I stumbled across the 50's web site quite by accident and was utterly fascinated by it.  I was born in 1943 and grew up in a small town in upstate New York.  The 50's were a simpler time.  You knew who your friends were and you knew who your enemies (The Commies) were.  I wish that there were some magical way to go back to those days but eliminate the uncertainties of the Cold War.

 

I graduated from high school in 1961.  Like others of my age, the threat of the draft caused me to enlist in the Air Force.  I went to work after I got out of the military and took an early retirement in 1999.  I now live in Arizona.

 

When I was growing up, my father owned some used 50's Cadillacs on which I learned to drive.  I always liked those big 50's Caddys with their tailfins and chrome.  In 1995 I purchased a 1954 Cadillac similar to the one I learned to drive on.  Amazingly, it came from the same town and dealer that my Dad had bought his used Cadillacs from.  I've attached a photo of the car after it had undergone about $16,000.00 worth of restoration.  Even in Arizona, where 50's cars are driven on a daily basis, the old Cadillac turns heads when I take her out for a spin.

 

Your web site is great....keep up the good work.

 

Hello 

is there anyone out there that remembers these shoes, I use to wear them to the penny hop at school, they cost 3.98 and the shoe store was karls, I think it was Debbie Reynolds husbands chain of stores 

I think they were popular in 1958,or 9 or could be 1957.

I wore mine until the sole was completely worn out, we use to put horseshoe taps on the

back and small ones in the front, they were made of soft leather material and they were white with very very thin solesand no heel they were rounded in the front, the teardrops my favorite had cut outs of teardrops. they are very important to me. I'm terminally ill and this is my wish to find a picture of them so that i could have a pair made for me.does anyone have any suggestions as to where I could find them. thanks

sheila email slcg@verizon.net  

Hi, Don,

My name is Len Klempnauer, and I just put up a web site that may interest you. My late parents owned a drive-in restaurant in the 1950s, which has housed a liquor store for almost 40 years in Santa Cruz, Calif., about 75 miles south of San Francisco.

 The City of Santa Cruz plans to demolish the building and replace it with a new natural history museum as part of a new park development. But many 1950s' Santa Cruz High students from throughout the U.S. want the building saved, its original facade restored, and made part of the museum complex. 

On April 16, a writer for Preservation Magazine, the organ of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, contacted me to do a story on the drive-in, which was named the Cross Roads because four different streets came together at its location. The angle on the Preservation article, as best as I can determine, is how old must a building be before it should be considered for preservation. The Cross Roads turned 50 last year, but it is the last of three drive-ins still standing in our county and probably one of very few original drive-in buildings still standing in California.

 

We've had a couple of local newspaper articles about the Cross Roads -- one a history piece and another a page 1 story on efforts to save the building. But so far the City of Santa Cruz has turned a deaf ear to our pleas. And the newspaper has refused to run some 50 to 60 letters to the editor from 1950s' Santa Cruz High grads from throughout the U.S. If you would like to check out the site and/or use any of the information and photos on the page, please feel free to do so. My parents owned the Cross Roads business. The URL is:

http://www.webspawner.com/users/crossroadsdrivein/

Many thanks,

Len Klempnauer, Capitola, Calif. (five miles from Santa Cruz)

Santa Cruz High Class of 1954

Thank you so much for your time. Someday soon I hope I'll be driving the truck for plumbing work, dressed in a shirt with overalls and a touring cap....But for now, my brake cylinder started to leak, so I have one on the way...and a dome light, and a horn button, and a....

Here is a current photo.

So far: New carb. New wiring to rear lights. New brakes and brake cylinders. 4 new tires New exhaust from the manifold out.

 

New pipe rack.

To go: Too much to worry about right now....

thanks Peter 03/08/2002