And That’s The Way It Was

Let’s go back in time just a little. Well, for me it’s a little, but for some of you it may be a long time ago. Ancient history even.

A cousin sent me an email about fender skirts, suicide knobs, continental kits, and some other things having to do with the mid-to-late 50’s and early 60’s. If you know what those things are, then you’ve lived through Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. If you don’t know what fender skirts, suicide knobs, and continental kits are—well, they have to do with cars.

So, this will be a miscellaneous collection of things that I hadn’t thought about in a long, long time.

First, one of my high school teachers predicted way back in 1959 that one day automatic transmissions would be pretty standard on automobiles. How did a history teacher know that?

When a student wrote “Only God and you know the answer” on his French test, the teacher wrote back, “100 for God, 0 for you.” We didn’t know anything about “easy” when it came to teachers, and parents always took their side.

I went to a school with no air conditioning. The early fall and late spring days were miserable. In the winter, cranky and clanky radiators warmed the drafty rooms. We were taught the nutritional value of red meat and dairy products. Crops were sprayed with DDT. We survived.

We had typing classes, not keyboarding. And we had manual typewriters. Not electric. Computers? Laptops were science fiction.

In the typing class I took, I was expected to type a minimum of 40 words per minute on a manual typewriter. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I got an A.

Although there were no written standards for dress or behavior, if a member of the staff didn’t like what he or she saw, you knew about it in no uncertain terms. And most likely, your parents knew about it by the time you got home.

Girls had to wear skirts or dresses to school. Pants weren’t allowed. It made for some interesting times.

Boys couldn’t wear jeans to school. But, we could wear pants that had the legs tapered down to a narrow opening just big enough to squeeze a foot through. Button down collars were just coming into fashion.

If you got married, you weren’t allowed in school. Two of the smartest girls I ever met elected marriage over education. A shame.

Everybody took physical education classes—big, small, short, tall, skinny, fat. Made no difference.

My high school had a strict honor code and the students enforced it. We had character, and we earned the grades we got.

Research was done with encyclopedias, not the internet or some computerized database. We learned how to do note cards, outlines, and how to draw conclusions based on our observations and research. I believe today it’s called thinking.

We didn’t have many assemblies in high school, but when we did, we gathered
in the auditorium by classes. Freshmen went in first, sophomores second, and juniors third. Freshmen sat in the back, and classes worked their way to the front. When it was time for the seniors to come in, a pianist played Pomp and Circumstance, and everyone stood up and stayed standing until they sat down.

We had class privileges also. Only seniors were allowed on the front lawn of the school during lunch. They were also allowed to break into the head of the lunch line. Being a senior was important. Being a freshman was miserable.

Cars?  Very few, in fact, almost no one, had a car. One girl had one, but her father was wealthy. A boy had one, but he worked after school (except during football season). Some others may have had cars, but they were left at home. Most of them were one step away from the junkyard, anyway. Shoe leather and bicycles were our main transportation. School bus service was reserved for those who lived outside the town limits.

Graduation was held in the high school auditorium. It was June and it wasn’t air conditioned. My dad wore a coat and tie. He never wore a coat and tie except for funerals and weddings. I was impressed. It made me feel special.

We questioned a lot of stuff, but teenagers didn’t have the power to change anything. It was just the way it was and because our parents said so. I wonder what our country would be like if we could get back to that?