What sparked your fascination with the "Golden Era"?

[Lily Powers]

My story is much like Rue's. There's no initiating event. I've always been draw to the period...nothing that I can do about it. I wonder if such things can be innate. A friend of mine once said the very same thing to me as was said to Rue "...you have a very old soul." Maybe that's just the answer.

I wasn't going to respond to this thread because I couldn't cite anything tangible that drew me to previous eras, but now that I read Mark D.'s and Rue's replies, I don't mind saying, "Me too!" There is just something inside that feels more comfortable, more "at home," if you will, than most modern ways.

Along the lines of what Rue's friends tell her, that she has an old soul, a complete stranger approached me at a cafe one afternoon (she had no handlers, no men in white coats with nets after her, and her drink was decidedly non-alcoholic ) and cordially said, "I think you were born in another era." It was kind, yet somewhat scary. I wonder then, if this little boy is or will be drawn to the era of WWII when he gets older: James Leininger

 

[rue]

I wasn't going to respond to this thread because I couldn't cite anything tangible that drew me to previous eras, but now that I read Mark D.'s and Rue's replies, I don't mind saying, "Me too!" There is just something inside that feels more comfortable, more "at home," if you will, than most modern ways.

Along the lines of what Rue's friends tell her, that she has an old soul, a complete stranger approached me at a cafe one afternoon (she had no handlers, no men in white coats with nets after her, and her drink was decidedly non-alcoholic ) and cordially said, "I think you were born in another era." It was kind, yet somewhat scary. I wonder then, if this little boy is or will be drawn to the era of WWII when he gets older: James Leininger

Lily..... It's nice to know you're not nuts isn't it? That's what I love about this site. So many people on here love the golden era or earlier and they may not love it for the same reason, but they are not judgmental from what I have read about this feeling of being an old soul. There are so many reasons that draw me to the past, but like you said, it just feels like home and I can't really explain it.

I've heard about that child and a few others like him. I hope his parents will be smart enough to keep him out of the news from now on, so the media doesn't follow him throughout his life.

 

[HadleyH]

Since i was a child i was always attracted to the 1920s, always...

Nothing sparked my fascination.

My fascination was always there.

 

[Warbaby]

Since i was a child i was always attracted to the 1920s, always...

Nothing sparked my fascination.

My fascination was always there.

What she said. I was born that way.

 

[zombi]

my friends always thought it was odd that I wanted to live like an "old lady" and even stranger still to them was my love of big band music. I've always been told I have an old soul and I take that as a compliment even if it may not have been meant as one

I'm so glad I found this site!

Oh, this is me, too.

I don't really have any idea why I am so drawn to the 40s, but I am and there it is. I don't mind saying I do believe in reincarnation, and something about the 40s just feels so familiar to me.

 

[CopperNY]

it was comedy and sci-fi for me. i gave up on most regular cartoons as a kid once i discovered Harold Lloyd and Flash Gordon. branched out from there and never turned back.

 

[Lillemor]

Oh, this is me, too.

I don't really have any idea why I am so drawn to the 40s, but I am and there it is. I don't mind saying I do believe in reincarnation, and something about the 40s just feels so familiar to me.

I don't know much about conventional beliefs in reincarnation but I believe (feel I strongly know as opposed to believe but lets not get into a heated religious debate here) in multiple lives and there are some eras and places in history I feel particularly connected to and it's not necessarily the ones I have the most ready historical information on, I don't have special skills or talents as far as I know, I can't put a finger on it but I have some flash visions that seem like memories. I'd like to be regressed to see if my visions at all fit with any "previous" (I don't believe in linear time) lives.

I've had a more conscious interest in the era come in waves but I can't think of any one thing or experience that sparked the interest. I've always been kind of nerdy and "archaic" for lack of better wording.

 

[rue]

I don't know much about conventional beliefs in reincarnation but I believe (feel I strongly know as opposed to believe but lets not get into a heated religious debate here) in multiple lives and there are some eras and places in history I feel particularly connected to and it's not necessarily the ones I have the most ready historical information on, I don't have special skills or talents as far as I know, I can't put a finger on it but I have some flash visions that seem like memories. I'd like to be regressed to see if my visions at all fit with any "previous" (I don't believe in linear time) lives.

I've had a more conscious interest in the era come in waves but I can't think of any one thing or experience that sparked the interest. I've always been kind of nerdy and "archaic" for lack of better wording.

I know exactly what you mean. I have weird memories/visions/familiarities that don't make sense. My husband has it too. Crazy or not we believe that we were connected during every war in history and long story short.... we finally got it right this time.

