Click on title to link to my original post of Hard Times In Babylon- Growing Up Working Poor In The 1950s for a link to some "golden age" facts of life
Hard Times In Babylon- Growing Up Among The Working Poor In The 1950s-revised
Markin comment:
GROWING UP DIRT POOR IN THE 1950’S
Several years ago I wrote a personal commentary about a childhood friend from back in the old neighborhood in North Adamsville where I grew up in the 1950’s who had passed away.(see An Uncounted Casualty of War,, May 8, 2007 archives). I had also at that time been re-reading the then recently deceased investigative journalist David Halberstam’s book, The Fifties, that covers that same basic period. Halberstam’s take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of my own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age,’ rekindled some memories, a few painful. It is no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon. Not so much for individual lacks like a steady (and reliable) family car to break out of the cramped quarters, house on house, where we lived once in a while. Or the inevitable hand-me-down clothes (all the way through high school, almost), or worst the Bargain Center bargains that were no bargains (the local “Wal-Mart” of the day to give you an idea of what I mean). Or even the always house coldness in winter (to save on precious fuel even in those cheap-priced heating oil times) and hotness in summer (ditto, save on electricity so no A/C, or fans).
They, and other such lacks, all had their place in the poor man’s pantheon, no question. No, what, in the end, turned things out badly was the sense of defeat that hung, hung heavily and almost daily over the household, the street, the neighborhood at a time when others, visibly and not so far away, were getting ahead. Some sociologist, some academic sociologist, for, sure, would call it the death of “rising expectations.” And for once they would be right, or at least on the right track. Thinking back on those times has also made me reflect on how the hard anti-communist politics of the period, the “red scare” left people like my parents high and dry, although they were as prone to support it as any American Legionaire. The defeat and destruction of the left-wing movement, principally pro-communist organizations, of that period has continued to leave a mark, and a gaping vacuum on today’s political landscape, and on this writer.
There are many myths about the 1950’s to be sure. However, one cannot deny that the key public myth was that those who had fought World War II and were afterwards enlisted in the anti-Soviet Cold War fight against communism were entitled to some breaks. The overwhelming desire for personal security and comfort on the part of those who had survived the Great Depression and fought the war (World War II just so there is no question about which in the long line of wars we are talking about) was not therefore totally irrational. That it came at the expense of other things like a more just and equitable society is a separate matter. Moreover, despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide.' The experience of my parents is proof of that. Thus this commentary is really about what happened to those, like my parents, who did not make it and were left to their personal fates without a rudder to get them through the rough spots. Yes, my parents were of the now much ballyhooed and misnamed ‘greatest generation’ but they were not in it.
I will not go through all the details of my parents’ childhoods, courtship and marriage for such biographic details of the Depression and World War II are plentiful and theirs fits the pattern. One detail is, however, important and that is that my father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, near Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and story and by Michael Harrington in his 1960s book The Other America. This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these “hillbillies” were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder that when World War II began my father left the mines to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting in the Pacific, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.
By all rights my father should have been able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill and enjoyed home and hearth like the denizens of Levittown (New York and elsewhere) described in Halberstam’s book and shown on such classic 1950s television shows as Ozzie and Harriet and Leave It To Beaver. But life did not go that way. Why? He had virtually no formal education. And moreover had three young sons born close together in the immediate post-war period. Furthermore he had no marketable skills usable in the Boston labor market. There was (and is) no call for coal-miners here. My father was a good man. He was a hard-working man; when he was able find work. He was an upright man. But he never drew a break. Unskilled labor, to which he was reduced, is notoriously unstable, and so his work life was one of barely making ends meet. Thus, well before the age when the two-parent working family became the necessary standard to get ahead, my mother went to work to supplement the family income. She too was an unskilled laborer. Thus, even with two people working we were always “dirt poor.” I have already run through enough of the litany of lacks to give an idea of what dirt poor meant in those hard times so we need not retrace those steps.
