50s America, an Exception rather than the Rule?

[Fisherking]

And what the heck would you bunch of wiper-snappers know!

I was there!

Ozzy & Harriet, Father Knows Best, & the Donna Reed Show were what set the TV family programs, but every thing else was a Western.

Hop-along Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Cheyenne, Maverick, Gun Smoke, and on and on and on.

Comedies were Amos & Andy, Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, The Dead End Kids, and The Little Rascals.

After school was the Mickey Mouse Club.

The reason all those houses were sold then was because people weren’t building them themselves.

They were built in almost assembly-line fashion by people moving out of city apartment and they sold for about $3,000.

$10,000 was a fortune. 6 large paper sacks of groceries cost $5. Bread and eggs cost a nickel.

A hamburger was a nickel and a hamburger deluxe was a dime and that was with fries and a coke. The movies cost a nickel too.

I lived in the country on a farm as did about 70% of Americans. The nearest town had a population of about 500.

It had three grocery stores, three gas stations, two liquor stores, two cafés, two hardware stores, two farm implement companies selling tractors and combines, Hotel, Post Office, Train Depot, Pharmacy/Drug store with soda fountain, Movie Theater, Dr. Clinic, a fish monger, and a cotton gin.

There was a Baptist Church at one end of town and a Methodist Church at the other. There was the school just outside town with grades 1-12.

It was a thriving community. Naturally it was in the south and I can tell you more about that when I have time. There are some darker points but that is what I will leave you with at the moment.