Missing Members

[belfastboy]

I hadn’t known of any of that kind of behavior. People actually do that, eh?

I’ve been here for about 15 years now. Things have changed for the worse in some minor ways and for the better in some larger ways. We rarely any longer see the 1930s and ’40s characterized as some idyllic moment we should all strive to recreate down to the final detail. And we no longer seem to conflate a fondness for the styles of that era with an endorsement of every aspect of the social environment of that time.

Part of what brings me back is the focus on the material culture of that bygone era. There are beautiful and not so beautiful artifacts of any era, but the effects of improved manufacturing processes and aerodynamics certainly showed in the fashions and consumer goods of the 1930s and ’40s. A toaster or a radio receiver really doesn’t have to be streamlined, after all. But it can make them look pretty cool.

Yes, my parents born dirt poor on the Prairies moved to the 'big city' to escape the Depression. Working on the killing floor of a abattoir produces little in the way of nostalgia. It worked to get them through the 30/40's and into the post war boom times; house in the suburbs and the mass produced convenience items that for the first time they could indulge. Not especially aesthetically pleasing but functioned well at a price my parents could afford.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm far more interested in the Era as an Era rather than the fetishization of it -- and I think over the years we've probably done more than any other group of people on the internet to get away from all the sappy nostalgia and try and deal with the period as it actually was. Or at least we used to. Some of us here still try to stick to that brief to the extent possible.

Personally, I can't stand "nostalgia" as such. It's something that can easily be manipulated by cheap demagogues out to create a desire for something that never actually existed. I realized as a kid, when the "30s nostalgia" craze was in full swing that what I was seeing on TV had little to do with the real world I knew thru my relatives for whom it was still a very real -- and, emotionally, a very recent experience. I think many of us here with an interest in the period that goes beyond commodity-fetishism and stitch-counting share a similar perspective. We're interested in understanding it, not worshiping it.

 

[tonyb]

Yes, my parents born dirt poor on the Prairies moved to the 'big city' to escape the Depression. Working on the killing floor of a abattoir produces little in the way of nostalgia. It worked to get them through the 30/40's and into the post war boom times; house in the suburbs and the mass produced convenience items that for the first time they could indulge. Not especially aesthetically pleasing but functioned well at a price my parents could afford.

My maternal grandfather disassembled hogs and cattle at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, Wisconsin, the city of my birth. He often worked the kill line.

The “good old days”? Glad they’re in the past, he’d tell you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandparents lived on $400 a year the year my mother was born, and she's still scarred from her childhood. I myself grew up on about the equivalent of that in 1960s-70s money. The past isn't forgotten, it isn't even past.

Interesting thing, though -- when conditions improved with them they made no effort to "upgrade with the times." There were no long sideburns, brown velvet suits, bouffant hairdos, sheath dresses, or harvest gold appliances. To the end of their lives they lived in an old house with no central heating, wore old clothes, sat on old furniture, and were convinced that the Depression wasn't over, it's just in hiding. I carry the marks of that upbringing myself. Part of my own interest in the period is an effort to understand why.

 

[belfastboy]

My maternal grandfather disassembled hogs and cattle at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, Wisconsin, the city of my birth. He often worked the kill line.

The “good old days”? Glad they’re in the past, he’d tell you.

Yep. I will never forget my first 'take your kid to work day'. I had never seen a hog that big as it hung gutted.....to a 5 yer old it looked as big as a car....maybe it was. It is amazing I am not a vegan. My mother worked the sausage and wiener line.....never had hot dogs as a kid as my mom would say....."you don't wanna know what is in them"

 

[Bushman]

My maternal grandfather disassembled hogs and cattle at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, Wisconsin, the city of my birth. He often worked the kill line.

The “good old days”? Glad they’re in the past, he’d tell you.

My great grandparents come from Warsaw to Chicago to work the infamous Union Stockyards. Their daughter-in-law moved from Paducah, KY for the same reason. That's how my grandparents met. My dad grew up in the Back of The Yards neighborhood until he was 7, and does not fondly recall the smell. He claimed that the first time he ever visited his aunt's farm back in Paducah, that he puked on the fresh air.

 

[tonyb]

My grandparents lived on $400 a year the year my mother was born, and she's still scarred from her childhood. I myself grew up on about the equivalent of that in 1960s-70s money. The past isn't forgotten, it isn't even past.

Interesting thing, though -- when conditions improved with them they made no effort to "upgrade with the times." There were no long sideburns, brown velvet suits, bouffant hairdos, sheath dresses, or harvest gold appliances. To the end of their lives they lived in an old house with no central heating, wore old clothes, sat on old furniture, and were convinced that the Depression wasn't over, it's just in hiding. I carry the marks of that upbringing myself. Part of my own interest in the period is an effort to understand why.

