Growing up in simpler times

Peggy Noonan: An old-fashioned childhood: Nobody killed us

Be sure to read Peggy's article above. She is 1 year younger than I. I was born August 19th, 1949.

One of the joys that I cherish is growing up and the fine youth I enjoyed. Today I briefly entertained my neighbor's 10 year old son. He is a bit frightened to come home to an empty house and so he comes to our house for less than an hour until his older brother comes home.

I remember 10, we moved from Fort Wayne to Cincinnati when I was eleven.

I'm in every photo above except the black and white one. That's my older sister (now 69) in my Mother's arms. I came home to that little trailer. In 1950 we moved into the little white house. Then in 1960 or 61 to the brick house in Cincinnati.

The last photo is my own family, on the porch of my current home in Plymouth. The occasion: Roger's return from USMC duty in Iraq.

Also above is a wedding photo from 1974.

How simple was growing up in the 50's?

• I would ride that little red bike blocks and blocks (2 miles) to a neighborhood park with a pool.
• My sister and I would take a city bus (a 10¢ ride) downtown to see a movie: like House on Haunted Hill, The Fly, or Run Silent, Run Deep
• Mailboxes were military green and stamps were 3¢!
• I remember hearing that Superman had died. Shocked me!
• A boy on a ice cream bike (a three-wheeled reverse tricycle with a dry ice freezer on the front) would cruise the neighborhood all Summer. This job was my earliest career goal!
• Trick or treaters were unaccompanied by their parents - really it was that safe!
• I walked to school (normally with my older sister)
• We would go to Alto for at least a week every Summer
• Likewise a week at Grandma's farm (she remarried after the untimely death of Grandad Christmas 1949)
• There were no worries, no anxiety! Every need I has was met and I was loved by two parents
• I was not afraid!

A peril of old age is the woe is us, the county has changed for the worse, and the good-old days are gone, not to be seen again.

Frankly there we some scary times:

• Chief was polio. (image below). Kids got polio and I didn't want to. 
• Second was the Korean war. I knew about MIGs and that the Reds projected power.
• Third was Sputnik.  Adults seemed to project that something was amiss.

At the risk of sounding like an old codger:

• America (the U.S.) has lost its greatness
• We do not have an Eisenhower, we have an Obama
• Morally, the U.S. has lost her way. Sure there was adultery, fornication, perverts, and murder then. But then it was considered wrong! Sin!
• There was a Judeo-Christian worldview. It seemed everyone went to church (I did not know any Jews back then). Now there is a vacuum with an encroaching Islamization. By vacuum I mean a generation of children who are themselves unchurched and the children of unchurched. Several weeks ago I gave a contractor (at the house installing handicapped grab bars in my bathroom) a copy of the Gospel of John. He asked me, I'm serious!, if I wrote it! In the last several months of doctor visits, hospital stay, imaging, et cetera I have met perhaps half a hundred people formerly unknown to me. Three have been "Sarah's". And not one of those Sarah's had even an inkling of the Biblical Sarah! 
• From time to time I rant and lament about the National Debt. Here's today's. Someday we will pay! I may not pay (dead and alive in heaven!), but a collective we will pay!

The simpler times are past. Pray for our country!