Cleanup in Aisle Lunatic (h/t romad1)

[chasfh]

On 3/18/2022 at 7:28 PM, pfife said:

Apparently the convoy realized the convoy wasn't racist enough

Not sure what this has to do with covid restrictions 

It was never about COVID restrictions.

[pfife]

you seem to be suggesting these patriots aren't acting in good faith

[Tiger337]

29 minutes ago, chasfh said:

It was never about COVID restrictions.

It's about getting back to the American way of life of the 1950s.  

[romad1]

 

[oblong]

It's almost like to be stupid you have to be an antivaxer.

 

[Archie]

10 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

It's about getting back to the American way of life of the 1950s.  

With a couple exceptions the 1950s was a much better era. People didn't get offended by everything and they weren't afraid to work.  

[CMRivdogs]

Lilly white school districts, limited opportunities for women. My dad worked briefly for Fisher Body in McKeesport Pa, he never knew whether he was working or not between layoffs and strikes. Same for the steel mills in the area as they all moved out of the area. 

It was the beginning of the breakup of the extended family as folks left the homestead to find decent paying jobs. 

 

Women could only be teachers or nurses. I won't even talk about race and redlining.

The unemployment rate was similar to now...and people complained a lot about folks not wanting to work.

FUN Times

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by CMRivdogs

[romad1]

4 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Lilly white school districts, limited opportunities for women. My dad worked briefly for Fisher Body in McKeesport Pa, he never knew whether he was working or not between layoffs and strikes. Same for the steel mills in the area as they all moved out of the area. 

It was the beginning of the breakup of the extended family as folks left the homestead to find decent paying jobs. 

 

Women could only be teachers or nurses. I won't even talk about race and redlining.

The unemployment rate was similar to now...and people complained a lot about folks not wanting to work.

FUN Times

 

Archie is a segregationist now?   Does he mean the 1850s? 

[CMRivdogs]

I'm just saying the 1950s were not the Utopia Trumpers fantasize about.  

[oblong]

6 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Lilly white school districts, limited opportunities for women. My dad worked briefly for Fisher Body in McKeesport Pa, he never knew whether he was working or not between layoffs and strikes. Same for the steel mills in the area as they all moved out of the area. 

It was the beginning of the breakup of the extended family as folks left the homestead to find decent paying jobs. 

 

Women could only be teachers or nurses. I won't even talk about race and redlining.

The unemployment rate was similar to now...and people complained a lot about folks not wanting to work.

FUN Times

 

I strongly recommend everyone read David Halberstam's book The Fifties.  He goes into great detail explaining that while great for some people, for many others it wasn't.

Women could get fired for being pregnant.  Blacks were still being lynched.  They couldn't go to good schools.   Housewives in families who moved into the suburbs were trapped in a cycle with no support and were often very depressed.  The church and other religious fanatics were fighting the development of The Pill.  It goes on and on.

If you were a white male the 50's were great.  Everyone else?  Not so much.  But that explains the lure for some people.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Even as late as the mid 70s opportunities for women and blacks were limited in many fields. I remember being told in 1975 we needed to add an African American and a woman to the air staff. The AA had to "sound white". Our sales manager kept bringing in women he met at the bar to be interviewed.

In 1978 my wife was working at the legacy station in the state (think the equivalent to WJR) and was told by the General Manager that no woman was going to work morning drive on his station.

She was also part of the first coed class admitted to UVa based on merit. There are a few hair raising stories there as well.

Edited March 21, 2022 by CMRivdogs

[gehringer_2]

27 minutes ago, oblong said:

If you were a white male the 50's were great.  Everyone else?  Not so much.  But that explains the lure for some people.

 

Like everything else in the 50's the bad news was suppressed. Under the 'covers' so to speak, I would posit that the most traumatic thing about the 50's for even the supposedly favored white society was probably the skyrocketing divorce rate. Traumatic because no-one had experience in how that was supposed to work, so divorces were messier, more angry, more guilt ridden, more tied up in courts, and the fallout for children far worse than today when people have learned to accept that it's OK for a relationship to fail and that families can be 'blended' and all the other social coping strategies that have emerged.

For me the essential truth about the 50's was that our parents generation basically got to the end of WWII with a massive case of cultural PTSD. They had been through depression and war and they were simply done wanting to be engaged in *anything* that upset any one's apple cart. So things got very rigid and ossified, but in a very quiet, suppressed, individual by individual kind of way - and that is what set the stage for the great conflict with their children, who couldn't understand why their parents were so deliberately blind to so much starting to go wrong around them.

[Tiger337]

1 hour ago, Archie said:

With a couple exceptions the 1950s was a much better era. People didn't get offended by everything and they weren't afraid to work.  

It was better only for a small percentage of people.  I do agree that MAGAs get offended too much though.  