My grandfather treated himself to a new Ford (or Mercury, a dolled-up Ford) every few years. But this was in Wisconsin, where salted roads took their toll on automotive sheet metal. He always had a modest camping trailer and an aluminum fishing boat, the kind you might row or propel with a small outboard.

So he had his material comforts, but not much by way of extravagances. He wasn’t poor, but he knew scarcity in his boyhood, having been raised mostly on the road — a few months here, a few months there — by his bachelor uncles, who were themselves meat cutters, and from whom he picked up the trade.

That “wanting life to be better for the kids” wasn’t just self-congratulatory talk for men like him. (I doubt he ever actually uttered the phrase himself, talk being cheap and all.) He gave his kids the stability he didn’t have.

 

[Harp]

My great grandparents come from Warsaw to Chicago to work the infamous Union Stockyards. Their daughter-in-law moved from Paducah, KY for the same reason. That's how my grandparents met. My dad grew up in the Back of The Yards neighborhood until he was 7, and does not fondly recall the smell. He claimed that the first time he ever visited his aunt's farm back in Paducah, that he puked on the fresh air.

My father quit school at fifteen to work the Union Stockyards with Wilson Packing. He became a meat
inspector than a cattlebuyer. Korea pulled him out of the yards for two years but when he returned he
went back, married my mother and had four kids. I can remember him taking me to the yards and walking
the manure strewn paths, cattle, pigs, horses. A man whom had found his niche in life, quite contented.
Back then the Yards meant a lot to Chicago, the smell notwithstanding.

 

[ChiTownScion]

You can't really learn anything of substance from the past when you view it through rose colored glasses. I love the Lounge because if you stick around for a while those specs get ripped away pretty quickly.

I grew up hearing both the good and the bad about the Era (and prior eras, really) from those who had lived through them. My dad- especially as he aged- would never tolerate getting too soggy- eyed about the past. Blame it on his upbringing, which was pretty terrible. His mom died when he was three, and his father dumped him off at an orphanage in the middle of the night, promising to visit on his upcoming birthday and Christmas: of course, he never showed. He would always provide the necessary reality check whenever I- or anyone else- got too sappy about "the good old days." They weren't as good as the here and now, according to him.

An example: trains and railroad history have always been my passion. I'd read accounts of David P. Morgan and others about the wonderful limiteds and expresses of days of yore and get starry eyed with visions of Pullman luxury and dining car feasting. Dad would remind me of the realities: obnoxious drunks in the bar cars, mediocre diner meals, late trains, and surly railroad employees who resented your riding "their" trains. A cynical and perhaps less than realistic counterpoint... but it drove home the lesson that not everyone's experiences of history are pleasant memories.

A serious student of history cannot afford the option of cherishing a nostalgia (for wont of a better term) that undermines objectivity. Sticking around the Lounge and reading the posts, and even someone as thick as yours truly cannot help but learn that lesson. And so I keep coming back: a great postgrad education which never ends, you might say.

 

[ChiTownScion]

My maternal grandfather disassembled hogs and cattle at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, Wisconsin, the city of my birth. He often worked the kill line.

The “good old days”? Glad they’re in the past, he’d tell you.

From what I was told, Johnny Mayer (Oscar's son) was my paternal granddad's best friend and best man at his wedding. Not that anyone from his family was familiar to me growing up: I suppose that I could have played that for wiener whistles by the crateload as a kid.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
I gotta believe that romanticizing just about anything is a way of coping with some level of dissatisfaction with one’s own present circumstances.

There’s something to be said for dissatisfaction, though. Being too satisfied is death to creativity.

 

[Harp]

it drove home the lesson that not everyone's experiences of history are pleasant memories...

Some things are best left alone, shuffled off to a far corner of memory hopefully to be forgot.
And of course, conscience can set the chess board for a never ending duel that always ends in check.

 

[Bushman]

My father quit school at fifteen to work the Union Stockyards with Wilson Packing. He became a meat
inspector than a cattlebuyer. Korea pulled him out of the yards for two years but when he returned he
went back, married my mother and had four kids. I can remember him taking me to the yards and walking
the manure strewn paths, cattle, pigs, horses. A man whom had found his niche in life, quite contented.
Back then the Yards meant a lot to Chicago, the smell notwithstanding.

Heh, my grandparents had a similar story. Neither finished high school, and met while working for Armour. Grandad went into the Army during Korea, married my grandmother, and had three boys. Funny thing is that was my grandfather's second marriage - to the same woman. My dad's side has a habit of eloping with their wives before entering the service, and then having a second marriage signing and an official wedding ceremony.

