For Boomers, a New Book: "Boomer Boys"

March 24, 2010 - PRLog -- Boomer Boys is a memoir about the 1950s. It offers two very different perspectives: first, a thoroughly researched overview of a fascinating and often misunderstood era that has direct connections to the present day; and second, a nostalgic return to the lives of two little boys in a typical 1950s neighborhood.

Boomer Boys should appeal not only to the many retirement-age Americans who lived through these times, but also to anyone interested in the relationship between the mid-century and the benefits and problems of today's world. Much of our current lifestyle had its beginnings in the suddenly rampant post-WW2 consumerism. Our role in global affairs was being newly defined. Our attitudes about race and gender are still impacted by cultural revolutions initiated in the fifties. Boomer Boys takes us on a pleasant journey back to these deceptively carefree times.

An excerpt:

The 1950s were considered uneventful, communist-fearing, consumer-oriented, peaceful. Some of that is correct, much of it is wrong. We believed in the righteousness of democratic capitalism over the godless alternative of socialism. But there were warlike stirrings in our need to support a sudden and unfamiliar prosperity. The years from 1950 to 1960, or more accurately from 1945 to 1960, defined a new America that was sure of itself, emboldened by unprecedented military strength, and blinded by limitless wealth in a post-war period destined to reward its chosen people.

We believed we were special; one minister’s V-E Day sermon summarized our positive illusion: “For the sake of the righteous, God has preserved our cities and kept them from harm.”  And even though there were fears of unemployment with 11 million servicemen returning from war, a singular theme sustained Americans over the next 15 years, as announced in the October, 1945 issue of Fortune Magazine: “The US...cannot avoid the most wonderful time in world history.”

And it was wonderful. The rampant economic inequality that plagues us today, as it did in the Depression years, was practically non-existent in the 1950s. The middle class encompassed the majority of Americans, and thus the healthful and emotional benefits of prosperity were blissfully widespread. But there was something ominous about the unrestrained growth of the era. The principles of God-fearing democracy may have guided us. Capitalism certainly enriched us. But while the combination of productivity and consumption seemed to help almost everyone, the post-war sense of entitlement, so natural and seemingly unending in the midst of opulence, exposed the greed and wastefulness of a status-seeking society. Today the fifties are remembered as a quiet time. The social issues and oil dependency and economic inequality of our modern world make us yearn for a return to those comforting early years. But that’s when today’s turbulent world started. World War 2 gave America a fresh Garden of Eden to cultivate as we desired. The 21st century is the overgrowth of the seeds we planted over a half-century ago.

~

George and I were born just before mid-century, at a time when America seemed to be entering a long period of peace and prosperity. Just like other families across the nation, we helped to usher in the good times with TV sets, washers and dryers, Frigidaires, and 45’s, as the realities of war and deprivation existed only in the minds of our parents. We were two little boys growing up in the best of all possible worlds. We were Wally and the Beaver, although George wasn’t quite as much a little goof as the Beaver.

Yet our world was different from that of other kids in one significant way. We didn’t have a father. In 1951, when I was 3 and George was 1 and our sisters Barbara and Paulette were 5 and 4, he died of lung cancer. He had smoked Chesterfields for many years. Chesterfield was the cigarette that was mild, yet satisfied. It was the cigarette that was “tops with the vets in US hospitals.” One of my only memories of dad was carrying a tray of food to his sick bed, although I could barely touch the tray with Barbara and Paulette doing the actual carrying. I also remember the cigarette in his mouth as he drove, and the cloud of DDT smoke around him as he tended the flowers in his country lot (which turned out to be, a few years later, a city street just a few miles from downtown Chicago). And I remember my mom talking about his bowling nights and Saturday night poker parties, when the faces of his friends Leo and Brian and Hub were obscured by the thick haze of smoke that filled the room.

He had a lung tumor the size of a grapefruit when he died at the age of 52.

~

Either my mother was Superwoman or the 50s were a lot different from today. Probably a little of both. Could a young mother today, with four little children and no money-making skills beyond working a typewriter and taking in wash, maintain a middle-class lifestyle for 15 years, with such casual aplomb that her children never knew they were lower-middle class? Probably not. But the times were different then. Enough of the support system remained from World War 2, and enough of a pie in the oven with equal slices for all, that every family, provided it was of European descent, felt the kinship of security that made us such a great country.

When I began growing up in the 50s, I had to learn about the world from teachers, uncles, neighbors, and a friend named Tommy. My mother, dedicated and loving and committed to the Odyssean labors of navigating four young children through troubled waters on a ship of laundry boards and tattered sheets, never talked to me about the world. I picked it up in little pieces: The Communists are out there, non-Catholics will never get to heaven, the cavalry will save us from the Indians. Neural networks were taking shape inside me, in images of sneering, dark-eyed foreigners creeping toward my bedroom while the handsome American soldiers stood tall to protect me. The president, and all the other men who guided him, comforted us with talk of America’s greatness and the role each of us were to play in a world dependent on our leadership in the war against the communist menace.

So I should have started my life in fear, and I did. But it wasn’t fear of the commies, because I had never really seen one, and my mother and the president were always nearby. It wasn’t fear of cancer, because my father had been taken by the angels because God needed him. I started my life in fear because of the Tennessee Waltz.  I lost my little darlin’ the night they were playing the beautiful Tennessee Waltz.  It was my earliest song memory, and the words came to me and tormented me even as I hid under the covers at night. I was mommy’s little darlin’ – Could she really lose me?  My friend stole my sweetheart from me.  Could someone really steal me from my mother? How could they make such a frightening song? Is someone bad standing outside my door? Will all the songs be like this?

A scary start, but not as bad as my newly developing mind made it out to be. After all, we were the baby boomer generation. Better, we felt sure, than previous and future generations, and eventually to be selected by Time Magazine, 20 years after my birth, as its “Man of the Year.” The fifties may have been the best time in American history. We had peace and productivity and a lot of time for simple fun. We had no fears other than nuclear annihilation and hell laid bare by Our Lady of Fatima and whoever was chasing the Cinnamon Bear. Life was good, for families like mine. I didn’t question my good fortune until many years later, when I began to view my prosperity against the background of less successful people, most of whom were invisible to me in the 50s. It took a long time, but I gradually saw a little more of the big picture. I came to realize that George and I, the Boomer Boys, were two lucky little guys.