A 1950s Childhood Revisited

When the Screen Glowed Magic—and Safety: A 1950s Childhood Revisited

I have to confess, I was glad to get on board my recent flight from Tel Aviv to Newark Airport. I hadn’t slept well over the past month in Jerusalem. I was still  walking around on the streets or riding the bus with a smile on my face but I could not even take a nap during the day.

Like others, in the face of the war with Hamas, the fate of our hostages being unknown, the attempted coup by the hostage families, incoming rocket and missile alerts, I think I have to recognize it all got to me.

So, I plopped down into my seat, fastened the seat belt, laughed along with Lior Szuchard as he told us to keep our seatbelts “fas-tend” when the “fas-tend seatbelts light came on.

I skipped my usual booze drink when offered by the flight attendant, I just wanted to wind down. I flicked the screen to see the list of movies and started to go from screen to screen looking for something that would get me through the flight. And there it was, Walt Disney’s Snow White.

 I’m 76 now, and lately an old movie—or even a few opening bars of a TV theme—can bring sudden tears.  The moment the projector whirs or the cathode-ray glow fills the room, I’m eight again, transported to a decade when heroes wore coonskin caps and white hats, and the good guys always won.

 Disney was my first passport to wonder.  Peter Pan taught me how to fly (if only in dreams), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea showed me that monsters could be magnificent, and Cinderella assured me that virtue is rewarded.  Davy Crockett, with Fess Parker’s easy grin and that unforgettable coonskin cap, had me humming “Born on a mountaintop…” while chasing imaginary bears through the backyard.

 But Saturday-morning television added another layer of magic.  The brass fanfare of The Adventures of

The Lone Ranger and Silver

Superman promised that he would fight for “truth, justice, and the American way.” And then there was The Lone Ranger: the masked rider galloping across the black-and-white landscape to the gallop of Rossini’s “William Tell Overture.”  Even now, a single trumpet blast propels my heart forward as surely as Silver carried the Ranger.  By the final “Hi-yo, Silver! Away!” I could relax: justice had been restored, and all was right with the frontier—and with my world.

 That certainty is what moves me most today.  Psychologists say our outlook forms in the first 10 or 12 years, and I believe them.  The stories of the 1950s weren’t simply entertainment; they were blueprints.  They told a child that evil is real but beatable, that courage means helping the helpless, and—most comforting of all—that things will turn out well in the end.  In a post-war America flush with optimism, that felt less like fiction and more like a promise.

 

When the credits roll now, I sometimes ache for that unquestioned safety.  Yet mostly I feel gratitude.  I was lucky to be shaped in an era whose stories taught me to hope, to dream, and to trust that a masked man, a boy in a cape, or even an ordinary kid could make a difference.

 So if you catch me dabbing my eyes during an old reel or when the “William Tell” strains burst from a rerun, know this: I’m visiting a time and place where the screen glowed magic—and where the ending was always happy.  In today’s uncertain world, that’s a memory worth treasuring.

 Nostalgia isn’t about refusing to move forward. It’s about carrying the best of the past with you. If you grew up in a time that filled you with wonder, joy, or stability, remembering it with affection isn't weakness—it's a form of strength.

 So if you find yourself tearing up at an old movie, a TV theme song, or a smell that reminds you of childhood, don’t fight it. That’s not living in the past. That’s remembering who you are.

 Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

The Business of Being #1

How newspapers turned “Best Of” contests into the most brilliant ad campaign you never voted for.

Every so often, I find myself flipping through the local paper (yes, I still read one), only to be greeted with a familiar chorus of self-promotion:

“Vote for us as the #1 shoe store in town!”
“Vote for us as the best place to get your teeth whitened!”
“Vote for us as Bergen County’s premier brunch spot for picky mother-in-laws!”

It’s like election season, only the candidates are delis, jewelers, car washes, and orthodontists. Democracy at its finest.

