Sorry, more nostalgizing

I was thinking about some of the antique things I have had contact with because of my generation and the time frame in which I was born and raised. Basically, because I am related to my parents. I was born in 1956. There was a cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States, but the Berlin Wall was not built and citizens still passed between the different areas of Berlin in relative safety. Cuba was still being ruled by General Batista, a dictator with a connection to organized crime in the US. Charles DeGaulle, who was a leader of the French military in exile in Britain during World War II, was President of France. Queen Elizabeth II had been Queen of England for only four years. Dwight David Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the invasion of France during World War II was ready to begin his second term as President of the United States. President Eisenhower would later warn America of the dangers of the "Military Industrial Complex" which was an odd concern for a Republican President who had been a General in the Army.

I don't think most people remember that. They just like to remember the 50's as a time of relative peace and prosperity. They forget that we had military advisors in Viet Nam, troops in Germany, Korea, Cuba, Nicarauga, Western Europe, Japan, virtually across the globe. They forget that the prosperity of the United States was still a matter of the haves and the have nots, particularly on Indian Reservations and in Appalachia. They forget the struggle waged by Congress concerning "Un-American Activities." The black-listing of certain celebrities for former activities. They forget the rise of Civil Rights struggles in the South. The 101st Airborne in Little Rock, Arkansas, walking school children to school. The Georgia legislature voting to add the Confederate battle flag to the State flag. They forget that the Bay of Pigs invasion was formulated by the Eisenhower administration.

On the other hand, Elvis had a big year. "A whole lotta shakin' goin' on." Werner Von Braun, and other former German scientists, were working in Northern Alabama to advance space exploration. There was still viable train transportation all over the country. The economy was strong. We produced our own clothes, food, shelter and fuel for our cars, boats and homes. Derricks were still pumping oil in Louisiana, Texas and California. American farmers still produced most of our food. Textile plants in the South produced our clothes and towels and bedsheets. Our cars were made in Detroit.

The Yankees were still in first place, but the Milwaukee Braves were winning pennants too. Foals were still born in the pastures of Kentucky and running the oval track at Churchill Downs in Louisville. Cars with gas-burning internal combustion engines were still racing around the brickyard in Indianapolis. Despite cheating scandals and point shaving, college basketball was still being played in schools of varying derivation and size in Indiana and Illinois and Kentucky and Kansas and New York City and Philadelphia. College football was strong across the country and the NFL was beginning to gain its ultimate place in the minds and hearts of the United States. It would only take television and Pete Rozelle to gain it its final fan base.

My parents could still drive me to their homeplaces in Kentucky and Tennessee on two lane federal highways, or buy tickets on a Louisville and Nashville train from Indianapolis to Hopkinsville or Clarksville and surround me with aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles and cousins and grandparents and great grandparents and a whole world of people who would show an interest in a little red headed, blue-eyed boy. My paternal grandparents still made their own pork sausage and heated their home with coal. My maternal grandmother still worked in the Clerk's office at the Christian County Courthouse. My paternal grandmother still taught school in Montgomery County, Tennessee.

Barns in the country still looked like they were on fire in the fall when the farmers fired the tobacco crop. The sweet smells of tobacco firing and the coal fires in the homes filled the air. The smoke house behind the farmhouse still smelled like hams hanging from the rafters. There was still a pile of coal in the coalshed next to it. And a scuttle by the fireplace in the parlor.

How things have changed.