My Journal #2

April 9th blog

Prompt: What did you love most about your generation growing up?

I'm sure as with every generation they feel their growing up years are the best (and need I say the worst). I'd like to start with the best because that was the prompt.
I loved the freedom of playing outside and not having to worry about  every car that came around the corner or every male that walked down the street was out to get you.  I'm not saying there weren't molesters, but to me they kept their secret, secret. They either weren't caught, or no one told. The media didn't frenzy at every arrest.
There were nights that I would be at someone's house and it would be dark when I walked home. I wasn't afraid of walking home in the dark I was afraid what was going to happen once I reached home and had to face my mother. The rule was "be home before dark." I knew that. I really did, but if I was at someone's house watching TV I'd get so caught up into it, I didn't mark the time. I wouldn't know that the mother was making dinner and setting the table and telling her kids to wash up for dinner. My mind was involved with what was happening on the TV screen. More than once the mother would have to shoo me out the door with the reminder I'd be in trouble if I didn't run like the wind home.

The comraderie that people had back then was closer. People talked, they didn't text. When there was a baby or wedding shower, the men went too. They dropped their wives and children off then hung out together in the garage or back yard. When the food was served, they were given their portion. I'm not saying all the men went, but I remember going between the two groups and listening to them talk. Games and laughter on one side, stories and jokes on the other.

When I was a teen my family moved from Los Angelas area to a small town in southern Oregon. We lived about a block from the Rogue River and I could walk the three miles home from school.
Summers along the river were fun as all the kids came there. My Spanish Teacher came every day to sunbathe and we became friends until she passed away many years later.
We didn't sit in front of a TV, play video games and watch movies. We went to church, had youth meetings and get togethers. I remember one summer I went on a scavenger hunt with a youth group. We actually had people walk up and down the sidewalk by the bank (with the only clock in town) and then others stood in line at the movie theater.
We had to go up to people and say "Goosey goosey gander." The ones with the clues would then answer, "Where shall I wander?" we would give them our bus number and they gave us our envelope.  What a blast we had. The last clue was a sheet of music. We rode out to the radio station at the edge of town, a music store, counted the notes, but no one actually SANG them.  If we had we may have found the clue sooner. It was "Take me out the the ball park." The goose we were to find sat in its cage on home plate at the High School playing field."
People, for the most part, didn't scream at us, tell us to go away or call the cops. There were some people in the movie line that didn't like us running up and down the line, shouting "Goosey Goosey Gander." They did laugh at us when they found out what we were doing. There were 5 van/buses of kids so that might have been a little obnoxious after a while. The movie theater line was very long, all the way around the block.
Life was somewhat easier. The demand for perfection in looks, and statis wasn't as prevelant.  Divorcee was almost unheard of. People worked at making their marrages last. They didn't get married as hastily, well, I'm not too sure about that, but they stuck with each other, finding the common ground. When divorcee isn't a option, you compromise a little more often and find the things that make the other person happy and that makes you happy. I have been married forty-one years. My parents were married sixty-five years. My father passed away this last January, right after he turned eighty-six years old.

To sum it all up, life in the '50's and 60's was about  coming of age. I'm not talking about growing up, but an era that was changing. By the time the '70s' were in full swing, we were out of the free loving teens and twenties and into permenent relations, jobs, children that needed more love that what we were showen. Dr. Spock's name was bandied around and had a following. Corporal punishement which was accepted in the home and in the school, was almost banned in both places. 
The song, "Times they are a changing," held certainly true for the Baby Boomers.