I continue to learn more and more about the 1940's. One thing is the same. Women worked and still managed the household like us 21stCentury Housewives. Only - their husbands were off to war and they probably had a lot more stress. Here is some information about the 1940's from a very very wise and wonderful man. My father - John S Mason.
The 40's: Wow, you could go to the grocery store and spend $3.00 and fill up the trunk. Gas was $.25 a gallon.
The young girls were all imitating Jane Withers and Shirley Temple. The guys tried to imitate Joe Lewis boxing, Mickey Mantle in baseball and many others. We bought war bonds and put them in little books to help the war effort. Many had victory gardens and grew a lot of their vegetables. There was rationing on gasoline unless you were a farmer as we were so we got all we needed. You wore white socks with loafers and put pennies in the slot. The boys hitch-hiked everywhere without a worry and in the dead of winter. If we wanted to go to a movie in the next town and it was 12 miles away, we just stuck out our thumbs. The movies cost $.15 and a bag of popcorn was a nickel.
We all got involved in scrap metal drives picking up peoples junk to melt down at the mills to make war materials.
Stock car racing was just getting under way then and they souped up 1930's design cars and went around the tracks 70 or 80 miles per hour. This is now called Nascar.
It was fun and exciting back then because the cars were really old cars and some of them never completed the races. I thought about driving one of those wrecks back then on a race track but instead did my racing on the back dirt roads many times. Boy was it fun.
In the country it was square dancing at the Grange Hall every Friday night and of course we all went. Grandma Angelo taught us how to dance when I was in the 5th grade and I used to dance with her granddaughter, Nancy and then kiss her on the mouth in the last moonlight dance. You know, "swing in the center with six hands around, now you kiss your little honey if you dare". Boy and I did and that was big time, believe me.
The first TV I saw was in a downtown store window about a 5 incher showing a Joe Lewis fight in 1947. I don't have a clue who won but it must have been him. You couldn't see much. We listened to the radio and all those programs back then like The Lone Ranger started with the William Tell Overture in the back ground. Boy, I get the chills just thinking about it. We had a big Philco stand up radio and the key was to get the seat next to the radio so you could put your head right into those speakers. The inner sanctom was another with the creaking door and then there was "The Shadow Knows" and so many. Just Plain Bill and Porsha Faces life were on before 6:00pm. After I got into the chores in the barns at age 11, I never listened to any more of them.
Oranges were a big deal in your stocking for Christmas. You must have heard all this before. You already know all of these stories. Just go ahead and exaggerate them some more.
Oh yeah, most every one burned coal in their furnaces to heat their houses and most burned hard coal. Not us, that would cost too much. We took the truck, filled it up with potatoes and drove down to Pennsylvania, sold the potatoes and then went to the soft coal mines, even helped get the cars out of the mine and dump them in the trestle. Then you back the truck under the trestle and down comes 5 tons of coal for $10 total. Can you imagine that. It took three trips to get through the winter so we burned about 15 tons at a cost of $30 for the winter. We heated the three stories of our home as you know.
Truman was president after Roosevelt died in early 1945 just before the war ended and he had to face many tough situations. The countries debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was more than it is now because of the cost of the war. He went ahead with two Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagsacki that ended the war in the Pacific. He started the Marshall Plan which saved Europe from starvation after the Soviet Union Blockaded their portions of Europe. What a mess things were back then. We face nothing like that now. What we have now is mostly of our own making and our own fault. Dewey, governor of NYS ran against Truman in 1948 and everyone thought Dewey would win. Not so and I have to hand it to Truman as he was pretty outstanding and far removed from the Democrats of today.
Anyway, have I told you enough? Prejudice against Blacks was bad as ever and women were kept under tow by many men. It was not the best of times. We have learned much since then and we have travelled far.
Parents kowtow to their kids now in such an unbelievable way carting them everywhere to compete in athletics or you name it and truth is they are all better than we were because of it. However, our life was simple and fun and may be even funner. Dad
That is my post for the day..I am a little sad that we have lost the simplicity of the 40's and 50's. I am going to work very hard to bring it back to my family.
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