Why Did my Mother Hate the 40s So Much?

[Marc Chevalier]

Keep on truckin' into the garbage can.

Ah, but long before R. Crumb and The Grateful Dead revived it, "truckin' " was a special walk that American high school students latched onto in the late 1930s; it spread like wildfire across the country. A jazzy song ("Truckin' ") came out of it.



Here's a picture of '30s kids truckin' away:

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[Paisley]

Truckin' is one of the moves in the Trankey Doo (a swing line dance). Our teachers said that dancers from back then say that dancers today just don't get it quite right.

 

[Miss Dottie]

This is a very interesting thread.

It's very easy for us to romantacize a period that we didn't live through, because we don't truly know how it was "back then" no matter how hard we try.

I remember watching that PBS series "1940s House" seeing how just shocking it was for most people even though they thought it would be great fun before they went through it. But then again, when you've grown up with it, it is just what you know.

There is just as much good as there is bad in every decade. It's just how you choose to see it.

 

[pretty faythe]

-- Lawrence, my dad's best friend, was from a German-American family. He was not treated well in school, and his parents were snubbed (and even -.-feared) by the neighbors.


Tough decade!


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and our children will look back in 20-30--40 years and will be thinking the same thing about Arab-American families. It's sad but true.

 

[pretty faythe]

Originally Posted by Mike in Seattle
>>In another twenty or so years, when there's a website called The Disco Lounge that dedicated to the 70's, that Golden Age of polyester and Quiana, with everyone's salivating over the deadstock Angels Flight suits & platform shoes they found on Ebay or it's equivalent, <<

There may not be a disco lounge, but yup, there are people who are drowling over the fashions of the 70's (dare I mention the band Disco Knights?) And I hear of a 70's dance theme at school much more often (how biut never) than a 40's.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

In the early 1950s, there was a brief resurgence of interest in the 1920s among high school and college students. Apparently, Singin' in the Rain sparked the craze. It became popular for high school proms and frat parties to have "Roaring '20s" themes. Even Life magazine reported on it.


The costumes worn at these events didn't quite get it right: skimpy fringe dresses for the girls, and red/white barber-striped cotton blazers (with skinny bowties) for the guys.

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[52Styleline]

This is an interesting thread. In our (boomer) lifetimes, we have not seen the level of sacrifice that was required to win that war.

I have heard stories of metal drives in which people built piles of old bikes and other metal materials to be collected and turned into war materials. The stories of rationing gas, tires, food and just about everything else lead me to think that most of us would be aghast to consider making the changes and sacrifices required of our parents.

The closest comparison I can make is the Vietnam War. I had a number of friends who didn't come back from it, and others who came back with various wounds or physical disabilities. But rationing and the more extreme societal sacrifices common in WWII weren't required during that war - nor during the current one.

I thnk you would be surprised at what today's young people could do if they had to. I've lived through the Korean, VietNam and current war periods. In none of these wars was the homefront really asked to sacrifice. Even In WWII, many didn't sacrifice. The dance halls were never busier and the black market did big business. I have read journals of troops in Europe who complained that the folks back home didn't seem to know they were fighting for their lives over there.

Today's kids may be a bit soft and spoiled, but given the proper motivation, I believe they would do every bit as well as the 40's generation did. Most military experts agree that today's volunteer military is made up of some of the finest people this country has ever produced. Nothing has been asked of the civilian population, but if it were, I for one, think they would come through just fine.

 

[Parallel Guy]

I don't think there's anything wrong with nostalgia, so long as it's recognized as such. Unfortunately, too often some people fall too deeply in love with that aspect and neglect the reality. A part of me says that when we do that we show disresect to our ancestors and our own history.

One other problem I've always had with looking back is the concept that it was a more "innocent time." There has never been an innocent time. Every generation learns about sex, finds their own answers to life and faces death.

Uh, that wasn't meant to sound as bleak as it came out. Oh well.

 

[Parallel Guy]

I thnk you would be surprised at what today's young people could do if they had to. I've lived through the Korean, VietNam and current war periods. In none of these wars was the homefront really asked to sacrifice. Even In WWII, many didn't sacrifice. The dance halls were never busier and the black market did big business. I have read journals of troops in Europe who complained that the folks back home didn't seem to know they were fighting for their lives over there.

Today's kids may be a bit soft and spoiled, but given the proper motivation, I believe they would do every bit as well as the 40's generation did. Most military experts agree that today's volunteer military is made up of some of the finest people this country has ever produced. Nothing has been asked of the civilian population, but if it were, I for one, think they would come through just fine.

I second, third and forth that.

 

[Barbigirl]

fftopic:

Hey it looks like a few new Seattle area folks!

 

[Elaina]

My grandpa indulges me. He doesn't say it was hard (I'm sure it was) and the Old Mam (his mom who lived until 2001 and died at a ripe old 104) was a flapper, who also indulged me, and I don't think I ever heard anything from them about how tough it was. Even my older relatives that lived through then when asked would say it ight have been tough, but they found fun and adventure where they were. For them, I think it brings/brought back good memories. But then I don't want to LIVE in the eras, I just want the furniture, the clothes, really ideals of the era.