Whoever came up with this idea deserves a place in the Marketing Hall of Fame, right next to whoever invented bottled water and pumpkin spice-flavored anything. Instead of selling plain old ads, newspapers and magazines discovered they could sell hope — the hope of being crowned “Best of the Best.” And suddenly, those quarter-page ads turned into full-page spreads with smiling waiters, jewelers polishing diamonds, or bakers holding cupcakes like campaign props.

The genius is that the contest feeds on itself. First, the business pays for ads begging us to vote. Then, if they win, they pay again to trumpet their victory. The publication wins twice — and the business gets a shiny new plaque to hang by the cash register. Everybody’s happy.

Of course, the whole thing has the aura of a county-fair pie-eating contest. Did my neighbor really compare all 47 nail salons in town before casting her vote? Or did she just click the link after her manicurist handed her a flyer that said, “Vote for Us!” I’ll let you guess.

The history of this publishing goldmine likely traces back to the scrappy alternative weeklies of the 1970s and ’80s — The Village Voice, LA Weekly, The Boston Phoenix. Those papers figured out that readers liked lists (who doesn’t?), advertisers liked attention, and editors liked deadlines that could be filled with “Best Burrito” instead of hard-hitting investigative journalism. From there, the fad spread faster than gluten-free pizza.

Now, every town weekly and regional glossy has its annual “Best Of” ballot. Some even turn it into a gala event, complete with trophies, selfies, and social-media hashtags. It’s less journalism and more local Oscars night, except the Academy voters are your neighbors who click on whatever their barber tells them to.

Am I complaining? Not really. It’s harmless, in the same way carnival games are harmless — provided you understand the game is rigged for the house. Newspapers need revenue, small businesses need attention, and we all need something lighthearted to argue about other than politics.

So the next time you’re asked to “Vote for Us as #1 Sushi in Bergen County,” just remember: you’re not really voting for sushi. You’re voting for the world’s most successful advertising gimmick. And the paper thanks you for your service.

Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

When cars had names and personality

When Cars Had Names 

Return With Us Now to Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

There was a time—not all that long ago—when automobiles didn’t need a jumble of letters and numbers to identify themselves. Back then, cars wore names. Names with personality. Names that told a story.

1955 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight, Photo by Infrogmation

Think back to the Dodge Coronet. I owned one from 1967 to 1972. The very word evoked dignity and royalty. Or the Plymouth Valiant, (I drove two versions owned by my parents) which conjured up bravery and grit—just the kind of name a middle-class family wanted as they packed the kids in for a Sunday drive. Over at Pontiac, you had the Chieftain, a car that sounded like it ought to be leading the parade. Later, Pontiac gave us the Grand Am, which promised both luxury and a nod to the racing circuit at the same time.

These names weren’t just marketing; they were poetry on chrome. They carried with them a sense of place and aspiration. A Malibu made you think of surfboards and California sunshine. A Continental sounded like it belonged on an ocean liner, drifting from New York to Paris. A Buick Park Avenue conjured up, well, NYC’s Park Avenue. Even a modest Nova hinted at space travel and the optimism of the Space Age.

Compare that to today, when cars are labeled like lab equipment: the X3, Q5, GLC, or CX-30. Functional, perhaps, but soulless. You’d be hard-pressed to imagine a child fifty years from now waxing nostalgic about Grandpa’s trusty “RX-350.” But plenty of people today still smile when they recall their first Impala, Mustang, Firebird or, in my case, Falcon. 

The magic of those old names was that they were aspirational. They transported you, even before the car left the driveway. A teenager could dream about a Charger or a Road Runner and feel the thrill of speed. A parent could sit behind the wheel of a Fairlane or Bonneville and believe, for a moment, they were part of something stylish and modern.

In those thrilling days of yesteryear, cars weren’t just transportation—they were characters. Each one had a name, and each name carried a promise.

Maybe that’s what’s missing today. The machines may be sleeker, faster, and smarter than ever, but they’ve lost a little of their soul. Perhaps it’s time for the automakers to bring back the poetry, and give us once again a car we can fall in love with—by name.

