Me back in the late '50s building a model car ~
Man! I was a good looking kid back then. I even had hair. Too bad I had to grow up.
Greetings ~
The 1950s was a remarkable decade when you think about it. We got a whole line of new inventions and new discoveries. Not only did we get a vacine for Polio, but we also got the Hula Hoop, Sci-Fi movies, soda fountains, diners, TV dinners, the Fairlane and Gunsmoke. What a decade it was.
I started my life with Harry Truman as our President. I started school in the '50s and, yes, I got my Polio shot. It hurt like hell! The needle was about a foot long. The '50s also gave us the start of Rock & Roll and a new poor kid named Elvis Presley. In the late '50s England got the Beatles, but it would be in the early 1960s before they became the rage of America.
The 1950s also gave us the sock-hop, school lunches and Rin Tin Tin. And one of my favorites, the coonskin cap. The cars got large rear fins and a heck of a lot of chrome. They were more powerful than the cars before. Cars in the '50s went from the old six volt electrical system to the new 12-volt. The first fuel injection family cars were in the late '50s and the generator was replaced with an altinator. Cadillac was the prime ride for the wealthy but there were others such as Lincoln, Packard and Chrysler. Several car companies went out of business during the 1950s such as Packard, Nash, DeSoto and Kaiser-Frazer. No one, however, missed the Henry-J. But there was still plenty to drive out there since we were getting new cars all the time such as the Thunderbird by Ford and the Corvette from General Motors.
The 1950s started with a war, Korea and endded with another war, Vietnam. However, Vietnam would rage on until the early '70s. The '50s was the decade when young people first got word that they could die too. They learned that when new film actor, James Dean was killed in a car crash just before the release of his third movie, Giant, with Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor.
Yes, the 1950s was a heck of a decade. We wore suites to church and to school functions. We rode our bikes all over town without a worry of being shot or kidnapped. We watched the bad guys on Hollywood westerns get what they deserved from the good guys like Roy Rogers, The Range Rider, Matt Dillon, Hopalong Cassidy and, of course, The Lone Ranger. It was a time when every single cop on TV was a good guy. They never did wrong. It was also the time when black actors and actresses first began gracing the small screen and getting their foothold in show business.
There's a lot more that can be said for the 1950s. So let's get started ~