Fifties Living

 

Fifties Living

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In the 1950s, I grew from 7 to 16 years old in an era so very bold
We grew up with country music and then the birth of rock and roll.
Technology was progressing at an astounding rate or so I thought,
But the truth is we were still in early phases of what my life brought

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Fifties Living

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Our family was like other people that lived in that great time,
With a car and a home that we lived in together come rain or shine.
With only two main possessions, life was simple back then,
So I’ll review the car and house that we were paying for to begin.

.imageLove those big wide white sidewalls back then.

 

 

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We had a 1951 Custom Ford Coupe in the early fifties as our ride,
It was a cool looking car with a radio and heater right there inside.
For air conditioning in the summer, we rolled the windows down.
On the highway, it was so loud you had to shout, but okay in town.

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To start the Ford, we had to use a manual,choke or it did flood,
And it would not start until gasoline ran down boiling Dad’s blood.
It also had a manual throttle used to warm the ford up when cold.
Dad sometimes used it as a manual speed control but it didn’t hold.

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Now let’s see, where is that choke.

 

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The ford coupe also had a standard three speed transmission,
And a clutch you depressed to change gears in the progression.
Those old cars were fine when you learned all the little quirks,
But all cars now are automated making driving so easy for jerks.

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its like swimming, once you learn how, you never forget.

 

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Our home on Stark Street had three very small bedrooms inside,
Mom and Dad had one, JerrylDine had one, and Craig and I sighed,
Because we slept in one room in bunk beds with me on the top.
JerrylDine thought she was queen in her own room feeling so hot.

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Hey guys, I’m playing some Elvis records tonight. Hope they don’t bother you.

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We had no central heat or central air conditioning in that place,
We had a built in floor furnace in our main room living space,
To heat our whole house during those very cold winter days.
Bedrooms were cool so we used warm blankets where we layed.

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.Standing a straddle this floor furnace after coming in from the cold would warm you fast.

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We had to be careful when walking in bare feet in the main room,
As if you stepped on that hot floor furnace it blistered real soon.
If you dropped plastic on the hot fire box in the floor furnace,
It burned quickly and stunk up the house with a very nasty incense.

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These work good in a dry climate like the Texas Panhandle..

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For our air conditioning, we had a swamp box in the main room,
It was hanging in a window near the area we sat while at home.
It had excelsior pads on three sides and a pump inside the unit.
To pump water up to run down slowly through the pads to cool it.

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.That’sĀ our swamp box cooler hanging in that window behind me on Stark Street.

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There was a rotary two speed fan to pull in outside air to the room,
Through the pads evaporating water thus cooling real soon.
There was a float in the pan to automatically make up water,
As it evaporated real fast in the dry Texas Panhandle weather.

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Although our main two possessions were simple and inexpensive,
We were very happy and never needed anything more extensive,
As we progressed in our lives with good college educations,
We did even better in-spite of the extremely high rate of inflation.

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By Bill

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Thanks for reading Fifties Living,
Bill