Rewind the Fifties
Visitors Scrapbook Page 4

  First I want to start off  by telling you how much I have enjoyed your Website. For those of us who grew up during the 50's and 60's it was soooo special. I feel sorry for the kids today. I know they have the advances in tech. that brings with it wonderful things like the Net. Stereo, 35inch TV's... and Video Tapes!!!!... and the not so wonderful things like drug use and crime which is out of control... along with out of control free sex and abortion. Kids seem to be numb with all, and from all, that they experience... You wonder how things could go so far. I wish that my kids could experience the "simple and innocent" fun that we had. I think they would like to have it too.

Oh, I do have two more pictures that I would like to send you. Let me know if that will be tooooooo many..... I can't find them now, one was the typical picture taken on the pony... do you remember when the man would travel the neighborhood with his pony and camera and take pictures..? It was great!

ENOUGH! I found the picture... and I will NEVER forget that day. I ALWAYS wanted a pony. I was 4 yrs. old and soooo excited. My older cousin is behind that chair in the background.... she was tooo afraid to get on the pony. You had trouble getting me off.

Donna (Photo taken 19xx.)
(could be she doesn't want anyone calculating her age?)

This was so much fun we just kept going ..... here's more mail from Donna.

that is a GREAT idea. Who knows someone may see themselves and want to ......do you think?, and "Thank" me. YES, YES....I may just run into some old friends. I will have to tell my Cousin Patsy.....only cousins can call her that now... to everyone else it is Patty..(with TWO t's) that happened somewhere in Jr. High. The reason is she always HATED that picture because I would PROUDLY tell EVERYONE where PATSY was hiding and that SHE wouldn't get on the pony.....

(email address removed due to spam)

When I was but a baby (REALLY !) and my mom and dad were still a very young married couple , my dad's plant went on strike for six months. During that time they were receiving only a very meager strikers pay. There was no money for extras and times were hard. At that time the big #1 hit on the Hit Parade was "Love Me Tender" by Elvis Presley. It sort of became mom and dad's song. My mother expressed a wish that she could get it for her birthday but knew there was no money for my dad to buy it with. On my mom's birthday she was bent over the washer (the old wringer kind) doing the laundry when my dad came in the door. He had something behind his back. My mom's first thought was that he must have picked some wildflowers for her, as he sometimes did, but my dad told her to guess again. Suddenly she knew by the look on his face what it was he was hiding and she burst into tears. My dad had pawned his watch so he could buy my mom the single of "Love Me Tender". They still have that record and a few years ago they played it, scratches and all, for thier first dance at thier 40th wedding anniversary.

Well, eat a bug...

I am a 50's gal, really, I graduated from HS in 1957. Being a teenager in the 50's was a blast. Having parents that were so square that they hurt didn't help matters much. But I persevered, did all the things I could to embarrass them. My step father was career navy. Need I say more. Pillars of the community, and all that rot. Both my brother [class of 58] and I did what we could to make them see that they needed to loosen up a bit. But to no avail. Well I will try to find a picture for you. This is fun. I went on to be a card carrying member of the beat generation, going to SF, CA in 1959 & 1960. Lived on Nob Hill and hung out on Haight Street with the 'generation'...
Rave On!
Martha A. Graham - Class of '57

No, in those days I was 'Marty'... My brother still calls me that, as did my first husband. He is gone, now. Died a couple of years ago at Christmas. Boo, my kids had a hell of a time with that. Well, anyhow, on to the good news. The Fifties are still alive. Witness the revival of Custom cars... They call them 'low riders'. Heh! And next time you browse the Magazine racks, look at the covers of VW and such. I ran with a couple of guys and gals who were heavy into cars, I never had the bucks to do them, but my boyfriend [s] sure did... Remember Louvered hoods, and decks? Well they were real.
After-a-while, Crocodile.
Marty

Time stands still. The Fifties were full of 'growth pains' for a lot of us. I lived in Los Angeles in '54, 55, & 56. My parents had gone to Japan so I lived with an Aunt & Uncle. They were a little better than my parents, but not much. My Uncle was an LA Cop, my Aunt... well that's another story. Anyhow, I listened to Rhythm & Blues [Hunter Hancock, Huggie Boy, and the rest. And began what was to be a lifetime collection of 45's. of course, in that time, kids buying records was almost unheard of. And they cost 99 cents! 

When my parents got back from Japan, I had to go to Stockton CA [Gasp] to live. Talk about Culture Shock. Stockton was at least 10 years behind LA. And here I was, a hip teen stuck in a time warp. I remember being so frustrated because I could not find a decent radio station until I found Wolf Man Jack, late at night. Then things went better. I also got a job on weekends and summers at the local record store. Still not the same, because Rhythm & Blues was just beginning to make its way North. Expressions, you are right, they do get mixed up. 

Some that come to me are... "What a drag", Cool, of course. "What a Cut"... this was used when you 'chopped someone down'. "Chopped and Channeled" Applied to cars, but could be used to put someone in their place. Well, that might help get the juices flowing. And thanks for keeping in touch. We are computer literate, actually, some of us have the resources to do more than just be literate. I still have a job: One that I like and am good at. I work in the Retail Drug Industry. Have for a long time. But my first love, was the Record Shop. It was a place where I could shine! There was not a record in that place that I did not know its 'stats'. Ok, that's it for now. Keep up the good work! "American Pie" was not so far from the truth!
Next time, I will dig up some of my Poetry.