But Grandpa told me recently whatever you find good from anywhere that you can include it in your own life isn't a bad thing. And because of my family, even tho I am dirt poor, I'm able to have fun and enjoy life without too much stress, and that's what I've taken from the 1920-1950 era.

 

[Pilgrim]

Here's the trucking I remember!!!!

And nobody drew it better than the fabulous R. Crumb.

And I agree with many of you - today's adults and youth would indeed rally and come together if there was really need. Although we tend to like bread and circuses too much in the U.S., there's a basic level of character that I believe still exists.

 

[goldwyn girl]

My mum was a teenager in the 40's in Sydney, Australia. She said the family was lucky because they had a few cows and could have milk, butter and cream. She was always amazed at what her mother could do with rationed food. She started work in the 40's as a couturier dressmaker. She was fortunate that the girls at work could have the left over fabrics to make things with. And the American soldiers on leave were always generous and complete gentlemen. Yes, times were hard but you made the best of what you had. She did hate blackout.

 

[Paisley]

I thnk you would be surprised at what today's young people could do if they had to. I've lived through the Korean, VietNam and current war periods. In none of these wars was the homefront really asked to sacrifice. Even In WWII, many didn't sacrifice. The dance halls were never busier and the black market did big business. I have read journals of troops in Europe who complained that the folks back home didn't seem to know they were fighting for their lives over there.

Today's kids may be a bit soft and spoiled, but given the proper motivation, I believe they would do every bit as well as the 40's generation did. Most military experts agree that today's volunteer military is made up of some of the finest people this country has ever produced. Nothing has been asked of the civilian population, but if it were, I for one, think they would come through just fine.

I read somewhere that at the beginning of WWII, people questioned whether those skinny soda jerks would be capable of fighting and winning a war.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Skinny

Yep, my dad was a soda jerk at the drugstore in Winchester, Tennessee. He was about 5'5" and weighed less than 125 pounds. He went to Europe and earned a Purple Heart without even carrying a weapon over there. I was fortunate enough to go to their 50-year high school reunion, which was also their first reunion: the girls could finally admit they worked at Oak Ridge and the boys who weren't eliglble to serve were still ashamed they were 4-F, even though they worked successful farms even then. A few boys never came back. Every person said it was a swell time, even though some of it was hard.

 

[Parallel Guy]

I read somewhere that at the beginning of WWII, people questioned whether those skinny soda jerks would be capable of fighting and winning a war.

If you want a minor jolt, read the letters to the editor from Time and Life from 1939. They are filled with young people stridently insisting they would never fight.

 

[Elaina]

Every war has young men stridently insisting they won't fight.

My granddad wore Zoot suits (took me forever to correlate this conservative old man with the equalivent of a hippy.) he said he would go to Canada if they drafted him. They did, he went to Italy and sets off metal detectors to this day. I think no one wants to go to war, and they want their voices heard, but then do what they have to do.

 

[Adelaidey]

My Maga loves my clothes and hair, and will talk about doing her hair in pincurls at night as a child, and compares me to her mother all the time (the clothing she remembers her wearing; I look quite a lot like her). But other than that, she doesn't like discussing her very early childhood in the Forties-- she had polio when she was little, and their large family struggled, they lost friends and uncles and such in the war, etc, so times were hard. She does love sharing stories from when she was a bit older, in the Fifties-- but those are fun and interesting as well!

 

[Elaina]

See this is where my family is a bunch of weirdos.

I grew up hearing about the bad and the good (And how my great grandma ran a speak easy, and used her talents at Voodoo to feed the family too), how my Aunts sewed, drank and did what they had to do, and so to me, while I know they scrimped and saved, it was just passed down: stupid things like my son asking "Mom, we don't EAT beans. Why are you buying them?" "Because they're on sale for 33 cents and it's a good idea" we don't eat them, but I was raised to stock up when it was cheap because you never know. Or the one from my Uncle that was "Put 10 bucks in your coat pocket in the summer every week. Then move it to a summer coat in the winter, that way you'll have emergency money. Then hide dollars at the end of the week you didn't use all over the place." Now I don't do that perse, but I do hide money in about 3 spots and it's paid for car repairs, hospital bills and other things that hit you, which is what he meant. And my favorite from my Aunt: "Never pay for your own booze. Wear a low cut blouse, but no woman should bever get herself drunk. It's not done." (I don't drink, but I love this advice. Woman died 40 years sober, but it's good advice for what it is.)

 

[Flivver]

My mom mostly enjoyed the 1940s...she was in her 20s then and was having fun.

But she did spend nearly a year in the hospital when she was about 25 with an over active thyroid. She survived a tricky (then) operation and had a long slow recovery.

Today this operation is relatively risk free and the recovery time is much shorter. I believe that modern advances in medecine are something to be truly thankful for. I would never want to go back to the 40s in that regard, although I really love so many other aspects of that decade.