 

[HepKitty]

Swing dancing and aerials I think it helped that my mom was really into big band music and took us to the Lionel Hampton Jazz festival when she could

 

[Lillemor]

I had visions as a child of a child sitting by a big black stove thing trying to keep warm and I had a sense of the child trying to keep out of a busy mother's way. Then later on I had visions of whom I knew was the same person but I thought as an adult (now I think perhaps as what we'd call a teenager) waiting for some young man/boy at a train station, I can see a clock and some large windows up high and dim, golden afternoon sun coming in and I know she's disappointed with him for not showing up.

In recent years I have visions of a young woman who could very well be the same one at the trainstation but I'd guess in the early 1960s. She's been married for some years, has a couple of kids, I think a boy and girl and I don't know why I think they should be named George (has a short name with o and u in but can't "remember" it) and Margaret (Maggie). The house is what I can best describe as pestachio green inside out, and in everything she could get in that shade of green, including an old car which was their first car, which she still drives but her husband has driven to work in their "new" car.

She's looking in to something which is old but she's not in to replacing things as fast as others. It's neither a freezer nor refrigiator it's an extra, at the time already old thing she has aside from the refrigiator. Something's not there. Kids are playing in the livingroom which she walks through before walking directly out of the front door (don't notice much of a hallway), carefully looks both ways before crossing the street, asks lady across for something which is handed to her, sees her kids in the front room window and she rushes towards them. I think she's hit by a car. perhaps a pick-up, it's blue or dark, she knows who owns it, a nice older man. She knows it's old, possibly 1940s. She's not angry or scared, I'm not sure she's aware of how serious the accident is. She's worried the kids are going to come out and see their mother like this. She's worried about being found in this state.

Part of me hopes I'm confusing what I think are memories with things I've seen or read and part of me hopes I have an overactive imagination because I tear up when I think of those kids and them possibly finding their mother like that.

So if you remember that storyline, please let me know.

My favorite color is green but not that particular shade. I actually find it vile in abundance. Hub had a pistachio green VW Polo when we met and he told me to look for it on our first date.

 

[martinsantos]

Arts and style.

Noir movies, since when I was a kid. Lady from Shangai is the very first I saw. We ever played jazz in my home: big bands, some dixieland. A few 78s by Harry Reser.

After I started with old radios, restoring them. My preferred are the wooden big gabinets, in art deco.

And photo cameras - Leica and Contax. An apex of design and art. With favourite photographers using this kind of equipment - Eisenstaedt, Capa, et allii.

And so on about all things about.

 

[RadioWave]

I think it's because of 'the way I was raised'. As a very young child, I was surrounded by B&W films/TV shows, Little Golden Books, and the WWII-era Disney cartoons. Come to think of it, when I was growing up, a lot of the Disney Channel's programming was based on regurgitating the studios' pre- and post-war productions.

I find everything about the era attractive...nothing makes me relax like the sound of a muted brass-section.

martinsantos: I recently rescued a Zenith 6 s 362, but it's led a pretty hard life. Hopefully I'll get some pictures up in the Radio section before New Year's.

 

[martinsantos]

Happy that you can save the Zenith! I saw a few Zeniths, all worderful radios... Waiting for the photos!!!

(For a long time I dreamed about a Zenith with 24 tubes, only 400 pieces sold at that day).

At those days foreign radios were so much expensive here in Brazil. So is somewhat hard to find "factory made" radios. Usually technicians constructed them. You could ask a radio with "x" tuves, and the guy would buy the parts (the "quality status" would came withy the coils. Very famous were the Douglass coils!!). Then you could by the forniture you wnated. And you can see very strange combinations!!

I only got two foreign consoles from 30s: a Philco and a Fairbanks Morse (and I never know if the gabinet was made in USA or in Brazil).

Martin

I think it's because of 'the way I was raised'. As a very young child, I was surrounded by B&W films/TV shows, Little Golden Books, and the WWII-era Disney cartoons. Come to think of it, when I was growing up, a lot of the Disney Channel's programming was based on regurgitating the studios' pre- and post-war productions.

I find everything about the era attractive...nothing makes me relax like the sound of a muted brass-section.

martinsantos: I recently rescued a Zenith 6 s 362, but it's led a pretty hard life. Hopefully I'll get some pictures up in the Radio section before New Year's.

 

[RadioWave]

Happy that you can save the Zenith! I saw a few Zeniths, all worderful radios... Waiting for the photos!!!

