A Simpler Time

My husband listens to old time radio stations at night through his internet radio. This morning we heard a radio play about returning two men who go back in time 20 years prior to the "magic time" that they lived in: 1952. It got me to thinking back to the 50's. So many people today say those were the golden years: post war, the country growing and changing, homes, jobs and so forth. Yes it was different, but so was our mind set and our expectations. The wall I am standing in front of in the photo is the retaining wall of our home in Cleveland Heights. My Father and my Grandfather built it. It looks pretty solid today(at least 50 years later) and I don't see any sign of repairs. My father also paneled part of our basement and made it into a recreation room. The walls were sanded by my sister and her friends, in a "sanding" party, my parents supplied dinner. I remember lots of junior high kids there helping. My Dad built our back porch into a bedroom for me. The floor was made out of pressed wood chips....something very new and different. We only had an upstairs bathroom so my Father added one to the downstairs for my Mother. Those were days that if one needed something,they mostly did it themselves or had friends who helped out. There were many things that we kids wanted but we just couldn't have them. No money. Credit cards were metal plates that each department store notched if you had an account there, but you only had one card. It came in a small leather envelope. They were only used for department stores, not gas, drugstores and so on. My Grandfather was given a color television and the whole family would go over to watch Bonanza on Sundays. We were really lucky to have one black and white television in our living room. We didn't all run and buy newer models. As kids we walked or biked most places. I guess I was just musing about those days because of both that radio program and the the fury of this election year. On the larger part though, everybody didn't have to have everything that someone else had. We didn't have that awful drive to get what someone else had. We didn't go into debt on plastic to be like other people. We accepted who we were. We may have wanted but knew that sometimes, having wasn't possible. It was a simpler time. We need to think about that, it was simple because we were not so driven and possessive. We didn't need alot of stuff to be okay.