Our little family started life in the Adamsville housing projects, at that time not the notorious hell-holes of crime and deprivation that they later became but still a mark of being low, very low, on the social ladder at a time when others were heading to the Valhalla of the newly emerging suburbs. By clawing and scratching my parents saved enough money to buy an extremely modest single-family house. Hell, why pussyfoot about it, a shack. The house, moreover, was in a neighborhood that was, and is, one of those old working class neighborhoods where the houses are small, cramped, and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless reflected the desire of the working poor in the 1950’s, my parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off into decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder. This is social progress?
But enough of all that. Where in this story though is there a place for militant left-wing political class-consciousness to break the trap? Not the sense of social inferiority of the poor before the rich (or the merely middle class). Damn, there was plenty of that kind of consciousness in our house. A phrase from the time, and maybe today although I don’t hear it much, said it all “keeping up with the Jones.’” Or else. But where was there an avenue in the 1950’s, when it could have made a difference, for a man like my father to have his hurts explained and have something done about them? No where. So instead it went internally into the life of the family and it never got resolved. One of his sons, this writer, has had luxury of being able to fight essentially exemplary propaganda battles in small left-wing socialist circles and felt he has done good work in his life. My father’s hurts needed much more. The "red scare" aimed mainly against the American Communist Party but affecting wider layers of society decimated any possibility that he could get the kind of redress he needed. That dear reader, in a nutshell, is why I proudly bear the name communist today. And the task for me today? To insure that future young workers, unlike my parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice.
Showing posts with label the 1950s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the 1950s. Show all posts
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Once Again, From The Time Of Radio Days- Sentimental Journey- The Fifties-They Shoot Record Players Don’t They? - A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Dinah Washington performing What A Difference A Day Makes.
CD Review
Sentimental Journey, Volume 4 (1954-1959), Rhino Records, 1993
As I noted in a recent review of an earlier volume of this series (1942-1946) I am a child of rock ‘n’ roll, no question. I also noted that I have filled this space with plenty of material about my likes and dislikes from the classic period of that genre, the mid-1950s, when we first heard that different jail-break beat, a beat our parents could not “hear,” as we of the generation of ’68 earned our spurs and started down that long teenage process of going our own way. And further I noted , as much as we were determined to have our own music on our own terms, wafting through every household, every household that had a radio in the background, and more importantly, had the emerging sounds from television was our parents’ music.
In that review I also noted that some the World War II era music “spoke” to me, or at least it did not offend my ear (especially a classic like Lena Horne on Stormy Weather). This volume, however, as it intersected my generation’s jail-breakout rock beat, or should I say interfered with that breakout, is something else again. This material is nothing but a rearguard action, for the most part, to keep everything quiet, to be nice and, to hope, hope to high heaven that they (and you know, if you are of a certain age, who the they were) didn’t drop the bomb and ruin a Saturday chaste date. The cover art featured here of boy and girl sitting dreamily in a car (maybe dad’s, maybe in discretionary dollars new teen America, his own, but his, one way or another) looking out at the expanse says it all. The ain’t some reckless little rock ‘n’ roll scene, not even sweet, beatified be-bop. This is the music of older, "square" brothers and sisters caught in between “jump” forties and “rock” mid-fifties.
It is almost impossible to pick stick outs here and apologies to someone like Tony Bennett who actually did some better stuff later but here is all I can even come close to advising anyone under the age of one hundred (today) to hear:
Memories Are Made Of This, Dean Martin (martini, or whatever, in hand, Dino ain’t rocking, he’ll leave that for his son); Just In Time, Tony Bennett (already noted above); What A Difference A Day Makes, Dinah Washington (Jesus, what is a serious, be-bop jazz singer, “torch” too, and with great phrasing doing in this thing-except to prove my overall point as the exception).
