Boomers Had It Rough

Many people believe that the ‘Boomers’ who grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s had it knocked. They supposedly had everything easy. Sure, there was Elvis, but there were plenty of drawbacks. Many think Boomers just coasted through life on their looks, were born at the ‘right’ time, or got ‘lucky’. Boomers actually had it pretty rough.

Most people of today would not enjoy growing up in the 1950’s or 1960’s. The economic and social changes would be too much to bear. People had a whole lot less, and made do with a whole lot less.

Here are the 106 reasons why Boomers had it rough in the 1950’s and 1960’s:

Middle class houses were 1200 square feet with one bathroom — most came without garages.
Families were bigger – you might have six to eight people in that little house.
Cars were rolling death traps. Your Mom tried to “hold you back” with her arm if she had to hit the brakes — or another vehicle.
The auto death toll was (per capita) more than double that of today.
All dishes were washed by hand. From all 21 meals per week.
You dumped your used motor oil down the gutter, or in the most convenient ditch.
No $8,000 trips to Disney World. If you did get to go on vacation, it was a few days at a lake or a beach.
Only Hollywood movie stars and military pilots flew in airplanes.
The great middle class never went anywhere — except for 50 miles down the road to visit grandma.
Cash only, no credit cards.
Polio. Chicken pox. Mumps. Measles. The first polio vaccine came out in the 1950’s. The others much later.
Male kids in the 1950’s were constantly on the look-out for ass-whipping bullies.
No MRI’s, heart surgery, or transplants. If you got sick, you died.
Miller, Budweiser, and the local suds were the three choices — no funky-tasting micro-brews were available at five times the cost. All beer was lager.
You ate at home — going to a restaurant was very rare.
If you did manage to get to a restaurant, you ate meatloaf with gravy. Restaurants didn’t serve $300 seafood towers.
You only had one car, max, and Dad took it to work. Mom was stranded.
There was no air conditioning in most homes — not even a window unit. No central AC anywhere, except for department stores and the movie theater.
Your bicycle was the most expensive thing you owned.
Most people had a 13-inch black-and-white TV that received three stations if you jiggled the antenna right.
Mom had a 50/50 chance of having a clothes washer, but she hung the clothes out to dry on the line outside.
Smoking was everywhere. You could not get away from it. Even in buses, cars, offices, and airplanes.
No contact lenses — you either wore glasses or you went blind. Most males preferred not being able to see.
“Fun” at home consisted of playing cards or board games.
No one had a microwave oven — or even a toaster oven.
Pop-Tarts and Hot Pockets were outrageous science fiction.
Effeminate boy Boomers had it rough. Really rough.
Socks were darned, not discarded. That was yet another job for the moms of Boomers.
You manually made ice cubes in an ice cube tray. If someone ‘forgot’ to make ice, drank your beverage at room temperature.
Fat was not acceptable. Being fat made you easy pickings for harassment, or worse.
Coffee came out of a percolator; that was the only method. No lattes or cappuccino’s. Everyone drank Maxwell House.
One telephone in the kitchen. Telephone extensions in the house cost extra for each one. If you were lucky enough to have an extension, the phones all used the same line, so you could only use one phone at once.
There were no ‘landfills’…only open garbage dumps.
Racial slurs were used freely all the time, but people often didn’t ‘mean’ anything by it.
A high school education was considered plenty by 90% of the population.
All Asians (called ‘Orientals’ then) were ‘Japs’. Hispanics were ‘spics’. The Jews were ‘Hebes’.
Honeymoons consisted of a car trip to the nearest big city, not Tahiti.
The neighborhood boys got BB guns at about age 8-10, and .22 rifles at age 12-13.
Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and the Land of Lakes girl were all well-loved symbols, and were not thought of as racist depictions.
Fighting between boys was all part of growing up. Nobody sued.
Working on a car assembly line was the ultimate job for a high school graduate.
For men, getting through a woman’s Sears girdle was like breaking open a suit of armor. Since the girls were the ones who had to worry about unplanned births, you didn’t get many chances.
No one had peanut allergies.
Kids called their parents sir or ma’am, or faced an immediate ass whipping.
It was damned hot in the kitchen.
Politicians and presidents were thought to be honorable fellows (always male).
Running behind DDT-spraying fog trucks was considered wholesome summertime fun for kids.
Solid steel dashboards and no seat belts in cars contributed to many a smashed face.
Automobile tir e s were shit — you got a lot of flats. Steel-belted radials were decades away.
Mom spent an entire day each week ironing clothes.
You drank tap water, or did without. Tap water (and toothpaste) were not fluoridated, so cavities were plentiful.
There were lots more flies and mosquitos, all coming from a slew of open garbage dumps.
Some people burned garbage in old oil drums in their own suburban back yards — to keep from paying for garbage service.
