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Post by q8 on May 12, 2005 10:28:01 GMT
The 1940s - For all us Old Folks
We were born before television, before penicillin, before polio shots, frozen food, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees, and the Pill. We were born before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams, and ballpoint pens. Before panty hose, dishwashers, clothes dryers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip-dry clothes...and before man walked on the moon. We got married first and then lived together. How quaint can you be?
In our time, closets were for clothes, not for "coming out of". Bunnies were small rabbits, and rabbits were not Volkswagons. Designer Jeans were scheming girls named Jean, and having a meaningful relationship meant getting along with your cousins. We thought fast food was what you ate for Lent, and Outer Space was the back of the Riviera Theater. We were before house husbands, computer dating, dual careers and commuter marriages. We were before day-care centres, group therapy and nursing homes. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electronic typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, yogurt and guys wearing earrings. For us, time-sharing meant togetherness...not computers and condominiums. A chip meant a piece of potato. Hardware was hardware, software wasn't even a word. Back then, "Made in Japan" meant junk, and the term "making out" referred to how you did on your exam. Pizzas, and MacDonald's and instant coffees were unheard of. We hit the scene where there were sixpenny storee, where you bought things for a tanner. Sanders For tuppence you could ride a tram, make a phone call, buy a Pepsi or enough stamps to mail one letter and two postcards. You could buy a new Ford for £200...but who could afford one? A pity too, because gas was 2/9 a gallon. In our day, grass was mowed, COKE was a cold drink, and POT was something you cooked in. ROCK MUSIC was a Grandma's lullaby and AIDS were helpers in the principal's office. We were certainly NOT before the difference between sexes was discovered, but we were surely before a sex change. We made do with what we had. And we were the last generation that was so dumb as to think you needed a husband to have a baby. No wonder we are so confused and there is a generation gap today.
BUT, WE SURVIVED!!!! What better reason to celebrate?
We also made all those things we now have in our society and we made our living from them...are we really better off today?
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Phil
In memoriam
RIP 23-Oct-2018
Posts: 9,473
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Post by Phil on May 12, 2005 14:09:46 GMT
Oh dear! But I am glad I do not have to be a teenager in these days. (And I'm also VERY glad not to have had to have lived through the war despite all today's "nostalgia").
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Post by chris on May 12, 2005 14:40:45 GMT
Oh dear! But I am glad I do not have to be a teenager in these days. It's not THAT bad. I've never understood why people born in the 10's, 20's, 30's and 40's claim they had the best generation.  They lived through a world war, (in some cases 2), had less understanding of medical science and had no real understanding of the world around them. Ah well. Every generation says they had it best. It all changed when the dinosaurs came along, didn't it, Q8? |
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Post by q8 on May 12, 2005 16:13:34 GMT
It all changed when the dinosaurs came along, didn't it, Q8?
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Yus mate and to prove it there's one still here!!!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2005 20:17:57 GMT
Teenagers hadn't been invented. Didn't the term 'teenager' first come into common use c.1956? Dave (definately not a teenager!) |
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Post by piccadillypilot on May 12, 2005 20:46:50 GMT
Didn't the term 'teenager' first come into common use c.1956? Not sure when the term came into use, but it was in the mid fifties that teenagers took on a seperate identity in that they had their own money and became independent. |
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Post by q8 on May 12, 2005 23:12:59 GMT
I've never understood why people born in the 10's, 20's, 30's and 40's claim they had the best generation. ---------------------------------------------------------- It's not a claim to be the "best generation" it is trying to say that life was at a slower pace then. There was not this constant "money, money, money" thing of nowadays. People worked reasonable hours for an adequate (but never enough) pay packet. Crime levels were fairly low and politicians worked for the country and not themselves. But above all despite all the hardships, drawbacks and moans folk were reasonably CONTENT with their lot. There three things missing in the modern world. Honesty, Integrity and Justice |
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Post by q8 on May 12, 2005 23:14:11 GMT
Didn't the term 'teenager' first come into common use c.1956?
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Yup! and I was one but now I am an "oldager"
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Post by igelkotten on May 13, 2005 10:16:33 GMT
... And of course, back in the forties, people were sitting around and saying that today's life is too hectic, everybody is just in it for the money, and the politicians of today are mere money-grubbing amateurs, compared to the paragons of virtue and great statesmen of yesteryear. Not to mention that kids were better behaved Back Then!
Nostalgia for a time and place that never was seems to be one of the universal constants of human life -after all, already the ancient greeks and egyptians wrote plays and poems on the lines of today's youth being a bunch of gangsters and hooligans, disrespectful of their elders, and the end of civilisation as we know it, and all that. And that was thousands of years ago.
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Post by Hutch on May 13, 2005 11:03:05 GMT
Yes, nostalgia is not what it used to be! ;D
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Post by q8 on May 13, 2005 11:11:02 GMT
Yes, nostalgia is not what it used to be! ;D
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Nor is life cock!
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Post by chris on May 14, 2005 7:24:35 GMT
I'll admit that, probably, the trains were better back then. With steam and the introduction of diesel trains, there was never a dull moment. I like to think that electric trains are steam trains on the inside, but the coal is burnt and steam produced somewhere else rather than on the train! Hey - maybe in 60 odd years i'll look back and say, 'we had it good'. I wish I lived in the Victorian era. I mean, THAT was the hieght of nostalgia and the Industrial Revolution would've been intresting.  |
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They lived through a world war, (in some cases 2), had less understanding of medical science and had no real understanding of the world around them. Ah well. Every generation says they had it best. It all changed when the dinosaurs came along, didn't it, Q8? 