Stephen M. Flatow

Camp Loyaltown; a short journey in the way-back machine

A few weeks spent at Camp Loyaltown last a lifetime.

My summer vacation 65 years ago in Hunter, New York.

This past summer one or my granddaughters went to “try-out camp.” Not the baseball kind of tryouts, but the summer camp kind. It’s a smart gimmick run by many summer camps where potential campers for the following year get to spend a couple of days at camp to see how they would do being far from folks.

Within a couple of hours of her arrival the camp had her busy zip-lining and just as quickly sent a photo of a very happy camper to her parents. Of course, they passed it on to me.

My granddaughter is eight, and her experience reminded me of my three weeks of sleepaway camp that I spent right before my 8th birthday in the summer of 1956. It was at Camp Loyaltown in Hunter, New York.

Much to my surprise, 65 years later, Camp Loyaltown still exists but unlike the Jewish-themed camp I attended, today it is, in the words of one blogger, “a camp that specially caters for people with both intellectual and developmental disabilities.”

Camp Loyaltown was created in 1948 and a July 18^th article of that year in the New York Times wrote about it.  The article headline reads, “Camp Loyaltown is dedicated in Catskills; Needy Boys Represent Many Races and Creeds.”  While the camp was to be non-sectarian, it “operated under Jewish dietary laws.”  It was to provide “a three weeks, all-expenses-paid, vacation.”  I was in 1956, I guess, “underprivileged” by someone’s standards.
Summers in Middle Village, Queens where I spent the first 12 years of my life were not exactly fun. It was always hot, and the biggest thrill of the day was when the Bungalow Bar ice cream truck made its evening trip up 75th Street where I lived. Weekends were especially brutal because my father sometimes worked on Saturday and Sunday. At least the polio vaccine had arrived, I don’t recall anyone being opposed to getting it, and we were no longer living under the cloud of that dreaded disease that spread rapidly during the summer months.

I was not involved in the decision making process about going to sleepaway camp. I do vividly remember my Aunt Ceil taking me by train from Middle Village into Manhattan to the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies building. I remember sitting in a large auditorium and then having a doctor give me a physical examination. I must have been ranked 1A because a few months later I was on my way!

Early one morning in August, my mother woke me, told me to get dressed and have breakfast because I was going to camp. My father carried a white laundry bag with my clothing down the stairs from our apartment. It was still gray outside, I hopped into my father’s Pontiac, also gray, and we headed off.

Unlike my experience getting my own kids off to summer camp, there was no conveniently located central drop off point.  We drove from Middle Village to a passenger ferry slip in Manhattan; I want to say I remember the name of the sign over the terminal saying, “B & O Railroad”, but it could have been the Erie Railroad.  In the terminal we were grouped by bunk number.  My father said goodbye and I was ready for camp.

We took the ferry to New Jersey and boarded a train. I had been on the subway in New York City before, but this was my first real train ride. In those days, seats were rattan, and there were two boys in each seat and the seats were flipped so we would face another two boys. I remember sitting by the window.

It was going to be a long ride and the camp was prepared.  At one point some counselors pulled and pushed a humongous Baby Ruth candy bar through the aisle.  They handed us a slip of paper and a pencil and asked us to write down our guess as to the number of peanuts in the candy bar.

The train ride went on and on, especially to a soon to be 8-year old kid. Suddenly there was a commotion in the aisle and counselors came through telling us there was no winner in the peanut guessing contest and then handed us a big piece of the delicious Baby Ruth. (To this day, it’s one of my favorite candy bars.)

At last, the train came to a stop. I don’t remember if we stopped in Hunter, New York or some other town that had a train station. In any event, we boarded yellow school buses (my first time on one) and headed off to Camp Loyaltown.

We passed under the camp gate and the bus dropped us off in a parking area. We were marched by our counselors up a small hill to our bunk. Can’t tell you the bunk number but it was a clapboard building with a big open room.

