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

Buying a car with dad

Two aspects about growing up in the 1950s and 1960s are not repeated today-- how we buy cars and mothers who do not drive (OK, city born and raised folks still excluded.)  I accompanied my father on several car buying journeys.  He was a salesman who needed a new car every two years and, since his credit was good, never had a problem buying one.  He was a Pontiac man, although for a few years in the early 1960s he flirted with Ramblers.  But he was never a top of the line buyer.  No Super Star Chief or Bonneville for him. The Star Chief, Chieftan and Catalina were good enough.

Flush with money due to the successful 1950s economy many Americans bought new cars in record numbers. Detroit, was the icon of post-WII industriousness. (Alas, unions have done in the Big 3.) The Greatest Generation, while all not flush with cash, was looking forward to better jobs and more disposable income. And they found it.

Eager to move out of the high rise housing projects built for the men of a returning army and their new families, everyone wanted to be mobile, especially if they had their eyes on living outside the narrow confines of New York City. Not everyone could afford a new car but even purchases of used cars provided the buyer with a newer car than he ever had before.

Buying a new car in the 1950s and into the 1960s was an adventure.  Unlike today's dealerships, dealers then did not keep storage lots full of cars in stock for two-day or even next-day or same day availability. They couldn't because their credit was still tight, financing floor plans as we know them today were not in existence, and cars were sold stripped of items we today would describe as "of course it has it."  In those days, your car had to be built with the "options" your dad desired, not with packages as they are today. While a buyer today might have only 3 complete packages to choose from, a new car then might have more than a dozen options to choose from.

And what were they?

1. A heater (forget about air conditioning being standard until the 1980s.
2. Whitewall tire.

Whitewall tire

 3. An AM radio with push-button settings. FM was added later on.

Push-button Radio

4. Back-up lights.
5. Chrome trim.
6. Clock (my father never bought it because they broke after a month.)

Dashboard mounted clock

7. Side view mirror, on the driver's side.
8. Automatic transmission.
9. Windshield washers (another dubious purchase because the hoses corroded and collapsed.)
10. Manually operated Day-night review mirror.  (It had a button to switch between the two settings.)
11.  Steel belted radial tires.
12.  Air-conditioning.
13.  Lap only seat belts. (A 60s innovation.)
14.  Power steering.
15.  Power brakes.

The list can still go on but I wanted to give you a small idea of then and now.  What hasn't changed, in my humble opinion, is this fact -- no matter how much research you do, no matter what sources you review and download, no matter how much you get the sales rep to bring down the price -- the dealer is still making hefty dollars on your car purchase.  No one gives cars away at a loss.

So the next time you go shopping for a car, ask the sales rep if the car comes with back-up lights.  But, be careful, he might try to charge you for them.