CD Review
Sentimental Journey, Volume 4 (1954-1959), Rhino Records, 1993
As I noted in a recent review of an earlier volume of this series (1942-1946) I am a child of rock ‘n’ roll, no question. I also noted that I have filled this space with plenty of material about my likes and dislikes from the classic period of that genre, the mid-1950s, when we first heard that different jail-break beat, a beat our parents could not “hear,” as we of the generation of ’68 earned our spurs and started down that long teenage process of going our own way. And further I noted , as much as we were determined to have our own music on our own terms, wafting through every household, every household that had a radio in the background, and more importantly, had the emerging sounds from television was our parents’ music.
In that review I also noted that some the World War II era music “spoke” to me, or at least it did not offend my ear (especially a classic like Lena Horne on Stormy Weather). This volume, however, as it intersected my generation’s jail-breakout rock beat, or should I say interfered with that breakout, is something else again. This material is nothing but a rearguard action, for the most part, to keep everything quiet, to be nice and, to hope, hope to high heaven that they (and you know, if you are of a certain age, who the they were) didn’t drop the bomb and ruin a Saturday chaste date. The cover art featured here of boy and girl sitting dreamily in a car (maybe dad’s, maybe in discretionary dollars new teen America, his own, but his, one way or another) looking out at the expanse says it all. The ain’t some reckless little rock ‘n’ roll scene, not even sweet, beatified be-bop. This is the music of older, "square" brothers and sisters caught in between “jump” forties and “rock” mid-fifties.
It is almost impossible to pick stick outs here and apologies to someone like Tony Bennett who actually did some better stuff later but here is all I can even come close to advising anyone under the age of one hundred (today) to hear:
Memories Are Made Of This, Dean Martin (martini, or whatever, in hand, Dino ain’t rocking, he’ll leave that for his son); Just In Time, Tony Bennett (already noted above); What A Difference A Day Makes, Dinah Washington (Jesus, what is a serious, be-bop jazz singer, “torch” too, and with great phrasing doing in this thing-except to prove my overall point as the exception).
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
**Once Again-Out In The Be-Bop Night- The School Dance -Last Chance For Romance
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of The Angels performing Till.
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The ‘60s: Last Dance, Time-Life, 1991
As I have noted in reviewing The ‘50s: Last Dance of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance.
Fair, enough, true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that entailed getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually a apart of the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here. What does stand some further inspection is something that has received scant notice in all this welter of detail, with the exception of that overblown coverage of the last dance. Nothing on the inner workings of the dance itself.
Actually, and I will only speak to the late fifties and early sixties but I am sure this observation will hold up for other times as well, there are two school dance sequels, that first tremulous middle school dance series, and the later even more significant high school dances. Age, more convoluted socials relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (or nowadays same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or, more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or off-hand nuzzling (or, have mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the high school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were current in the of my high school time.
These musical selections "spoke" to that gnawing feeling in the back of your head, half hidden by massive teenage psychic overlay of the need to take a constant survey of what is going on in your little so-called world. A moment's glazed stare as you wait to get into the dance venue allows you to think through the litany of problems to be addressed as soon as you get a breather. Shall I give examples?
For example; being stood up for a date; or when that certain he or she did not call; or that certain he or she had another date; or that certain "unto death" friend of yours took that certain he or she away from you; or when that certain he or she said no, no for any number of things but you know the real “no”, right?; or, finally, that mournful, pitiful midnight crying time when sometime he or she, did or did not do, or did or did not say, or he or she forget to remember, and so on. But those issues will wait for another day because right now the doors are opening and you have more pressing issues in your heated little mind. Hope drives your every move from here on in.
I don’t have to spend much time on the physical and technical details of the dance, hell, you can describe them in your sleep. And if you can’t do so watch a film like 1973’s American Graffiti, the segment on the local high school dance, as I have noted previously, once you get indoors could have been 1962 anyplace U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet anytime U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance, could have taken place at my high school when I was a student in the early 1960s). From the throwaway crepe paper decorations that festooned the place placed around the gym by the ever helpful Girls Club or Tri-Hi-Y up to the ever-present foldaway gym bleachers to those evil-eyed chaperones to the platform the local band (a band that if it did not hit it big would go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other important occasions) covering the top hits of the day performed on it was a perfect replica of my own experience.
