Were Those The Days?

“Nostalgia. It’s delicate but potent…It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.” – Don Draper, Mad Men, AMC TV

Mad Men was the best show I’ve watched since The West Wing, and that is saying something, because I am a huge Wing Nut, and can quote whole episodes in their entirety. I am a child of the Mad Men era. My mother was a stay at home mom, as were all the moms on our street. They hung out laundry, did dishes, made weird Jell-O mold salads for church suppers, and were often found counting up Green Stamps and lighting up a Lucky Strike. My mother raised my brother and me in those few years after the fabulous 50s, but before the social uprising of the 1970s. My childhood was all about Saturday morning cartoons, toys with lead paint, dresses for girls, pants for boys, and all the expectations that went with those distinctions.

I still live on the street where I grew up. When we moved here, there were more than a dozen children the same age as we were. We roamed the streets like feral animals, prowling around the playground, hitting the beach, riding bikes, and going on adventures in the woods along the train tracks. Neighborhood schools meant the kids that lived near you, were usually in school with you, and I’m lucky to still have so many friends from that time.

While you don’t have to have been brought up the same way to be friends with someone, it’s true that birds of a feather do tend to flock together. The other night, while sitting in my back yard having socially distant drinks and snacks with two childhood chums, it kind of hit me. There we were, three fully grown, extremely capable women, a few kids between us, decades of careers and shenanigans behind us, and who knows what ahead of us. We are all the product of being raised in Irish Catholic homes, so we all had similar memories of Easter dresses, with matching hats and gloves, meatless Fridays, church every week, and the same two choices for every meal…eat it or starve. Yet, here we are, so very different from the women that raised us.

We are modern women, but we came from women that, while amazing, did not have the opportunities and experiences that we enjoy. We own houses, condos, cars, all on our own. We don’t have to ask a husband, or a father or a brother for permission to do anything. When we want something, we go after it. Now, our mothers were not shrinking violets; Mary, Ruth, and the other Mary were incredibly strong, unbelievably wise, and truly the best examples of parenting anyone could imagine. However, they came of age in such a different environment.

How can women who were not allowed to open a bank account on their own, or have a mortgage in their name, raise confident women that, not to brag, are pretty much running the world? So many women who married and raised families in the 60s were told what to wear and how to act. They were funneled into “pink-collar jobs” and working wasn’t about career advancement but rather a nice way to spend some time while finding a husband. They were denied so much of what my friends and I take for granted, and yet, they still pulled it off. They produced fabulous children that are literally changing the world for the better, and they did it while dusting, baking, and hanging cloth diapers on clotheslines.

We look back with nostalgia on those years. We go through photo albums of faded Polaroids, and we smile at the silver Christmas trees, the avocado green kitchens, and the shag carpeting. Do we really want to go back though? Of course, I’d give anything to have my mother, Mrs. H. and Ruthie here today, because there is so much I never got to ask them, but there’s no way I could be a 60s housewife. Looking back on a period of time and fondly remembering people and places is one thing, but I would have failed miserably at being a mother in the Mad Men era. Being raised by one, however, has been a very good thing.

BACK IN TIME

“In every age, the ‘good old days’ were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time”

---Brooks Atkinson   

I’m very happy to live in this time. We have technology that saves lives; we have resources that will ensure that our children will have it even better than we do and we can literally travel to any corner of the earth with ease. People used to die of diseases that don’t even exist anymore. Setting aside politics and war, which have pretty much impacted every decade since the Big Bang, it really is a wonderful time to be alive.

Except for all the other times, right? For whatever reason, people like to look back. They want to remember how it used to be before. Before what? Before I had my hip replaced, I walked funny and was in pain a lot. Now I’m bionic, sort of.  How cool is that? Before there were smartphones, waiting in the deli line meant listening to grocery store Muzak and making small talk with strangers. Now I can bury my head in the screen, stream some Taylor Swift songs and talk to strangers on the Internet.

I wasn’t born until 1964, so I missed the 1950’s, but if it were possible, that is a time I think I would like to visit. My father was a car guy; in the 1950’s he probably had a dozen cars in total. The family album (truthfully, it's just a shoe box) is full of photos of him standing in front of some big fendered iron beast with fins and whitewalls.  The cars during this decade were nothing short of amazing. Today we have airbags, and anti-lock brakes and safer is better, but a 1957 Chevy Bel Air could broadside a tree at 35 miles an house and still be driven home. I know this because Dad did just that. A new headlight and a little sandpaper and paint and he was back on the road.  The car my mother drove us around in when we were little was just slightly newer than the Chevy, it was 1961 Buick Special station wagon and it was practically a tank.

The cars are not the only part of that time that fascinates me. The clothes were just fabulous. For women, they were probably uncomfortable because of all the straps and hooks and rib-crushing foundation garments, but how do you not love every outfit Audrey Hepburn ever wore? Ok, that’s not a good example, she was beyond beautiful, if she wore a Hefty bag it would look chic, but the clothes of that time were inspired. Women wore hats and gorgeous shoes and carried tiny handbags instead of “hobo” bags. The casual clothes, like pegged pants and an oversized cotton shirt tied up at the waist, looked like a page out of Vogue.  There is a photo of my mother wearing pants, a pair of flats and a cashmere twinset and I bet that outfit would still be considered on trend today.

My cooking skills leave a lot to be desired, but photos of the kitchens in the 1950s make me think that even my pitiful culinary efforts would be delicious. First, a typical kitchen back then was larger than the entire downstairs of my house now.  The kitchen in the house we lived in until I was eight years old was a perfect example. There was a pantry. Seriously, the kitchen was two rooms. The colors were red and white, and the stove probably weighed more than a Volkswagon, but it was a great space. When my lottery ticket turns out to be the winner, I am going to duplicate that kitchen and probably buy a 1961 Buick as well.

The 1950s have gone though, but that is a good thing. Women aren’t tied to those fantastic kitchens anymore, and they can buy their own houses and cars without needing permission from their husbands. People are living longer now, probably because we aren’t all sitting around swilling Manhattans and sucking down Lucky Strikes. Schools are better, especially since kids don't have to have to practice their safety drills for a possible nuclear attack. We know now that if that does happen, hiding under the desk will not help, so there’s more time to learn.

It’s true that everyone looks back and thinks the “old days” were a better and simpler time, but someday our kids will call today one of the good old days. That’s how it should be; doesn’t everyone want their children to think back fondly of what their lives were like when they were young? No ten-year-old today is going to look back and be sad about the political world or the war. They’re going to remember how awesome it was to have a PS4 or a Wii, both of which will probably be on display at the Smithsonian. It’s OK to want to pick and chose what we remember from a time gone by; it’s not a history test. In the meantime, I wish I had kept the silver aluminum Christmas tree with the spinning colored disk, but at least I have a Polaroid of it.