General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Over all - was life better 50 years go today - or was it worse? [View all]Cleita
(75,480 posts)I was pounding away at my manual Smith Corona typewriter with a wad of carbon paper and copy paper behind the original (there was no Zerox then) when a friend called to ask me if I heard about Kennedy. Back then employers didn't mind if you got personal calls because most of us didn't have telephones, a luxury and they knew that. We also smoked at our desks if we were smokers and no one objected if you had a couple of beers or a glass of wine with your lunch.
I made enough money, even though I made 63% of what the janitor made to pay rent, buy food and gas and go out with my friends and co-workers on Friday. I seldom had to work overtime or Saturdays because the law said that I had to be paid time and a half for it. My car had stick shift but gas was less than $1 a gallon. TV was free. Basically, only five stations in LA and rabbit ears did the trick. The programming and news were quality on the networks and pretty amateurish in the local stations, but they brought us Lawrence Welk and Liberace!
The library was Google, but back then they were well stocked and operated weekends and evenings.
There were quality bookstores with a variety of offerings and music stores that would let you listen to albums before you bought them. Magazines and newspapers were varied and quality writing was the norm. Radio had a variety of really good programming, not the propaganda dreck of today or wtired DJ playlists of today.
True, women's rights and civil rights were waiting to happen. We were in a Cold War with Russia but not in a real shooting war yet. Actually, life was good.