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

It was better only for a small percentage of people.  I do agree that MAGAs get offended too much though.  

I'd put it the other way. In the 50's no one was allowed to be offensive, thus it was much easier not to be offended.

Edited March 21, 2022 by gehringer_2

[Stanley70]

My father in law has a news paper saved from the late 50's when he made the all state baseball team. On the back were the want ad's for jobs people were trying to fill.

One said " I am looking for a man in his early 20's to help me with my work".

[Mr.TaterSalad]

1 hour ago, Archie said:

With a couple exceptions the 1950s was a much better era. People didn't get offended by everything and they weren't afraid to work.  

How were the 1950's a much better era? White people literally got offended by blacks drinking from the same water fountain or eating from the same lunch counter or going to the same schools as they did or riding on the same bus or whistling at white women or dating white women or marrying white women or holding the same jobs as they did or using the same public libraries or swimming in the same public pools or moving into their neighborhoods or voting or registering to vote. Not to mention lynching's, fire bombing black churches, murdering black children for allegedly looking at a white girl . . . But boy the way Glenn Miller played!

Edited March 21, 2022 by Mr.TaterSalad

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

I'm just saying the 1950s were not the Utopia Trumpers fantasize about.  

Are you implying that Leave It To Beaver isn’t a documentary after all?

Edited March 21, 2022 by chasfh

[Jim Cowan]

Let's not forget the hairstyles, clothing, and popular music from the 1950's.

[gehringer_2]

3 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Are you implying that Leave It To Beaver isn’t a documentary after all?

LITB was the pre-revolutionary vanguard probing the defenses of fortress "Father Knows Best" 

[gehringer_2]

9 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

Let's not forget the hairstyles, clothing, and popular music from the 1950's.

My oldest cousin still wears her hair 'up'.

[chasfh]

5 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

My oldest cousin still wears her hair 'up'.

Like this?

I’ve seen pictures from the 1950s of young women with this hairstyle, but by the time I was alive, only middle-aged women wore this, so I think of it as Old Lady Look.

Even this model: she might be in her 20s here, but to me the hair makes her look like she’s in her 40s.

[gehringer_2]

35 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Like this?

I’ve seen pictures from the 1950s of young women with this hairstyle, but by the time I was alive, only middle-aged women wore this, so I think of it as Old Lady Look.

Even this model: she might be in her 20s here, but to me the hair makes her look like she’s in her 40s.

well, more up, like this...(which is actually more 60's than 50's) - and BTW, your 'model' there is Jane Wyman, Reagan's 1st wife. - I think I've got a young Joan Collins here)

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

Well, it's hard to make young Joan Collins look bad, but that hairdo is working hard trying to make it so.

I remember the Polish ladies were more likely to have that one, like Mrs S across the street. Picture that hair on the face of a gym teacher. That's how I remember her and neighbors like her.

My mom and her bridge club ladies all had the hair I showed, throughout the 70s.

 

[oblong]

I remember a line from Ball Four about a player's conquest on the road.... she looked like "Joe Torre with tits"

 

[ewsieg]

3 hours ago, oblong said:

I strongly recommend everyone read David Halberstam's book The Fifties.  He goes into great detail explaining that while great for some people, for many others it wasn't.

Women could get fired for being pregnant.  Blacks were still being lynched.  They couldn't go to good schools.   Housewives in families who moved into the suburbs were trapped in a cycle with no support and were often very depressed.  The church and other religious fanatics were fighting the development of The Pill.  It goes on and on.

If you were a white male the 50's were great.  Everyone else?  Not so much.  But that explains the lure for some people.

Looking back at the fifties through today's lenses definitely shows the progress our society has made.  While I think we often get mired in the issues we see with today's society, objectively looking back shows us areas where we have moved forward.

3 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

Even as late as the mid 70s opportunities for women and blacks were limited in many fields. I remember being told in 1975 we needed to add an African American and a woman to the air staff. The AA had to "sound white". Our sales manager kept bringing in women he met at the bar to be interviewed.

In 1978 my wife was working at the legacy station in the state (think the equivalent to WJR) and was told by the General Manager that no woman was going to work morning drive on his station.

She was also part of the first coed class admitted to UVa based on merit. There are a few hair raising stories there as well.

I've mentioned this before, so sorry if you've already heard it.  My dad was told to hire an AA women back in the 70's when he was at Phillip Morris.  That shrunk his pool of candidates from hundreds to just a few.  He picked who he thought was the best of the bunch, but felt bad as he felt he was setting her up to fail.  He said she tried, but really sucked at the job.  1-2 years later, she leap frogged him and became his boss.  One of the best bosses he ever had.  My dad was very conservative, but he always pushed back on anyone that outright rejected affirmative action.