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Thread: REmber

  1. #1
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    REmber

    exist as a very special age cohort. We are the “LAST ONES.” We are the last, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the war itself with fathers and uncles going off. We are the last to remember ration books for everything from sugar to shoes to stoves. We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans. We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available.
    We are the last to hear Roosevelt’s radio assurances and to see gold stars in the front windows of our grieving neighbors. We can also remember the parades on August 15, 1945; VJ Day.
    We are the last who spent childhood without television; instead imagining what we heard on the radio. As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood “playing outside until the street lights came on.” We did play outside and we did play on our own. There was no little league.
    The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real understanding of what the world was like. Our Saturday afternoons, if at the movies, gave us newsreels of the war and the holocaust sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons. Newspapers and magazines were written for adults. We are the last who had to find out for ourselves.
    As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth. The G.I.
    Bill gave returning veterans the means to get an education and spurred colleges to grow. VA loans fanned a housing boom. Pent up demand coupled with new installment payment plans put factories to work. New highways would bring jobs and mobility. The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics. In the late 40's and early 50's the country seemed to lie in the embrace of brisk but quiet order as it gave birth to its new middle class. Our parents understandably became absorbed with their own new lives. They were free from the confines of the depression and the war. They threw themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.
    We weren’t neglected but we weren’t today’s all-consuming family focus. They were glad we played by ourselves “until the street lights came on.” They were busy discovering the post war world.
    Most of us had no life plan, but with the unexpected virtue of ignorance and an economic rising tide we simply stepped into the world and went to find out. We entered a world of overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were welcomed. Based on our naïve belief that there was more where this came from, we shaped life as we went.
    We enjoyed a luxury; we felt secure in our future. Of course, just
    as today, not all Americans shared in this experience. Depression poverty was deep rooted. Polio was still a crippler. The Korean War was a dark presage in the early 1950's and by mid-decade school children were ducking under desks. China became Red China. Eisenhower sent the first "advisors" to Vietnam. Castro set up camp in Cuba and Khrushchev came to power.
    We are the last to experience an interlude when there were no existential threats to our homeland. We came of age in the late 1940's and early 1950's. The war was over and the cold war, terrorism, climate change, technological upheaval and perpetual economic insecurity had yet to haunt life with insistent unease.
    Only we can remember both a time of apocalyptic war and a time when our world was secure and full of bright promise and plenty. We experienced both.
    We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better . . . not worse!
    We did not have it easy. Our wages were low, we did without, we lived within our means, we worked hard to get a job, and harder still to keep it. Things that today are considered necessities, we considered unreachable luxuries. We made things last. We fixed, rather than replaced. We had values and did not take for granted that "somebody will take care of us." We cared for ourselves and we also cared for others.

    WE ARE THE “LAST ONES !!”---and I can say it’s been a good life!!



    carl welch
    yep! We walked to school. penny candy, popsicles, baseball on WGN. Howdy doody, ,Goldblats, Rember the big glass globe street lights and the lamp lighters? Really, I'm glad to be old and on my way out. Still living with cancer, supposed to dead twice already. Still drive, but hardly at night, Pee through a tube, and YES i still smoke more than a pack a day.I remember how you liked those phillpmoris cigs, I was a luckies guy. Take care ole buddy, we lived in the best of times, and there was plummer street in cal city
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  2. #2
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    The Good Life

    I wasn't rich, but I grew up in a great part of a big city Chicago.My mom took us fishing, on a bus, or we could walk, my brother and I bought our first boat before 1954. Or we could scrounge up a buck and 3 of would rent a row boat. I think I was one of the earliest guys to own a spinning out fit, and our level winds did not have free spools. Our whole family liked to fish. Today i remember bring home " bullheads" and my granpa cleaning them. I wish I could still "go fishin" but there are very few handicapped areas where I could try.So now do what I can, instead of what I want to do. but thank you Lord, for keeping mosy of my mind clear, memories are a great picture album, and man do I have some great albums.
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  3. #3
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    You have a few days on me my friend, I think as we age, ( when I think of growing old, I can’t help but think how it is described in the Bible, in the Bible instead of saying growing old it says a life full of days. ) anyway as we grow old, I think we all replay our life through memories, I know I find myself spending more time from years gone by, than looking toward the future, some memories make me laugh out loud and some wash my eyes out pretty good, I sure was glad to read in your post, where you thanked God for keeping your memories clear. Lots of folks don’t seem to know how that is done. I don’t get on here as often as I use to, but when I do I look for your post, just keep thanking God for everything he does and has done for you, and use those memories, when you try to do something and your age stops you, just smile and say, there was a time...
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  4. #4
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    Your post are good to read.

    Quote Originally Posted by kygorski View Post
    I wasn't rich, but I grew up in a great part of a big city Chicago.My mom took us fishing, on a bus, or we could walk, my brother and I bought our first boat before 1954. Or we could scrounge up a buck and 3 of would rent a row boat. I think I was one of the earliest guys to own a spinning out fit, and our level winds did not have free spools. Our whole family liked to fish. Today i remember bring home " bullheads" and my granpa cleaning them. I wish I could still "go fishin" but there are very few handicapped areas where I could try.So now do what I can, instead of what I want to do. but thank you Lord, for keeping mosy of my mind clear, memories are a great picture album, and man do I have some great albums.
    You have a few years on me. But like You I too have cancer and also heart disease so I spend a lot of time looking back and remembering the good old days. Now my Mom is 93 and lived though the depression like you. I was not born until 1951 so the Korean War was unknown to me as I was too little to remember it. My mom's brother was in the Army ad spend time in Germany in the 1950s. I remember him coming home with his army uniform and army bag and giving me his army hat to wear for a few minutes. I thought that was so cool. Thanks for the thoughts. I too am getting older and have not been out fishing in my boat for the last few years. I'm on a sort of Chemo/hormone therapy that makes me weak and have not been shooting since last year. But mostly due to my truck not being trustworthy. I got the truck fixed and when I stop getting these chemo/hormone shots in 4 months I hope to recover enough to go fishing and shooting some more. But life is strange and one never knows when your time is up. I have heart disease too and my feet swell if I'm on the computer too long and don't wear my TED stocking to keep the swelling down. Life gets tough and we just have to get tougher. Good to see you are still kicking and posting in here.

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