 

[Harp]

^Interesting.

I don't know if you recall the Stock Yards Inn, I had my first steak there, "served off the street."

########

Bye-the-bye: There are books I think a young man should read.
Allan Bloom's The Closing of The American Mind is such a book.

 

[Harp]

My grandparents lived on $400 a year the year my mother was born, and she's still scarred from her childhood. I myself grew up on about the equivalent of that in 1960s-70s money. The past isn't forgotten, it isn't even past.

Interesting thing, though -- when conditions improved with them they made no effort to "upgrade with the times." There were no long sideburns, brown velvet suits, bouffant hairdos, sheath dresses, or harvest gold appliances. To the end of their lives they lived in an old house with no central heating, wore old clothes, sat on old furniture, and were convinced that the Depression wasn't over, it's just in hiding. I carry the marks of that upbringing myself. Part of my own interest in the period is an effort to understand why.

My grandmother often talked about the Depression, it never ended with her. We didn't have any money, my father died in a car accident, my mom returned to secretarial bank work, but she suffered a stroke that
left her partially paralyzed at 37; she learned to walk, drove a car with a spinner affixed to the wheel,
finished college. I washed dishes, cooked the colonel's chicken, waited tables.
Years later the Army debated sending me to West Point, my IQ was high but my high school grades
were abysmal. I told a colonel that I never studied, dated, no extracurriculars or dances or sports.
But I brought ten bucks home every night. After discharge I took the Vietnam GI Bill to college,
wrote term papers for the rich kids, and scrapped by. But my real education was given away from
school. But from my earliest days I remember that education was highly stressed. And saving money.

 

[tonyb]

I had mentioned earlier in this thread how the mention of "vintage" is likelier to conjure in most people's minds images of the 1950s or '60s or even the '70s than what we around here call "the Golden Era."

Yesterday was the closing day of the Denver Modernism Show, which was shortened by a full day from what it had been in years past (last year's show was canceled altogether, on account of the 'vid). I motored down to the venue but opted against going in. Too many people, too few masks. And even without the health concerns, large crowds don't incentivize vendors to take much less than the marked prices. (I have in the past scored bargains in the last hour or so of such events. The vendors just don't want to load up that old sign or lamp or whatever one more time.)

Photos from the event show the people (women, mostly) from the Denver Vintage Society well represented, in their 1950s and '60s getups, posing with one another alongside the '50s and '60s cars and travel trailers on display. Most of these people appear to be too young to have been alive when those duds and those vehicles were made. (Some in the DVS are more Golden Era oriented, but such doesn't appear to be the majority perspective.)

 

[belfastboy]

My grandmother often talked about the Depression, it never ended with her. We didn't have any money, my father died in a car accident, my mom returned to secretarial bank work, but she suffered a stroke that
left her partially paralyzed at 37; she learned to walk, drove a car with a spinner affixed to the wheel,
finished college. I washed dishes, cooked the colonel's chicken, waited tables.
Years later the Army debated sending me to West Point, my IQ was high but my high school grades
were abysmal. I told a colonel that I never studied, dated, no extracurriculars or dances or sports.
But I brought ten bucks home every night. After discharge I took the Vietnam GI Bill to college,
wrote term papers for the rich kids, and scrapped by. But my real education was given away from
school. But from my earliest days I remember that education was highly stressed. And saving money.

I put myself through university washing pots in the basement kitchen of the cafeteria. The dish washers were higher up than me.....I truly was, as the pot washer, the lowest man on the totem pole, location & pay grade. My most hated job was at the end of each month washing out the stock pot with an accumulation of burnt debris on the bottom of the huge pot. The highlight in my recollection was one month discovering a used Brillo pad in the bottom of the pot mixed in with all the burnt debris. Note to self: never ever ever eat institutional gravy.

 

[Tiki Tom]

^^^^^ Got my earliest start as a pot scrubber/dish washer. Scrubbed pots in a nursing home and at a hotel restaurant. Every once in a while it is good to recall those humble days; both to remind myself not to put on airs and also to not expect too much, too fast of my own kids who are just starting out.

 

[tonyb]

I was washing dishes in a restaurant at age 13 — too young, by at least a couple years. Being compelled to take the job remains among my resentments of that character my mother married.

 

[Haversack]

Jobs during late '70s college were working in the dining commons of the Primero dorm complex during the school year and on the second shift sanitation crew in one of the region's many tomato canneries during the summer. I found that doing a good job scrubbing pots got you a certain amount of acceptance by the cooks who had been there for years. Learned a few things that way.