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That was exactly the situation my parents found themselves in after World War II.
Every era has its good and bad. The bad during that era included a huge housing shortage (newly married couples had nowhere to live), inflation that followed the end of the war, and shortages of retail goods ranging from automobiles to washing machines. Unions were constantly on strike and Congress finally enacted the Taft Hartley law to decrease the number of labor walkouts. Education was cheap and actually free to returning veterans under the GI Bill. However, the downside was that classes were absolutely jammed with students and colleges were rushing to build new buildings and expand facilities.
There's an old t.v. series that lasted about two years that's called the "Best Years of Our Lives" that portrays people in this generation. The series is actually based on an academy award winning movie that was produced shortly after the war with the same title. Occasionally, this movie is still shown on some of the odd channels on satellite television.
I suppose the good side though was the optimism. America was a more innocent country than. Veterans who had survived the war and had returned faced a future that they felt would be better--in every way--than both the past and the present. My mother is still alive and remembers the era well. After the poverty of the Great Depression and the fear and the killing during World War II, she felt things had to get a lot better. They did too. Both my mother and father, by any measure, lived the American Dream.
My dad grew up on a farm. His father grew up on a farm. When he was sixteen, he joined the navy to get away from it, with his mother's permission. His father refused. He had made it his carrear when the war came, and he saw lots of death and suffering. He was a raidoman, and raidomen went the first wave on an island landing to establish communications. Mom knew. She spent the war visiting his family for a time and with her mother the rest. Everyone knew the risk. When it was over, they were all much different people.
Just because that war was over, didn't mean Dad was at home. He got called back in for Korea, something I know he and mom felt wasn't the same. But Dad was a raidoman, and the earliest new tech which led to the moon was based on communications and his specialty. Dad also was one of the unknown heros who helped send human beings to the moon.
I think our parents gave us a gift of seeing past the end road to the one waiting for us to find. It played out then and it will play out again with the current situation.(trying very hard not to make any political refs here). In many ways, they were the generation which stood between the old society and the new one in a time of sea change. And they passed on the challenge to their children.
Well I have an affinity for the 1920s. I wonder if perhaps I was a young "independent" modern girl of that time. And I will say that I thank GOD I was not a grown woman in the 1950s...if I had been, I would most likely have been put in prison! LOL
I feel like I should've been a teen in the 90s. I am bad with all those smartphones, gadgets, sophisticated video gaming, modern slang, etc, of this time period.
What do you call people like that, "transperiods"? Lol.
I know it sounds funny to us, but i can't count how many times I've heard people say that WWII was the best period of their life. Simply because of the way it brought everyone together for the common good.
I have heard a lot of people say the same thing as well!! Not because of the bringing people together thing though, but because they were making a lot of money after the Depression lol. My grandmother in law was in her early 20s during the war and said she worked as a waitress and made the most money EVER in her life. She saved most of it since she was living at home at the time with parents and then opened her own business after the war ended. She was a very successful businesswoman.
Men in my family loved the era also because of the "good paying jobs" and the modernity of everything and new construction being built in our area. Also, many of them got involved in NAACP and the Civil Rights Movement after coming home from war. My great grandmother's family - all of her brothers went to war (one died in the war) felt that since they'd given up so much, they wanted more ability for their kids. My grandmother - her daughter and her siblings, born in the 1930s/1940s were the most financially successful of my family up to that time period and grandma based it on the social activism in our local area of our black churches and organizations who worked peacefully with the city officials to get legislation passed for better opportunities for black people in this area, especially in city/government positions and educational access.
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Originally Posted by Sand&Salt
From age 38 to 45 I lived in a one-room cabin with no plumbing or electricity, or traveling on horseback camping. I truly felt it was the most satisfying time of my life. Our own efforts provided everything we needed, directly, instead of the indirect route of modern life. Carrying water from a spring, outhouses (didn't relish THAT part) picking berries, hunting venison, drying/canning meat, gathering wood to cook (and heat) on a wood stove, riding horses to the mailbox....it was quite a life. I felt I had "found myself".
But, that was for a person of "relative youth". I could never do that now (age 61). I'm so glad I did it then, though. I feel like I know what that era was like, sort of. I can identify with that era.
But, as I said in another post, I'd be dead 6 times over if I really lived in the 1800's.
I do dislike this era of smartphones and selfies and FB. I can't relate to any of it. Yet here I am on my laptop, communicating via internet. The irony does not escape me!
On the bold, I'm the same and was born in the late 1970s. I miss not having a smart phone and social media. I think it causes people to be less social. But (le sigh...as I say) I am not that old - in my late 30s and I am at a great position in my career and so I have to keep up with technology, which I do.
I just wish things were simpler while at the same time keeping the efficiency of our technology.
On belonging in this era, I do feel I belong here. I would not want to live in any other era.
How would you feel if someone took away your computer and everything you have that connects you to the internet? And your washing machine? And whatever are your electricity-based sources of entertainment - television, movies, etc.?
I didn't read the whole thread - did someone ask you if you've seen the PBS series on life in the 1900 house?
As a boy growing up in the 1970's and early 1980's I was fascinated with the WW II era and the decade or two leading up to it. Would sometimes wish I had been born in that era, but as I got older I would also think about our young men in uniform that gave their lives and how they probably would have wished they could have lived in my era to avoid going through that.
I have a similar fixation on the 60s/70s and Vietnam.
Also would've liked to have been old enough to properly enjoy the 80s.
In the context of American cities in particular these were some very hard decades for many but still, the world seemed more...genuine back then. Now nothing means anything and everything is just lame.
How would you feel if someone took away your computer and everything you have that connects you to the internet? And your washing machine? And whatever are your electricity-based sources of entertainment - television, movies, etc.?
I didn't read the whole thread - did someone ask you if you've seen the PBS series on life in the 1900 house?
It was like this when I was young and visited my grandparents...
Home was clean and spartan... never cold even in the dead of winter.
No telephone, no TV and of course no computer... mail required going into town.
Grandmother cooked on a Wedgewood Stove... some of the best meals ever all from scratch and she loved to bake and made the best apple turnovers.
Believe it or not... heat was radiant... there was a big boiler in the basement that would use wood or coal... they used wood because being farmers they had plenty of wood... every Saturday was wash day... no washing machine.
Early to bed and early to rise... in the evening, they were prolific readers... they also had a AM radio for the farm report/weather.
No car, but they did have a very old tractor...
It really was an ideal way to decompress... life was dictated by the seasons and neighbors helped each other...
They lived healthy lives into their 90's and walked everywhere local...
Had plenty of pork, beef and chicken raised on the farm... apples, potatoes, pears, etc... all put up as preserves.
Sew your own clothes... all the furniture in the house was made by my grandfather in his shop during the long winters...
They were proud and simple people and church was a large part of their social life... weddings and funerals.
Water was from a Spring in piped to the house...
Shelter from the elements, hot running water, indoor plumbing and always a warm and inviting kitchen...
I'm grateful I had the chance to experience it...
Heating, Cooking, Hot Water was all wood and no need for electricity... they did have electricity... a single ceiling light bulb in each room and an outlet... still remember always unplugging the radio as lightning could happen anytime in the mountains and too many had damage from lightning.
I feel like sometimes I would fit in better with a previous time period. But given all the creature comforts we have in this era, I think I like where I am now considering how difficult it was for people in previous generations. Maybe I do not "fit" in much with any era.
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