Is anyone here old enough to remember the 1950's?

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So true. I went to school with a couple kids who wore leg braces because of polio. I got the measles when I was six and ended up with encephalitis that left me with OCD and ADD for life. I also got whooping cough after I was an adult and the cough disabled me for a year. My father was born in 1901 and lost three siblings to diphtheria.

When I was nine my class had the opportunity to participate in a study to test the new polio vaccine. I took a series of three fake shots. The next year I got the real thing.

Nobody cussed in those days. My father and brothers
never used a bad word in front of women, or otherwise, probably. Bad words were "butt," "hell," and "damn." I wasn't aware of the F word until after I was married and living in San Diego and watched some sailors and marines having a disagreement. A woman who smoked was considered a slut. I didn't know any.

I walked a mile and a half to school from the time I was five. There was nothing to be afraid of then. Of course this was a small town. I didn't know there was such a thing as a gay person until my 30's, and then I thought all they did was hold hands. I found out about sex on my wedding night.

No drugs. The couple bad kids there were at school smoked and there was a rumor about beer.

We got a TV when I was ten. TV wasn't background noise like it is now. My parents would turn it on in the evening and watch one program and then turn it off again until the 10:00 o'clock news, watch that, and turn it off again. Yes, my father saw the man on TV talk about how evil the new rock 'n roll music was, and he smashed a record. I wasn't allowed to watch American Bandstand because of that, and no music on the radio.

We had a wringer washer and hung the clothes on the line. My mom did laundry once every two weeks and it took all day. Then everything had to be ironed! That also took a day.

My mom baked all our bread once a week. We also sewed a lot. Girls were required to take three years of home ec. I wanted to take shop but couldn't because I was a girl.

Yes, there were period pads. It wasn't the dark ages! They were held on with a sort of harness of elastic bands worn around the waist. There were tampons, but no good girl would have anything to do with that. My mother actually made her own underwear (bloomers) and also made them for an elderly neighbor woman. She started buying them at the store later.

I didn't see a black person until we went on a family vacation to DC when I was 12. I was surprised and disgusted that as we walked down the sidewalk they would step into the gutter to let us pass. There also were the separate drinking fountains and restrooms. :( We lived in an agricultural town in the west and had Mexicans there who worked in the harvest. I didn't know of any racial incidents, but there was no mixed dating. A lot of them assimilated though.

I will answer any questions for anybody who is interested. You have to understand that my parents were old, disabled, and very strict, so maybe others have had a different experience.

...If so I would love to pick your brains :00

I'm a Millenial who has recently become fascinated with the American culture of the 1950's.

In a lot of ways I idealize it and wish we could go back to the "simpler times", but I do acknowledge there were a lot of problems back then that we no longer deal with.