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