I only got two foreign consoles from 30s: a Philco and a Fairbanks Morse (and I never know if the gabinet was made in USA or in Brazil).

Martin

Very nice radios! Pics are going up weekend.

 

[Tuesday_Next]

I think it's because of 'the way I was raised'. As a very young child, I was surrounded by B&W films/TV shows, Little Golden Books, and the WWII-era Disney cartoons. Come to think of it, when I was growing up, a lot of the Disney Channel's programming was based on regurgitating the studios' pre- and post-war productions.

I have a similar experience to Bluestone120. My first TV memories are watching black and white shows like I Love Lucy. I loved The Patty Duke Show and Gidget. I got hand-me-down Barbies that were from the 50s with all the wonderful wiggle skirts and full crinoline dresses and elegant opera gloves and hats. I just thought that was what life was going to be like when I grew up.

 

[Raider]

Had to be my parents...dad was born in 1920 and mom in 1927....I think everything my dad did was shaped by the Great Depression and WWII....his parents were farmers (had 12 kids) and he fought in the Battle of the Bulge (82nd AB). He was 46 when I was born....They could have been most of my friends' grandparents.

 

[Kirk H.]

Like so many others, I think I have always been fascinated with the Golden Era. I know some of my first memories of the fascination started when my parents took me to visit my Great Grandparents (both were born in the late 1800’s). They lived on Long Island in the house that they built in the 1920’s. It was great to see the old solid architecture and the furniture. I then discovered some of the old pulp stories through my cousin and read every one that I could get my hands on.

I also remember watching the old movies on T.V. and was always drawn to the way the actors dressed. Everyone always looked sharp. One station in Boston, I can not remember the channel it was over 30 years ago, but the show was called Matinee at the Bijou, and they would run the old serials on Saturday afternoon in weekly installments. It was great they would show the serial, a cartoon, and then a B picture. And then Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. I remember my parents taking me and my sister to see it and thinking “Wow, this is just like those serials I love so much”.

I also have fond memories of when I got my first cassette tape recorder as a Christmas gift when I was 11. I remember going to the public library and discovering they had tapes of the old time radio programs. I had to have checked them all out over and over again
Also as a kid I knew a lot of people who grew up or lived through the 30’s and 40’s.
I would sit and talk with them for hours as they told me of their experiences. It was a great learning experience for me and I know they were happy to see a young person take an interest in their lives.

I was lucky enough to know my grand parents. My maternal grandfather was born in the hills of Tennessee at the turn of the 20th century. I remembered learning decades later after he passed away that in the 1920’s he could get more for his corn crop after he turned it into liquid form. When I was 18 my paternal grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. I would go over to his house and hang out with him. I remember shortly before he passed, I rented the untouchables on video (way before DVD) and we watched it. Afterwards he told me about growing up in NY during that time period.

Even as I got older I would always tend to gravitate to the fashion of the Golden Era.
I mean classic is always classy. The house my wife and I have was built in 1929 and we call it the money pit because of the restoration we have done. I could go on and on but that could take awhile.

Regards

Kirk H.

 

[shazzabanazza]

I went to a place called MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology) when they had an exhibition on called "I am the last tram" of course it was all to do with the last tram in Auckland BUT because the trams stop running in 1952 that was the era of focus. I fell in love with the 1950's. Everything that came out of the 1950's I adored, especially the fashion! I then started to go further back and started looking at fashion of the 30's/40's. I guess Ive always admired vintage stuff as I was bought up around it because my father is a vintage enthusiast so Ive learnt to appreciate vintage history

 

[Pompidou]

My dad. He started collecting vintage cameras and wanted a fedora to put near the collection - a very specific idea of the fedora - hard to explain. Ends up it was a Stetson Whippet - who'd have guessed? I decided I'd go online and try and find it as a present, birthday, Father's Day, Christmas - whatever. He beat me to it on eBay, but it didn't fit. The search had me thinking, well, I'd look pretty damned good in one of these, and nobody else wears them. It'd be great. Next thing you know, here I am.

 

[shazzabanazza]

My dad. He started collecting vintage cameras and wanted a fedora to put near the collection - a very specific idea of the fedora - hard to explain. Ends up it was a Stetson Whippet - who'd have guessed? I decided I'd go online and try and find it as a present, birthday, Father's Day, Christmas - whatever. He beat me to it on eBay, but it didn't fit. The search had me thinking, well, I'd look pretty damned good in one of these, and nobody else wears them. It'd be great. Next thing you know, here I am.

And look great you do