A Short Memoir
Born in the 1930s and early 40s, we exist as a very special age cohort. We are the 'last
ones.' We are the last, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war
and the war itself with fathers and uncles going off. We are the last to remember ration
books for everything from sugar to shoes to stoves. We saved tin foil and poured fat into
tin cans. We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren't available. Milk was delivered in
a horse-drawn cart. Our parents had “Victory Gardens” that we tended. Gasoline was rationed.
Class A drivers were allowed only 3 gallons of gasoline per week. Class B drivers (factory
workers, traveling salesmen) received 8 gallons per week.
We are the last to hear Roosevelt’s radio assurances and see Gold stars in the front windows
of our grieving neighbors. We can also remember the parades on August 15, 1945; VJ Day.
We can remember where we were when the sirens sounded.
We saw the ‘boys’ home from the war build their Cape Cod style houses, pouring the cellar,
tar papering it over and living there until they could afford the time and money to build it out.
We are the last who spent childhood without television; instead imagining what we heard on
the radio. As we all like to brag, with no TV, we spent our childhood 'playing outside
until the street lights came on.' We did play outside and we did play on our own.
The lack of television in our early years meant, for most of us, that we had little real
understanding of what the world was like. Our Saturday afternoons, if at the movies, gave
us newsreels of the war and the holocaust sandwiched in between westerns and cartoons.
Newspapers and magazines were written for adults. We are the last who had to find out for
ourselves.
As we grew up, the country was exploding with growth. Pent up demand coupled with new
installment payment plans put factories to work. New roads would bring jobs and mobility.
The veterans joined civic clubs and became active in politics. In the late 40s and early
50's the country seemed to lie in the embrace of brisk but quiet order as it gave birth to
its new middle class. Our parents understandably became absorbed with their own new
lives. They were free from the confines of the depression and the war. They threw
themselves into exploring opportunities they had never imagined.
We weren't neglected but we weren't today's all-consuming family focus. They were glad we
played by ourselves 'until the street lights came on.' They were busy discovering the post
war world.
Most of us had no life plan, but with the unexpected virtue of ignorance and an economic
rising tide we simply stepped into the world and went to find out. We entered a world of
overflowing plenty and opportunity; a world where we were welcomed. Based on our naive
belief that there was more where this came from, we shaped life as we went.
We enjoyed a luxury; we felt secure in our future. Of course, just as today, not all
share in this experience. Depression poverty was deep rooted. Polio was still a
crippler. The Korean War was a dark presage in the early 50s and by mid-decade school
children were ducking under desks. China became Red China. Castro set up camp in Cuba
and Khrushchev came to power.
We are the last to experience an interlude when there were no existential threats to our
homeland. We came of age in the late 40s and early 50s. The war was over and the cold
war, terrorism, climate change, technological upheaval and perpetual economic insecurity
had yet to haunt life with insistent unease.
Only we can remember both a time of apocalyptic war and a time when our world was secure
and full of bright promise and plenty. We experienced both.
We grew up at the best possible time, a time when the world was getting better not worse.
We are the 'last ones.'
Author: unknown