Marty, the counselor, told us he had to go to the office and instructed us “not to go near the lake.” Of course, as soon as he left, we went down to the lake.

The lake was not very large, but it was our lake and after taking a good look we ran back to the bunk to get yelled at by Marty for going to the lake. (The lake is still there at Camp Loyaltown but there’s a large swimming pool located nearby for campers to use. You can see it on the Web at this link to Camp Loyaltown photos.)

We were told to pick a cot and place our pillows alternately from head to toe; that way we wouldn’t spread any dreaded disease by breathing into the face of the boys on either side of us! And we were given our first instructions on how to make a bed using flat sheets and how to fold them with hospital corners. Easy-peasy.

There was a bathroom with a couple of stalls, shelves for our clothing and a shower.

For dinner, we walked up the hill to the dining room. I know it was a large room, but I don’t think it could hold the “1,000 persons” as stated in the NY Times article. Dinner was preceded by the saying of hamotzi, the customary Jewish prayer said before meals where bread was being served. After a while, I began saying the hamotzi over the microphone for the entire dining room. My Hebrew school education at the Hebrew Institute of Middle Village was paying off.

I’m not certain that we had prayer services. But one Friday night in 1992, we began to sing the lilting prayer “Yedid Nefesh,” which is customarily sung right before evening services. It was new to me that night, but as the singing started, I remembered the tune and the words. Was this a flashback to Camp Loyaltown? I just do not know.

One of the things that sticks in my mind was a poster that either sat on top of a large fireplace or was mounted on a bulletin board. It was an advertisement for a new motion picture, “Moby Dick,” starring Gregory Peck, playing at the Hunter Theatre. No, we weren’t taken to see this movie, but we did go on at least one hike. It was the day Marty told us we were going to see an inclined plane. I was excited.

After walking for a distance, Marty said “there’s the inclined plane.” I looked and didn’t see any airplane pitched into the ground at an angle. Well, I learned that Marty was not referring to a crashed airplane, but to a slope, the incline, in a hill that allows for movement up and down the hill using the principals of physics.

Inclined planes were most popularly used in New Jersey along the Morris Canal. Newark, New Jersey had a long inclined plane carrying the canal barges up and down from a point above the city to the Passaic River down below. The incline can still be seen today, but it’s now known as Raymond Boulevard!

Our days began with the sound of reveille being played over a loudspeaker. We dressed and then went to a centrally located flagpole where the flag was raised. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the Star-Spangled Banner. Our evenings concluded with Taps.

After the flag raising we were off to breakfast.

Our days were filled with activities. There was baseball, soccer, and swimming, which was mandatory. This was the summer when I learned how to swim.

The lake that I mentioned was divided into three parts separated by ropes. There was what I have to call the shallow lake. It allowed us to walk into the water to mid-waist. It had a cement floor that would become slippery from algae. It was a counselor’s job to brush the cement each day to get rid of the algae. In this part of the lake, we splashed and learned how to do the “dead man’s float,” in order to alleviate our fear of going under the water. It was a fear I never had because I had been overwhelmed and submerged by large waves at Rockaway Beach many times.

To the left of the shallow area was the “deep water.” Unlike the shallow part, this area of the lake had a dock with a ladder. It was in this portion of the lake where we would be “certified” as being able to swim by taking a test—treading water for 30 seconds and not going under while swimming! I passed.

The remainder of the lake was off-limits. Visions of water moccasins danced in our heads; we didn’t realize that if there were snakes in the water, ropes wouldn’t stop them from reaching us!

There was also quiet time each day so we could write postcards home. My mother had given me pre-addressed and pre-paid post cards to write to her and my aunts. I remember lying on the bunk floor to write my postcards. Postage in those days was 3 cents for a postcard!

Then, one day catastrophe struck; I lost my Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap.!

