered milk in a horse drawn cart.
We are the
last to hear Roosevelt's radio assurances and to see gold stars in the front
windows of our grieving neighbors. We can also remember the parades on August
15, 1945; VJ Day.
We saw the
boys home from the war build their Cape Cod style houses, pouring the cellar,
tar papering it over and living there until they could afford the time and money
to build it out.
We are the
last who spent childhood without television; instead imagining what we heard on
the radio. As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood playing
outside until the street lights came on. We did play outside and we did play on
our own. There was no little league.
The lack of
television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real
understanding of what the world was like. Our Saturday afternoons, if at
the movies, gave us newsreels of the war and the holocaust sandwiched in between
westerns and cartoons. Newspapers and magazines were written for results.
We are the last who had to find out for ourselves.
As we grew
up, the country was exploding with growth. The G.I. Bill gave returning
veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow. VA loans
fanned a housing boom. Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans
put factories to work. New highways would bring jobs and mobility. The veterans
joined civic clubs and became active in politics. In the late 40s and
early 50s the country seemed to lie in the embrace of brisk but quiet order as
it gave birth to its new middle class. Our parents understandably became
absorbed with their own new lives. They were free from the confines of the
depression and the war. They threw themselves into exploring opportunities
they had never imagined.
We weren't
neglected but we weren't today's all-consuming family focus. They were glad we
played by ourselves until the street lights came on. They were busy discovering
the post war world.
Most of us
had no life plan, but with the unexpected virtue of ignorance and an economic
rising tide we simply stepped into the world and went to find out. We
entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were
welcomed. Based on our naive belief that there was more where this came from, we
shaped life as we went.
We enjoyed a
luxury; we felt secure in our future. Of course, just as today, not all
Americans shared in this experience. Depression poverty was deep rooted. Polio
was still a crippler. The Korean War was a dark presage in the early 50s and by
mid-decade school children were ducking under desks. China became Red China.
Eisenhower sent the first "advisors" to Vietnam. Castro set up camp in Cuba and
Khrushchev came to power.
We are the
last to experience an interlude when there were no existential threats to our
homeland. We came of age in the late 40s and early 50s.The war was over and the
cold war, terrorism, climate change, technological upheaval and perpetual
economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with insistent
unease.
Only we can
remember both a time of apocalyptic war and a time when our world was secure and
full of bright promise and plenty. We experienced both.
We grew up
at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better not
worse.
"We are the
"last ones."
Author
unknown
This was a good read. I was born in '51. My family destroyed by whatever my father experienced in the Korean War that made him an alcoholic. I was raised by an uncle who had a good job in the steel mills and made a better living than my husband's father. I always knew TV, but I remember having to be home by the time the street lights came on. My husband, who is 5 years older used to sit by the radio on Saturday nights listing and imagining pictures in his mind that the radio narrator was telling. How much we have learned of the world and watched it change as well. Many talk about "a simpler time". I wonder if it WAS simpler or if it was that no one KNEW....
ReplyDeleteWe never knew it was a "simpler time", but realize now that simpler meant, respect,feeling safe enough to not lock doors and we were very patriotic, and loved our neighbors. Thanks for reading my blog and replying.
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