Marriage between blacks and whites was verboten. Whites could barely get away with marrying a ‘Jap’ or a ‘Spic’, but they wouldn’t be invited to join the country club.
Photographic film and developing cost a small fortune.
Men could not sit at home and draw ‘welfare’ or ‘disability’ — you worked or starved.
‘Long distance’ phone calls (anywhere outside of your city) were very expensive.
You filled your fountain pen with liquid ink — and hoped it didn’t leak.
Men did not have tattoos, unless they had been in the Navy or in prison. Then it was hidden away out of sight on their upper arm.
Women never, ever had tattoos. Or nose rings. Or green hair. It was much harder to tell who was crazy back then.
All pop (soda, soft drinks) products were loaded with sugar.
Gay boomers had it rough, too. Homosexuality was illegal – with jail time. Cops spent many an hour trying to nail them at it.
While we’re at it, getting a blow job at home with the door locked and the lights out from your significant other was illegal, too.
Pregnant single women were sent out-of-state to a “home” when they started to “show.”
Your dog could shit anywhere he wanted, because he roamed free.
Even though dogs mostly roamed free, they would put you in jail if you took yours to the grocery store.
You only got new clothes (two pairs of pants) at the beginning of school, and they came from Sears.
Your Mom told you not to break the glass thermometer (the only kind they made) in your mouth. It contained mercury.
Speaking of mercury, your Mom was OK with spreading mercury on your wounds (Mercurochrome).
Hardly anyone had their ‘own’ room.
People who went to Woodstock can’t really remember any of it.
PTSD did not exist. Men who actually had the symptoms of PTSD were called “cowards.”
Mistresses were often tolerated, as long as they weren’t invited home for Christmas.
Boys delivered newspapers at 5AM — this was considered character-building, not child labor.
If your house needed painting, you got on a ladder and painted it.
You threw pop and beer bottles straight out the window of the car. You considered this to be a charitable public service, as kids would later pick them up and cash them in for two cents each.
You had to navigate by paper map (but they were free at the gas station).
You had to talk to a teller every time you needed twenty bucks.
To get the right fit, they irradiated your foot with X-rays at the shoe store.
Yelling at kids in your yard could get you TP’d even in those glorious days — but it was unlikely you would be burned out.
You didn’t associate with other races. Black Boomers had it rough, too.
Condoms were the only birth control method available, but they had a 50% success rate, and after you got that far, there was only a 15% chance you were willing to put the damn thing on.
“Retard, idiot, midget, and cripple” were commonly-used words.
Only men were allowed in barber shops. This outrage of the patriarchy had evaporated by the 1980’s, when women invaded the only sacred place the men had left.
Your neighbor burned his autumn leaves in the middle of his front yard, smoking up the neighborhood. He didn’t need a permit.
There was an excellent chance you would get drafted. That way you could get your ass shot off in Vietnam. “Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box.”
You had to go to church at least once a week, or you were thought to be not quite right.
You had to pay every bill by writing and mailing a separate check.
There were no accommodations at all for the handicapped (called ‘cripples’ then).
Your three channels of TV programming ended at midnight.
The only radio was AM.
There was no effective sunscreen. At the beach, everyone broiled alive.
Getting your ass whipped by the principal was easy to achieve.
People with bomb shelters built to protect against nuclear attack were thought to be well-prepared and smart — not conspiracy theorists or nut cases.
No pornography. What you saw when you sneaked a look at Dad’s Playboy is now shown on TV.
Teenagers never thought their after-school jobs at McDonald’s would be lifetime careers.
Driving around drunk was a big joke. Cops would give you a ride home after you killed someone. Since you were drunk, everyone knew you really couldn’t help it.
Whatever consumer goods you did manage to buy were shit. Quality was very low, especially for the few electronic items available.
Black people had to consult their own printed guides that let them know where they could get gas, meals, and hotels when they traveled.
Girls were discouraged from playing with ‘boy’ toys, but they could get away with it. When boys played with ‘girl’ toys, they were risking their lives.
If you wanted to ‘shop’, you had to go all the way ‘downtown’. No one shopped for ‘fun’.
Some Boomers, many of them children, lived their entire lives in an iron lung.
You sweated while you mowed your lawn with a manual push mower. No one hired this out.”Yard Men” were not available to do your shit jobs.
Packs of nobody’s dogs ran loose. If you were bitten, you got seventeen (17!) rabies shots in the stomach. This was a constant problem for paperboys.
Smog, factory smoke, asbestos tailings, and awful chemical odors were thick everywhere. Massive pollution was accepted as the standard cost of living and working.
When you finally grew up and went to buy a house in the late 70’s to early 80’s, interest rates were up to 18%. But at least Jimmy Carter was only stupid — not crooked.