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I've been reading a novel published in 1947. The family are going to a Fourth of July picnic in their station wagon and the youngest child (2 going on 3) is standing up with his nose pressed against the windshield so he can watch for trucks, his favorite vehicles.
(Spurs for Suzanna, by Betty Cavanna, 1947).
I traveled all the way from Atlanta to Washington, DC when I was about 10 riding in the back of our 1960 station wagon. No seatbelt -- no seat back there. Just me and the suitcases. My sister got the back seat all to herself and I had the "wayback" all to myself. Wonderful way to travel.
If I got in trouble at school, I got in trouble at home. My parents had one car until my mom started working. If I wanted to go somewhere I had to ride my bike or walk. I didn’t want my parents to talk to my teachers. Corporal punishment was the norm. Some parents took it to far. My sister and I both got whipped once. My cousin and I broke into the cemetery and went ghost hunting. My sister skipped school to hang out with some boy.
There was a lot of religious antagonism. My Baptist missionary cousins were given time off to come home from Brazil to campaign against Kennedy. We thought they were in the Amazon but they were in Sao Paulo trying to convert Catholics to be Baptists. My country Lutheran pastor would preach against the Baptists one week, Catholics one week, the Mormons one week...we might get a week off before he did it all again. None of that made any sense.
How about other Lutherans (i.e., Lutherans of other synods)? Did he preach against them too? Like, the Lutherans who couldn't or wouldn't take Communion at this pastor's church because they were of a different Lutheran synod?
The Methodist ministers of my growing-up years never preached against any other denomination any more than any ministers in my adult life have. Every year on Thanksgiving Day (not the Wednesday evening before, but Thanksgiving Day itself) the churches in my community would get together for a community Thanksgiving service. Two Baptist churches, one Methodist, one Lutheran, one Presbyterian. By the time I was in high school another Baptist church, a black one, had joined in, as well as the local Conservative synagogue. It was cool joining our public-school friends in a worship service and visiting each other's houses of worship.
Kids don't play out in the neighborhood spontaneously anymore. Everything is "structured", play dates, some sort of "practice" (soccer, dance, etc).
Our culture is much more sensitive to victim ideology and political correctness.
The race/ethnic/political gaps are bigger than (or have replaced) the "generation gap".
Both left and right have moved to the left.
Both the military and recreational drug use are now considered OK.
Homosexuality was much less acceptable.
Gender roles were much less challenged.
Smoking pot was considered MUCH worse than drunk driving.
There was no social message of "Diversity Is Our Greatest Strength".
Eating meals is much less of a social or family activity; we spend more time eating in the car than we do with family members.
I wanted to say this would be on a more light hearted note, but I don't know what it is. Anyway, when I was a kid we would go to someone's house for a 4th of July cook out and when it got dark enough, the men would set up the fireworks. Then we would all grab a chair and the fireworks would be shot off into the sky. One time I got to hold a live Roman candle.
Then it became illegal to use fireworks privately. We had to start going to a park to see the town fire off the fireworks. Something was definitely lost when that happened. It changed things because we'd have our cookout more about the middle of the day, then hang around until evening when we would get into the car with our folding chairs and go to the park.
That made me sad but my dad explained that people (even kids) were getting their hands blown off from fireworks every year. So we never had fireworks again and we always had to go to a park and if I lived in a town that wasn't rich enough, they couldn't afford fireworks on the 4th and would have them on the 2nd or 3rd of July. But I have seen lovely displays over a lake or over the ocean, no hands blown off, no fires. Although, people still do tend to buy some fireworks illegally and shoot them off. Where I live now, it's just fire crackers but one place had idiots who would shoot off screaming rockets that could have set the woods on fire! I guess I prefer a safe fourth of July.
I remember people, including me, smoking everywhere: in restaurants, at work, in planes, in cars with kids, in homes in front of sick people... ashtrays were on every flat surface in a living room or den.
I remember people, including me, smoking everywhere: in restaurants, at work, in planes, in cars with kids, in homes in front of sick people... ashtrays were on every flat surface in a living room or den.
Yep, many of the smokers I knew died of lung cancer.
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