10 reasons I’m glad I don’t live in the 50s
Mid Mod Pam on Mar 23 2008 at 1:36 pm | Filed under: Inspiration
When you do a blog like this, people can jump to the conclusion that you want to actually live back in those “good ole days”. Couldn’t be farther from the truth in my case. I just like the design, don’t read any more into it! In fact, here are my top-10 reasons that I’m very happy, thank you very much, to be livin’ the dream right now in 2008.
10. Clogs and Teva’s — When my feet are happy, I am happy.
9. Crash safety standards — Cars really are much, much safer and better made today. Dollar for dollar, a great buy. P.S. I am a Ford girl though-and-through.
8. 2nd bathrooms — We actually have three, a critical basis for familial harmony.
7. Free markets — I truly believe that liberal economic policies are the foundation for peace.
6. Yoga — The Beatles brought it here in the 60s sort of, didn’t they? Buddhism, too. For me, has provided much wisdom.
5. Stephen Colbert — Makes me roll on the floor laughing every night.
4. Civil rights — Goes hand-in-hand with free markets.
3. Birth control — For women, civil rights addressed the philosophical, the Pill solved the technical.
2. Our medical system — I have a somewhat contrarian point of view on all this. While I know ‘the system’ could be better, I also believe that we should thank our lucky stars and count our blessings every day that we have an economy and medical research system that produces advance after advance after advance to help solve major medical issues that used to simply kill us. Because of this, I believe, we should also recognize that we are going to have to pay a lot more for all of this MORE BIGGER BETTER, and in fact should grateful for the opportunity.
1. My morning coffee maker on a timer, and my Mr. Coffee cappucino maker from Target. 9 hours sleep and two big cups of Joe ready to go every morning are just the very very best and the secret to my success ha ha. And in the afternoon, I am in control of my own latte destiny.
Hi,
I’ve already lived in the 50’s. I don’t need to again. I liked your list. It reminded me of one I wrote for my own website a few years ago. You might enjoy it:
“July 20, 2003:
I’ve made lists before of things that I “should” take for granted, but just DON’T. I know some of you DO take them for granted, and that’s probably the less “cluttered” approach to living a contemporary life…but I remain at least mildly amazed by things we find in OUR DAILY lives.
I’m reminded of this today because I needed to check in with my Wife. She was somewhere in another state, driving down some road at 70 mph, and I had no clue where. To be able to simply press a few buttons on my landline telephone machine, which, through the air, instructed other machines to call yet other machines, and send another signal through the air to another non-landline radio receiver (cell phone) machine sitting next to her in this car machine somewhere…well, that still amazes ME.
I’m amazed at electricity, airplanes, space stations, aircraft carriers, wrist watches, digital technology, organ transplants, the gyroscope, polyester shirts, television, radio, cognac, radar, cameras, contact lenses, cloning, the Hoover Dam, glass, movies, plastic, tape recorders, the Hubbel telescope, light bulbs, linear perspective, lasers, and the fact we continue to find “brand new” AND “long extinct” species of animals living right here amongst us.
I prefer living this way.
I like being amazed.
I like moving through the world…looking, listening, touching…and thinking “Man, THAT is so cool! I’m SO glad someone came up with that!”
Ronn.
I don’t wanna live in the 50s either! (And I wasn’t born yet, anyway…) But I enjoy many things about the past, and find a lot of design from earlier periods pleasing, or at least fun to re-visit. I love it when people appreciate the older stuff, and aren’t in such a hurry to move on to the next thing (like ripping out cool vintage features when they remodel).
I love my cell phone and contemporary coffeemaker, for sure.
Hi. Great post. Just spent the weekend with my 95-year-old grandmother, who has lived through a lot of decades. She definitely would pick today rather than the 50s, or any other decade she lived through, for that matter. She might want the youth, or the health, she had in years past, of course, but she has always loved experiencing the latest trends and inventions. She and my grandpa were the first people in their neighborhood to get a color TV back in the very late 50s or early 60s. (Can’t remember the year, but I remember that everything on TV looked green or orange, and it was a big hunk of a floor model.) Now, she is very proud of the flat screen plasma TV hanging on the wall of her condo!
Wonderful list! The 40’s & the 50’s…..ahh, the boom of modernism in art and design. Products and ideas that still look more contemporary today than many of our convenient but anti-aesthetic advancements. Life was affordable, right sized and not so grandiose. But today? What can beat the ease of: travel, of “jetting” over the seas and arriving in another language, time zone and cultural way of life? Of resources at our fingertips, of knowing the well being of our friends across the globe on the same day they wrote? Of working, and choosing our professions. Our mothers received a reprieve when they went to work at our fathers dismay. They hung up their aprons (albeit lovely), bought a commuter car and made decisions outside of the house, this was their revolution. I take it for granted, a birth right but there were many that paved my way and I am grateful to be vibrant in the year 2008 with all of my choices, going strong yet still loving the aesthetics of a retro kitchen in the making!
[...] mom got me a pair for my birthday in February and I have been wearing them every day since. In 10 Reasons I’m Glad I Don’t Live in the 50s, I wrote about how much I loved my Teva’s because they made my feet happy — that goes [...]
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