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Old 05-26-2012, 10:26 AM
 
13,721 posts, read 19,142,055 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
There's a saying I like, "Inside every old person is a young person, surprised."
I always thought that old people just accepted being old, till I watched my stepmother age. She died at age 91. I met her when she was 51, so I watched her age for 40 years. She was a young looking, young acting 51 (I realize now, though when I met her at the age 12 I thought she was old, of course). Anyway, she was the same person inside at 91 as she was when she was 51. She had a wonderful sense of humor and she was just as funny and witty and had the same great personality at 91 that she did at 51, and I realized the body ages, but the mind/soul don't. She wasn't any more "ready" to die at 91 than she was at 51 (although I know that some are ready to die when their physical or other problems become too much as they age). You are still the same person! I have found that to be true of myself, too, as I age. I still feel like the same person I was when I was 20. But when I look in the mirror I realize I'm not 20 anymore!
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Old 05-26-2012, 03:15 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,174,825 times
Reputation: 16936
Quote:
Originally Posted by goldengrain View Post
Gee, you were really a lucky kid. We lived in a what was considered a middle class neighborhood. My father was a manual laborer who worked hard all day and then took extra work on at home from the neighborhood. My mom worked all day and then came home to cook and do housework. Neither parent had a weight problem nor were they flabby.
What I remember is that more people had their own small business. My uncle and his brother had a plastering and later drywall company which consisted of the two of them and his brothers son. One of my neighbors sold cars. One did gardening, but he worked with businesses who wanted a professional look. One and his family did pest control. They didn't work in offices but they were middle class.

As a small business, then, you could compete with larger places. Now its hard to do that. They would mostly today end up working 'freelance" and not be middle class or for a large company.
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Old 05-26-2012, 03:59 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,077 posts, read 83,946,203 times
Reputation: 114330
Quote:
Originally Posted by nightbird47 View Post
What I remember is that more people had their own small business. My uncle and his brother had a plastering and later drywall company which consisted of the two of them and his brothers son. One of my neighbors sold cars. One did gardening, but he worked with businesses who wanted a professional look. One and his family did pest control. They didn't work in offices but they were middle class.

As a small business, then, you could compete with larger places. Now its hard to do that. They would mostly today end up working 'freelance" and not be middle class or for a large company.
This is very true. Also, you could hope to open a store or a restaurant if you wanted and didn't have to worry about competition from all of the franchises. There are a few independent coffee shops around here and I love to go to them just because they aren't Starbucks.
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Old 05-26-2012, 04:25 PM
 
Location: The Lakes Region
3,074 posts, read 4,710,000 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
This is very true. Also, you could hope to open a store or a restaurant if you wanted and didn't have to worry about competition from all of the franchises. There are a few independent coffee shops around here and I love to go to them just because they aren't Starbucks.
That was before the "Blanding of America by McDonald's.
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Old 05-26-2012, 04:31 PM
 
Location: USA
3,070 posts, read 7,986,087 times
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I have to disagree with the OP's question (it states an opinion). The 50's kids and teens look very young to me at this time in my life. The only difference is that the styles were different from today. Are you looking at the faces or the hair and dress? I'm sure that there are improved grooming techniques that have been introduced since the 50's ended. So much the better.
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Old 05-30-2012, 02:25 AM
 
Location: Peterborough, England
472 posts, read 922,291 times
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Could there also be (in Britain at least) a class factor?

In the UK, the school leaving age in the 1950s was only 15, just increased from 14 in 1944. I rather suspect that a (working class) 15yo who already went out to work probably looked (and acted) older than an 18yo who was still at school. However, I'm less clear about how this would apply in the US.
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Old 06-02-2012, 07:47 PM
 
Location: Earth Wanderer, longing for the stars.
12,406 posts, read 18,910,813 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4 View Post
Actually, within six months, the 4 to 6 pound weight gain should level out and they will go back to normal.

Frankly, I know way too many super fat people who smoke to make me ever think that smoking is a good weight loss method.
Well, you evidently hang around a different genetic pool than I because the vast majority, and I did lots of interviews, did not get that weight off for a decade or more.
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Old 06-03-2012, 09:32 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,606 posts, read 55,808,656 times
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One word...fashion. Teenagers dressed like their parents, or at least young adults.

Check out 'Rebel Without a Cause'. The 'bad girls' wore their hair in curls, ankle length skirts and you know...
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Old 06-03-2012, 09:42 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,606 posts, read 55,808,656 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nightbird47 View Post
That true with women then. I saw an interview with a producer of this movie set in the 50's. His biggest problem was extras and small roles where the women did not look as if they had muscles. Women in the fifties prized the thin, undeveloped look (left over from the 30's and before where well off women didn't get them and poor women did). Today most women do sufficnt lifting of things that at least the arms show. Older women always wore sleeves to cover the flabby arms.

I think one small difference was backpacks. You hold it with your shoulder and all kids use them now, especially when you get to jr hi and high school, and the load is heavier in college. It developed the upper body without especially trying to.

I remember when airlines had to change the standard of weight to 'fits in the uniform' since they had even already working flight attendants who weighed too much but fit the uniform fine. A flight attendant with sufficent strength and fitness would be an asset in an emergency as well.
Yes it wasn't feminine for a woman to be physical. Women made things, looked pretty. In a way, the whole idea of women being confined to the house is a very 50s thing...Although in a way a Victorian-Modern thing. In the 1700s, for instance, both men and women laboured in the fields etc, as it had been for millenia.

Yes 50s leading ladies were either quite slim like Liz Taylor or voluptuous like Marilyn Monroe. The ideal, though, seems to be more curves all over than what is prized today, which is either stick thin, toned with big breasts. I think toned is becoming more preferable.
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Old 06-03-2012, 09:46 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
24,606 posts, read 55,808,656 times
Reputation: 11862
Anyone seen 'Making Sense of the 60s?' The first DVD was really about the 50s, the 'background' to the 60s, and they were commenting on how the 50s were all about rules and how you were 'expected to behave'. Any expression of emotion was discourage lest it upset this serene facade of harmony. It was seen as a return to Victorian mores even in comparison to the relatively uninhibited 'liberated' 1920s-1940s.
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