I think it is a given that sons (and daughters) become fans of the same baseball team as their dad. I don’t think this is a conscious decision, but one born from being taken to baseball games. Of course, your father is not going to take you to a game at the dreaded enemy team’s stadium, so, fandom follows. In my case it was the Brooklyn Dodgers which my dad rooted for. The Dodgers had won the World Series in 1955 and its fans were still flying the following year when they were in first place and what would certainly be another World Series with the hated New York Yankees.

I had left for Camp Loyaltown with my cherished Brooklyn Dodger cap and, sometime in the second week, it was gone. I have no recollection how I lost the cap. I sent a postcard home and told my mother that I had lost my cap.

The following week I received a package the size of a shoebox and when I tore off the brown wrapping paper, there, inside a shoebox, was a new Brooklyn Dodgers cap. Happy I was.

The remainder of my days at Camp Loyaltown are now a blur. But there came the day when we boarded out buses and headed for the train ride back to New York City. There was a newsletter that they gave us to bring with us. In it I was named “most talkative camper.”

The train brought us to the ferry terminal where we had departed from 3 weeks earlier, and there waiting for me was my mother and father. Marty handed my duffel bag to my father and got a $2 or $3 tip for taking such good care of me. (In 2021 dollars that would be about $20-$30.)

I had had a good summer. And six decades later, I remember it fondly.

Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

The Fifth Column by Andrew Gross

I have been reading far too many non-fiction books lately.  Books about World War II battles in Europe and the Pacific, books about baseball (which I gladly add to my collection, Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask by Jon Pessah, being my latest addition) and history.

So, as I read of a famous someone's reading habits - he read fiction every night - I decided to give it a try.

As luck would  have it, my local bookstore had The Fifth Column by Andrew Gross.  It's a tale of German saboteurs in New York City in the days leading up to America's entry into World War II centered on NYC's upper east side area of Yorkville.  

There were several NYC neighborhoods that were hotbeds of pro-Germany sympathy in the 1930s including Yorkville and one in Glendale, Queens.  In fact, my father who grew up in next-door Middle Village admitted to me that they were afraid of the strength of the German Bundists who lived down the street.

Newark, New Jersey also had a pro-Nazi community but the citizens there had them differently.  The Jews and Italians of Newark formed a group called the Minutemen who went after pro-Nazi marchers with baseball bats.  Kind of put the kibosh on future marches in Newark.

Now, as to book's title, The Fifth Column, per the Britannica website definition:

Fifth column, clandestine group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation’s solidarity by any means at their disposal. The term is conventionally credited to Emilio Mola Vidal, a Nationalist general during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). As four of his army columns moved on Madrid, the general referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his “fifth column,” intent on undermining the loyalist government from within.

A cardinal technique of the fifth column is the infiltration of sympathizers into the entire fabric of the nation under attack and, particularly, into positions of policy decision and national defense. From such key posts, fifth-column activists exploit the fears of a people by spreading rumours and misinformation, as well as by employing the more standard techniques of espionage and sabotage.

So, Trudi and Willie Bauer, the arch-villains of the story, are fifth columnists.

Now, I am not going to tell you more about the story, but I did notice some interesting goofs by the author and his editor(s).

I've written a small book, A Father's Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism, and I have to say that the editorial process was hell.  Every fact was checked and double checked.  So, I was a bit surprised when I found a, to me, glaring factual error in The Fifth Column.

Our hero is going to make a call to someone at the US State Department in Washington, DC.  He dials the number beginning with area code "202."  Uh, there was no such thing as an area code before the 1960s. No, we had telephone exchanges, such as Davenport, Elmwood, Redwood, Twining, Butterfield (as in Butterfield 8.)  Area code 202 had not yet been invented at the time of the story!

On top of that, the editors missed another glaring boo-boo.  At one point our hero is told there will be a white Pontiac waiting for him outside the bad guy's hangout.  But  when we get to the hang out, it's a Buick!

Happy reading.

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow

Pie in the Sky - British television scores a hit

"Pie in the Sky" - a great television show!