Sorry

 it has taken so long to get back to you. Been busy with buying a new used car, my '77 Bug got crunched in the parking lot at work, so for the last 2 months I have been riding my bicycle to work, and on weekends going out and "slamming tires and kicking doors". Finally found an 87 Nissan Pulsar... Red, 16 valve, twin cam screamer. Guess you can take the girl out of the car, but not the car out of the girl! I used to autocross sports cars, in the 'salad days of me youth'. And I have been known to have grease under my fingernails too :)... So there you have it. Also had to do the grandmother thing, and have a B'day party for my 2 yr old grandson, then took my two granddaughters to get their school clothes. My oldest son is moving to Grand Junction CO, so I will not see too much of the kids. 

I tried to find some poetry, but could only come up with some stuff I wrote in early 60, it might have been in '59 though. I will look again. I lived in SF in 59 & 60, so it is pretty depressing stuff. I had a pretty bizarre outlook on life. [another long story] But what the hey... Life was like that, at least part of it was. I am going to try and find you a picture of me and my brother. Taken about 56 or 57. I think i have one of me in peddle pushers and Lee, My bro, with his white tee shirt ... with the sleeves rolled... quite cool, and he has a flat top, and I have my pony tail...
Well gotta go for now. Jam up and Jelly Tight!

 I found the three surviving poems from the dungeons. And bear in mind, that my mind was sorely twisted. The two that refer to "The Beach", are\were written during my stint on/in/around North Beach. This was a time that still hangs in my memory as great. Looking back, I know that I spent a lot of time being 'under the influence of assorted [and I might mention not namable here on the web] chemical substances. These combined with Alcohol [sic] made ones mind a bit torqued. So here is an attachment of three 'to go' Hope this makes it. Let me know if it all transmits. Hope you had a good labor day. I just finished getting my crafts into a local Gallery... Some of the things I do are straight out of a very fertile imagination... perhaps I got the dosage right. Just kidding, I am clean. Actually, have not done any thing that chemically alters my mind since 1982 So there you have it.

Hear him putting them down
to the size he knows so well
Voices - scream - shout -pierce the swinging doors of hell.

The darkness creeps-crawls onto the beach. Sandals, rings bottles calm. And the sky withdraws to become blank - black - starless - unending.

Night is forever -fleeting to fight the day which wants to be always.

Thunder - Crash - Light - Dark - Blackness Brightness which cannot be if it is to end.

Unceasingly Black -depressed beyond the hope of light which lives.

To be dead - depressed - depraved is real. Black unending watching will be the way.

There is paint - color - canvas - light. How to live in color? Darkness is without color - size - shape - eternity - unending. Black is ever -omnipresent with those who know color is unreal. All Imagination... no life - love - sex - Blank - being - am - is - are - was. This is unending as is sex -living for the starless nights -the blank void of nothingness.

-marty-
SF 1959

 as i wander through the streets of the beach, i see my friends, the lonely depressed people that compile the inhabitants of the beach. these people are like me, they know that they are living for today, tomorrow - eternity. this is the scene, like some make and some don't. we have made it here and we do not want to elevate ourselves by going outside. it would be too much to do something like that, i mean if we are happy here why do something that would make us unhappy? like it is cold outside and some of like to be warm inside. wine will give something to be warm with, but who has bread for wine... not i-me-myself... dig, the tourists are all but out tonight, those are the people with the cars and the money for an excursion into the unknown, the not-quite-believable north-beach. these people with their ideas of right-wrong-love-sex.

they are pure-clean-virgin to the ways of the Beach-village-world. why live like that? we know why, but they have no eyes... eyes help-hinder some who can't quite...

-marty-
SF 1959

 The rain has begun to fall. Through the dead leaves it drops to form small dark pools whose reflections reveal the tortured souls of those who dare to peer into their endless depths.

Is it the rain that depresses the Soul or is it the ideas of morbid fear that it represents? Why should water cause the degrading of the pure mind? As the unceasing rain beats its fearless tattoo against the earth, it serves as a tribute to those stone-faced idols which represent the mute peoples of the Darkness.

Those who cannot express their desires - loves - fears to the skies.

Rain is ever, not so much as water -as is the usual conception - But it is here, omnipresent because of the Soul.

There will always be rain... It is here for a 'purpose'. To discover this purpose is to learn the ultimate secrets of those who have hidden in the shadows of the ages.

Rain makes Gloom - Fear - Death blossom into 'Reality'... 'Reality' -the not-quite-real-realm of the stunned disorganized man.

The City, gleaming in the rain is perfection in silence: The haunting nothingness of the unrelenting rain... It stands as if it were not quite alive, yet it lives to all those who know the true way. There is but One Way, to live in constant fear of complete depression - digression - degradation... is to live for one goal. Live for the one human who is the center of your world.

-marty-
april 26, 1960