Also perfect replica in that film were the classic boys’ attire for a casual dance, plaid or white sports shirt, chinos, stolid shoes, and short-trimmed hair (no beards, beads, bell-bottoms, it’s much too early in the decade for that) and for the girls blouses (or maybe sweaters, cashmere, if I recall being in fashion at the time, at least in the colder East), full swirling dresses, and, I think beehive hair-dos. Wow! Of course, perfect replica were the infinite variety of dances (frug, watusi, twist, stroll, etc) that blessed, no, twice blessed, rock and roll let us do in order to not to have to dance too waltz close. We all owe Chubby Checker and Gary U.S. Bonds a debt that can never be repaid. Mercy.
Damn, my going on and on about the physical descriptions is just so much eye wash. The thing could have been held in a airplane hangar for all we really cared. And everyone could have been dressed in paper bags. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless small meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell). Except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground, and pleased to be doing it. And that, my friends, is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation)of those evil eyes, the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven that it was a slow one. Ah, to be young was very heaven as old man Wordsworth had it in another context.
Stickouts here include: legendary blue artist Etta James’ Something’s Got A Hold On Me (fast); The Angels’ Till (slow, ouch); Bo Diddley’s Road Runner (fast); and Donnie Brooks’ classic (the one you prayed they would play) Mission Bell. How is that for dee-jay even-handedness?
********
'Till lyrics
Till the moon deserts the sky
Till the all the seas run dry
Till then I'll worship you
Till the tropic sun turns cold
Till this young world grows old
My darling, I'll adore you
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me, oh, oh, oh
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
instrumental interlude
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
CD Review
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Era: The ‘60s: Last Dance, Time-Life, 1991
As I have noted in reviewing The ‘50s: Last Dance of this Time-Life Roll ‘n’ Roll Era series I have spent tons of time and reams of cyberspace “paper” in this space reviewing the teenage culture of the 1950s, especially the inevitable school dance and the also equally inevitable trauma of the last dance. That event, the last dance that is, was the last chance for even shy boys like me to prove that we were not wallflowers, or worst. The last chance to rise (or fall) in the torrid and relentless pecking order of the social scene at school. And moreover to prove to that certain she that you were made of some sort of heroic stuff, the stuff of dreams, of her dreams, thank you very much. Moreover, to make use of that social capital you invested in by learning to dance, or the “shadow” of learning to dance.
Fair, enough, true enough, if only a rather short sketch of the preparations, the seemingly endless preparations for the ‘big night.’ A night that entailed getting into some serious grooming workouts, including procedures not usually a apart of the daily toilet. Plenty of deodorant, hair oil, and breathe fresheners. Moreover, endless energy used getting worked up about wardrobe, mode of transportation, and other factors that I have addressed elsewhere, and, additionally, factors contingent upon whether you were dated up or stag. All that need not be repeated here. What does stand some further inspection is something that has received scant notice in all this welter of detail, with the exception of that overblown coverage of the last dance. Nothing on the inner workings of the dance itself.
Actually, and I will only speak to the late fifties and early sixties but I am sure this observation will hold up for other times as well, there are two school dance sequels, that first tremulous middle school dance series, and the later even more significant high school dances. Age, more convoluted socials relationships, physical and sexual growth, changes in musical taste, attitudes toward life and toward the opposite sex (or nowadays same sex) all made them two distinct affairs, except the ubiquitous teacher chaperones to guard against all manner of murder and mayhem, or, more likely, someone sneaking out for butts, booze or off-hand nuzzling (or, have mercy, all three). I will keep strictly to the high school dance scene here since the compilation under review includes musical selections that were current in the of my high school time.