What a great TV show I stumbled upon while browsing through the lineup on Acorn TV.  Originally shown on the BBC1 network between March 1994 and August 1997, Pie in the Sky features Richard Griffith, a much acclaimed actor better known to Americans and Harry Potter fans around the world as Uncle Vernon Dursley.

Detective Inspector Henry Crabbe, thinking he was going to take an early retirement from the police force, and his wife Margaret sell  their home and buy a restaurant where Henry can live out his passion for cooking.  Early retirement is put on the back burner due to the machinations of his superior officer, Associate Assistant Constable Freddy Fisher, and Crabbe alternate time as chef and detective.

Pie in the Sky takes place in the fictional English county of Westershire, said to be located in South West England. This includes the also fictitious town of Middleton.

A large man, we are introduced to Henry as the consummate policeman and amateur cum-professional chef.  His wife, Margaret, is an accountant, who, as supportive as she is of Henry in his efforts, sometimes has to bring him back down to earth.

If you were puzzled by Uncle Vernon, you are going to love Henry Crabbe as he solves crimes and makes magic with his steak and kidney pies.

 I recommend Pie in the Sky.

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow

What the heck is going on in California? Ethnic studies run amok?

The great "melting pot" that is, or should I say, was, American culture is taking a hit in California.

In Tablet, Emily Benedek writes that California is "cleansing Jews from history."

She comments on California's new Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that was created with good intentions but seems to have gone off the rails.

She writes:

In the fall of 2016, California’s then Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a mandate to develop an ethnic studies program for high schools in California. California’s public schools have the most ethnically diverse student body in the nation, with three-quarters of students belonging to minorities and speaking over 90 languages. Luis Alejo, the Assembly member who shepherded the bill through the 15 years required for its adoption, hailed the law, the first in the nation, as an opportunity to “give all students the opportunity to prepare for a diverse global economy, diverse university campuses and diverse workplaces,” adding, “Ethnic studies are not just for students of color.”

Elina Kaplan, a former high-tech manager who had just stepped down as senior VP of one of California’s largest affordable housing nonprofits, remembers agreeing wholeheartedly with the idea at the time. “The objective was to build bridges of understanding between people,” said Kaplan, an immigrant herself, who moved to California from the former Soviet Union with her family when she was 11. “This was as welcome as mom and apple pie. It offered students the chance to learn about the accomplishments of ethnic minorities, as well as to address issues of inequality and bigotry.”

But three years later, when the first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) was released, Kaplan couldn’t believe what she was reading. In one sample lesson, she saw that a list of historic U.S. social movements—ones like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Criminal Justice Reform—also included the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement for Palestine (BDS), described as a “global social movement that currently aims to establish freedom for Palestinians living under apartheid conditions.” Kaplan wondered why a foreign movement, whose target was another country, would be mischaracterized as a domestic social movement, and she was shocked that in a curriculum that would be taught to millions of students, BDS’s primary goal—the elimination of Israel—was not mentioned. Kaplan also saw that the 1948 Israel War of Independence was only referred to as the “Nakba”—“catastrophe” in Arabic—and Arabic verses included in the sample lessons were insulting and provocative to Jews.

Kaplan began calling friends. “Have you read this?” she asked, urging them to plow through the 600-page document. The language was bewildering. “Ethnic Studies is about people whose cultures, hxrstories, and social positionalities are forever changing and evolving. Thus, Ethnic Studies also examines borders, borderlands, mixtures, hybridities, nepantlas, double consciousness, and reconfigured articulations. …” This was the telltale jargon of critical race theory, a radical doctrine that has swept through academic disciplines during the last few decades.

An this is just a taste.

If you're like me living in some sort of cocoon or cave, you had to look up "hybridities, nepantlas, double consciousness, and reconfigured articulations."  It does not bode well for the students who will be subjected to this crap labeled as education, nor will it bode well for America.

The full article can be found Tablet.

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow