Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Page 7
PERSPECTIVES (Column)
1950s: Ike Was in the White House, Women Wore Nylons, Doctors Made House Calls
By ROGER M. GRACE
A friend sent me an e-mail Friday night expressing general good wishes, proceeding to query: “Have you ever remembered such a time?”
My answer is, as I would suspect yours would be, “no.” After all, no “time,” whatever the starting or ending point, is quite like that preceding or succeeding it.
However, the inquiry does spark reflections on other times, with nostalgia evoked, in particular, for the quiet and stable times in the 1950s—an epoch characterized in a popular TV show (1974-84) as the “Happy Days.”
Dickens wrote of a period he termed both “the best of times” and “the worst of times.”
These, truly, are the best of times in the history of our planet in a myriad of respects. Notably, discrimination is at a low point. Never has there been such ready access to information—via the Internet—or such effective worldwide communication: e-mail, fax. There is global commerce. It is the Age of Advanced Technology with benefits to medicine, science, education, communications, law enforcement, and countless other fields.
On the other hand, marked societal degradation is occurring. Elegance has given way to slovenliness; art has, to an extent, lost out to formlessness; melody is becoming passé while pounding noise, oft accompanied by obscene lyrics, is in vogue.
Young women are losing attractiveness. I saw one on Sunday who could have been stunning; instead, with her tattooed shoulder and her bra straps showing, she was repulsive. Women used to be smartly attired; they set their hair and wore nylons. They are now, commonly, unkempt, in such garb as torn jeans—once deemed humiliating, now seen as fashionable. Not only is the skin of many women marred by indelible ink stains but it is punctured, with costume jewels protruding from the side of the nose or below the bottom lip, or elsewhere.
Men have become just as sloppy in their attire.
It used to be that if you went to see a professional man, he would invariably be wearing a coat and tie. (Oh yes, and pants, too.) I went to a doctor last week who had on no tie, no coat, and his shirt’s top button was uncinched. Well, at least he wasn’t clad in a tee-shirt and wasn’t wearing ear rings. Or flip flops.
Integrity, sadly, is on the wane. My father, a businessman who died in 1974, consummated major deals on a handshake. By the 1980s, doing that was unthinkable.
I grew up in the 1950s. During most of that decade, “Ike” was our president (from 1953-61). Americans knew they could trust him. Now we have Obama.
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In the ’50s, it would have been unimaginable that a “colored man” could become president; we have, to our credit, advanced to the point that a person, irrespective of race, can attain the nation’s highest office.
But also unthinkable in the ’50s was the prospect that a socialist could become president. We have, to our shame, lost our senses, departed from our commitment to the economic system that brought this nation to greatness. We have put in power a man dedicated to a doctrine once detested and surely destined to lead, if it’s not soon put in check, to financial ruination of the United States.
Our national experience shows that free enterprise works. It provides jobs. It spurs economic growth. Hundreds of years from now those studying the history of the United States will no doubt be confounded as to why this nation turned its back in the early 21st Century on the precepts that had brought it unparalleled prosperity.
Historians of the future might well also be baffled on another score. There was a fervent resolve of the American people in the 1950s, continuing into the 1960s, to explore space. The moon landing of July 20, 1969 established that the objective was attainable—yet, nearly 44 years later, we have not set foot on any planet beyond Earth. The space program provided jobs, many jobs, boosting the economy. Yet, the program was virtually abandoned in the early 1970s in deference to cries that “if we can put a man on the moon” we can institute this social program, or that, none of which entailed an economic boost.
But let’s get back to the 1950s.
We had seven TV stations available in Los Angeles then (unless you count the three San Diego stations that could generally be picked up here in the early 1950s, albeit with much static). Under FCC rules, seven stations was the highest number that could be allocated to any area in the U.S., in those pre-UHF days. There was, for the most part, solid programming on each of the channels here. Now, with cable or by satellite, we have scads of stations available—most all of them, including the original seven, offering tripe, much of it falling below decency standards of Ike’s time, or the decency standards of many today.
My mother in the 1950s would park her car in lots and leave the doors unlocked, even with groceries in it—and in North Dakota, where my grandfather had a farm, no one would think of locking the front door, even at night. Today, we not only double-lock our doors but many of us feel a need to contract with alarm companies.
Except for the criminal element, people respected the law then. Nowadays, making left turns from the right-hand lane is common. So is refusing to pull over for emergency vehicles with sirens wailing and red lights flashing.
Police were, of course, the upholders of the law. Not anymore. Without getting into serious stuff—the Rampart scandal, the Rodney King beating, and so on—officers can often be observed parking where you or I couldn’t, lawfully, do so, taking advantage of their immunity to parking tickets while pursuing purely personal purposes. I remember seeing a police car double parked, with one officer at the wheel, his partner in a Baskin Robbins store buying ice cream cones.
In the past two weeks, my wife and I have twice spotted a law enforcement vehicle—an LAPD car (Vehicle No. 89080), on one occasion, a California Highway Patrol car (license plate No. 1270821) on the other—parked on Third Street in downtown Los Angeles between Spring Street and Broadway, during rush-hour traffic, though “no parking” signs forbade stopping there, and notwithstanding that they were causing traffic to be backed up. Why? Well, on the northeast corner of Third and Broadway is a place with a Carl’s Jr., a Pollo Loco, and a Sbarro. We saw the LAPD officer emerging from the establishment with a sack we can only assume to have contained grub he had procured there. And was the Highway Patrol officer parked there while tending to official business? Given that Third Street is not a freeway, highway, or a road in an unincorporated area of the county, the CHP had no jurisdiction there.