These musical selections "spoke" to that gnawing feeling in the back of your head, half hidden by massive teenage psychic overlay of the need to take a constant survey of what is going on in your little so-called world. A moment's glazed stare as you wait to get into the dance venue allows you to think through the litany of problems to be addressed as soon as you get a breather. Shall I give examples?
For example; being stood up for a date; or when that certain he or she did not call; or that certain he or she had another date; or that certain "unto death" friend of yours took that certain he or she away from you; or when that certain he or she said no, no for any number of things but you know the real “no”, right?; or, finally, that mournful, pitiful midnight crying time when sometime he or she, did or did not do, or did or did not say, or he or she forget to remember, and so on. But those issues will wait for another day because right now the doors are opening and you have more pressing issues in your heated little mind. Hope drives your every move from here on in.
I don’t have to spend much time on the physical and technical details of the dance, hell, you can describe them in your sleep. And if you can’t do so watch a film like 1973’s American Graffiti, the segment on the local high school dance, as I have noted previously, once you get indoors could have been 1962 anyplace U.S.A. (and I am willing to bet anytime U.S.A., as well. For this baby-boomer, that particular high school dance, could have taken place at my high school when I was a student in the early 1960s). From the throwaway crepe paper decorations that festooned the place placed around the gym by the ever helpful Girls Club or Tri-Hi-Y up to the ever-present foldaway gym bleachers to those evil-eyed chaperones to the platform the local band (a band that if it did not hit it big would go on to greater glory at our future weddings, birthday parties, and other important occasions) covering the top hits of the day performed on it was a perfect replica of my own experience.
Also perfect replica in that film were the classic boys’ attire for a casual dance, plaid or white sports shirt, chinos, stolid shoes, and short-trimmed hair (no beards, beads, bell-bottoms, it’s much too early in the decade for that) and for the girls blouses (or maybe sweaters, cashmere, if I recall being in fashion at the time, at least in the colder East), full swirling dresses, and, I think beehive hair-dos. Wow! Of course, perfect replica were the infinite variety of dances (frug, watusi, twist, stroll, etc) that blessed, no, twice blessed, rock and roll let us do in order to not to have to dance too waltz close. We all owe Chubby Checker and Gary U.S. Bonds a debt that can never be repaid. Mercy.
Damn, my going on and on about the physical descriptions is just so much eye wash. The thing could have been held in a airplane hangar for all we really cared. And everyone could have been dressed in paper bags. What mattered, and maybe will always matter, is the hes looking at those certain shes, and vis-a-versa. The endless small meaningful looks (if stag, of course, eyes straight forward if dated up, or else bloody hell). Except for those wallflowers who are permanently looking down at the ground, and pleased to be doing it. And that, my friends, is the real struggle that went on in those events, for the stags. The struggle against wallflower-dom. The struggle for at least some room in the social standing, even if near the bottom, rather than outcaste-dom. That struggle was as fierce as any class struggle old Karl Marx might have projected. The straight, upfront calculation (and not infrequently miscalculation)of those evil eyes, the maneuvering, the averting of eyes, the not averting of eyes, the reading of silence signals, the uncomphrehended "no", the gratuitous "yes." Need I go on? I don’t think so, except, if you had the energy, or even if you didn’t, then you dragged yourself to that last dance. And hoped, hoped to high heaven that it was a slow one. Ah, to be young was very heaven as old man Wordsworth had it in another context.
Stickouts here include: legendary blue artist Etta James’ Something’s Got A Hold On Me (fast); The Angels’ Till (slow, ouch); Bo Diddley’s Road Runner (fast); and Donnie Brooks’ classic (the one you prayed they would play) Mission Bell. How is that for dee-jay even-handedness?
********
'Till lyrics
Till the moon deserts the sky
Till the all the seas run dry
Till then I'll worship you
Till the tropic sun turns cold
Till this young world grows old
My darling, I'll adore you
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me, oh, oh, oh
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
instrumental interlude
You are my reason to live
All I own I would give
Just to have you adore me
Till the rivers flow upstream
Till lovers cease to dream
Till then I'm yours, be mine
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