SURVIVING THE PERILS OF CHILDHOOD IN THE 1950’s!

Looking back all those years ago it has to make one wonder how baby boomers survived their childhood.

Infant car seats were just metal frames that hooked over the back of the seat. No one heard of air bags or seatbelts. Kitchens and bathrooms had no child safety locks. Kids rode bikes without helmets and sometimes just barefoot. On a hot summer’s day we took turns drinking icy cold water from an old dirty garden hose. When it was raining the gutter on the street made a perfect stream for launching boats made out of popsicle sticks and paper. We drank Kool Aid made with cups and cups of sugar – a favorite I remember was lemon lime!

On weekends and all summer we were sent outside to play right after breakfast no matter the weather and only came in for a quick lunch and then back out again until dinner and our parents had no idea where we were, who we were with, or what we were doing. We could be in our own backyard or down the street in some friend’s yard or even wandering several blocks to the small neighborhood corner shop to buy a 5 cent candy bar – if we were lucky enough to have 5 cents that day!

Parents didn’t seem to worry about children wearing hazardous flammable pajamas as long as they were cute and colorful.

At the playground we played on such dangerous equipment such as the ‘Merry Go Round’.

We brought our own lunches to school and most times it was a peanut butter and jam sandwich and no one seemed to be worried about peanut allergies.

We played with dangerous toys many of which had tiny parts that could be easily swallowed. We played darts and other games long since banned,

Yet left to our own devices we somehow managed to make it through those ‘dangerous’ childhood years and into adulthood! The children of today sadly will never know the magic of those days while they stay glued to their computer screens and video games.

1960s - Time it was, and what a time it was, it was a time of innocence, a time of confidence. Paul Simon, 1968

Growing up in the 1960s was a magical time. Folk singers like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Chapin, Donovan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Arlo Guthrie, sang their way through the decade, telling us “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, The answer is blowin’ in the wind”, “For the times they are a-changin'”, “For standin’ in your heart is where I want to be and long to be, ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind”. People were fighting for social justice, for freedom. We thought it was the beginning of Aquarius, the beginning of a golden age. It truly was an amazing decade to live through. By the end of the 1960s, though, people were disillusioned and with the assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and the Vietnam War, it was no longer a time of innocence.