Artfulness in phraseology was prized in the 1950s. Today, our speech is increasingly imprecise. We would employ such phrases in those “old days” as, “I was favorably impressed.” The modern analogue is: “I was like wow.”
Sitting near young people in restaurants is unpleasant. They, like, seem, like they can’t get through like a sentence, without like, saying “like” a lot.
“Like” and “wow” are probably the most used words in the English language these days—except for “I” and “me.”
The Grand Canyon can be described as “awesome.” Last Friday, I was in a cleaning establishment; the cleaner promised a woman that her clothes would be ready to be picked up on a particular day; she declared that to be “awesome.” Why would she be in “awe” of that?
Precision in speaking, in thinking, in painting, in manual arts, and in legal reasoning is markedly on the downslide.
The relationship between doctors and patients was different in the ’50s. Doctors made house calls then.
You could see a doctor without executing forms that entailed signing away rights. There was trust between physician and patients.
The doctor I went to last week referred me to Olympia Medical Center to have a chest X-ray taken. I went there; they sought to require me to sign a form agreeing to undergo such treatments as their personnel deemed advisable, being photographed for teaching purposes, and agreeing that their professionals were all independent contractors for whose acts or omissions the hospital would have no liability. I just came for an x-ray!
Doctors used to send bills. Now. most demand a co-payment in advance for professional services. Next, they will probably require a PayPal transfer at the time an appointment is made.
Lawyers, too, are losing professionalism, becoming mere commercial vendors of services.
Food was different in the 1950s.
There were no labels on jars and cans boasting, “No High Fructose Corn Syrup.” Now ubiquitous, that dreadful substance had not yet been concocted.
Hamburgers were juicy and flavorful. Nowadays, thin, frozen patties are heated; back then, fresh, raw beef, with adequate fat content, was hand-shaped and grilled—and usually placed on toasted buns. Johnnie Rocket outlets fraudulently purport to replicate fare of the ’50s while serving turkey burgers (unknown in the 1950s) and over-cooked beef patties that have been sitting on the griddle, getting hard and dry.
Making dishes from scratch was not confined to trendy, specialty restaurants. That was the way food was prepared.
You could get orange juice, squeezed for you on the spot by a machine, at Farmer’s Market. That ended some years back with an edict that orange juice had to be pasteurized. One could still squeeze oranges at home to make juice, but perhaps I shouldn’t mention that lest some legislator spots it and is inspired to put in a bill requiring that only boiled oranges be sold in markets.
In some ways, we are over-protected today. In the 1950s, bottles of water did not reveal, as required now, that they contained zero calories and zero nutrients.
It’s true that in the Ike Era, we did not have the panoply of foods that we have now. There were foods restricted to particular ethnic groups and virtually unknown to outsiders. In 1965, when my then-girlfriend (wife since 1966) and I started frequenting sushi bars, we were typically the only Caucasians there. To the vast populace in the 1950s, there was no sushi, no pho, no stuffed grape leaves, and so on. We did, however, have dishes now virtually abandoned such as lamb kidneys, lobster thermador, and chicken a la king. Too, tamales were commonly on menus.
Life was simpler in the 1950s, in many ways better—though, yes, there were injustices, and Uncle Sam had his warts. For most, however, they were “Happy Days,” and they were tranquil times.
There were no cell phones then. From the standpoint of this old fogey (age 68), that’s something positive. People did not walk down the street, alone, chattering (unless they were loco). They didn’t stand in public loudly carrying on conversations relating to delicate personal matters.
Groceries were put in a paper bag at the checkstand without a query being made as to whether it was desired—and there was no 10-cent charge for it. In those days, if merchants were told they must charge a dime for a paper bag, they would have balked, declaring they will decide what they charge their customers for, and they will decide what they give away. (If a store demands that I pay for a paper bag, it can keep the goods I would otherwise have purchased.)
At gas stations, oil and water were checked as a matter of routine, with no charge. And windows were wiped, and tires checked. At 76 stations, comic books (ones of half-sized depth, commonly provided by merchants) were given to us kids.
Morality was defined and, while some defied the standards, the fact is that there were standards, and adherence was the norm. Now, the lines are blurry—and where focus is clear, much of what was frowned upon in the 1950s is widely accepted. For example, what was then called “living in sin” is now simply “living together”; a person who in that time would have been branded a fornicator is now a “significant other.”
If I could turn my house into a time machine, and take a one-way journey in it with my wife and two dogs to 1956, I would, assuming my wife’s concurrence, hit the switch.
There would be drawbacks, of course. While a 2013 house landing in the 1950s would still be equipped with a PC, that device could no longer connect to the Internet—Al Gore not yet having invented it—and there would be no e-mail. It would be necessary to use a typewriter, with carbon paper if copies were desired. Cases would have to be laboriously Shepardized. There would be no CDs, no DVDs; TV programs would have to be seen when aired, or missed.
It would be worth it, though.
If a radio were turned on, music—not noise—would be emitted. Tony Martin would be belting out “Walk Hand in Hand.” Doris Day would be singing “Que Sera, Sera.”
If a TV were switched on, there would be entertainment, not smut.
Goodwin J. Knight would be governor and Ike would be president, earning his second term that year.
Ah, if only it were possible to return to that era…or to somehow render our present times “Happy Days,” in which free enterprise, morality, and prideful appearance are valued. To enjoy that, along with sushi and the Internet and PCs, would render our civilization an advancing one.
Copyright 2013, Metropolitan News Company