Golden wedding anniversaries are one of my specialties.  I grew up in the 50's and have fond memories of those days when a loaf of bread was a nickel, a gallon of gas was  24 cents and Harry Truman was President. It was the era that produced some great singers including Frank Sinatra,Tony Bennett,  Perry Como, Bing Crosby,  Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, the Andrew Sisters, Dick Haymes and of course all the big bands led by Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Sammy Kaye, Guy Lombardo and many more.

It's a wonderful time for old friends and relatives to get together to celebrate, reminisce and remember the "good old days" especially the first days of their marriage. And it's the music of era puts the final touch on the nostalgic evening. Music holds that special touch to unlock the memories from the years gone by. I know the music and have it in my library.  Put it all together and you will remember your 50th wedding anniversary forever.





Are you old enough to remember?

Folks younger than us today see reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show" and no doubt think life in Mayberry was no more real than what the Clampet family experienced in Beverly Hills. But for many of us who grew up in the 50's and 60's, life did imitate art - we just didn't know it at the time.  Now a walk down memory lane to 50 years ago.   Do your remember...

  • Being sent to the drugstore to test vacuum tubes for the TV or radio
  • When Kool-Aid was the only other drink for kids, other than milk and sodas. 
  • When boys couldn't wear anything but leather shoes to school.
  • When haircuts were 50 cents or a 1.00 and flat tops were the rage. 
  • When candy bars were a nickel and the real good ones a dime.
  • When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up. 
  • When all your friends had their hair cut at the kitchen table by mom or dad.
  • When nearly everyone's mom was at home when the kids got there. 
  • Wash tub ringers and clotheslines
  • Newsreels and cartons before a movie
  • Movietone News
  • Coke bottles with the names of cities on the bottom.
  • When nobody owned a pure-bred dog. 
  • When a dime was a decent allowance, a quarter a huge bonus. 
  • When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. 
  • When girls neither dated nor kissed until late high school, if then.
  • When your mom wore nylons that came in 2 pieces. 
  • When all your teachers wore either neckties or had their hair done, everyday.
  • Butch wax and flat-tops
  • When Bible reading and prayer started every school day. 
  • When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked and gas pumped free every  time and received trading stamps too! 
  • Packards, Studebakers, De Sotos and Edsels.
  • When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels, hidden inside the box. 
  • Coffee shop tables with jukeboxes
  • S & H green stamps were give with every purchase. 
  • When any parent could discipline any kid, or use him to carry groceries and  nobody....not even the kid, thought a thing of it. 
  • Blackjack and Beemans chewing gum
  • When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real  restaurant with your parents. 
  • Peashooters
  • When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed -and did. 
  • When being sent to the principals office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. 
  • When a Coke (or Cherry Coke) and a hamburger cost a quarter and candy bars a nickel and a dime.
  • Music nickelodeons charged 5 cents per song.
  • When Royal Crown cola was almost as popular as Coke.
  • When Dr. Pepper's bottles and cans recommended use at 10-2 and 4 
  • Drive In's, cherry cokes and French fries 
  • Drive in movies, foggy windows and romance
  • Candy Cigarettes
  • 33, 45 and 78 RPM Records 
  • Cars with their rear ends lowered.
  • When black and white television came on the air.
  • Great radio shows like the Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Gangbusters,
  • Amos and Andy, Red Skelton, Roy Rogers the King of the Cowboys,
  • Gene Autry,  The Cisco Kid, Burns and Allen and Gene Autry,
  • Yours truly, Johnny Dollar, Abbott and Costello,  Dragnet,
  • Adventures of  Sherlock Holmes,  Adventures of Sam Spade,
  • Adventures of Charlie Chan. Hopalong Cassidy, True Detective,
  • Captain Midnight and Terry and the Pirates just to mention a few.
  • Large set of dice made of sponge hanging from the rearview mirror.
  • Doctor's came to your home when you were sick.
  • When the milkman delivered milk and other dairy products to your doorstep and milk  was in bottles. 
  • Telephone party lines.
  • Telephone numbers that started with a word prefix  i.e. Rochester - 56978
  • The Watkins and Jewel Tea salesmen who peddled their wares at your door
  • The Mailpouch tobacco signs painted on the barn roofs
  • All those Burma Shaves signs along the road
  • The old 5 and 10 cent stores
  • Soda fountains in drug stores




Red Skelton Circa 1959
Courtesy of MPTV Net
Wedding Anniversaries
Working people frequently ask retired people what they do to make their days interesting. I went to the store the other day. I was only in there for about 5 minutes. When I came out there was a city cop writing out a parking ticket.

I went up to him and said, "Come on, buddy, how about giving a senior a break?" He ignored me and continued writing the ticket. I called him a name. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires. So I called him a worse name. He finished the second ticket and put it on the wind shield with the first.

Then he started writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I abused him the more tickets he wrote.

I did not care, my car was parked two rows over.



















Red Skelton Humor

If you are old enough to be celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary you are old enough to remember comedian Red Skelton.  Red Skelton shared his humor with us for decades without four-letter words and raunchy antics.  Below are his tips for a happy marriage.
  1. Two times a week, we go to nice restaurant, have a little beverage,
then comes good food and  companionship. She goes on Tuesdays,
I go on Fridays.
  1. We also sleep in separate beds, hers is in Ontario and mine is
in Tucson.
  1. I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.
  2. I asked my wife where she wanted to go for our anniversary.
"Somewhere I haven't been in a long time!" she said.  So I suggested  the kitchen.
  1. We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.
  2. She has an electric blender, electric toaster and an electric bread maker.
Then she said, "There are too many gadgets and no place to sit down!"  So I bought her  an electric chair.
  1. My wife told me the car wasn't running well because there was water in the carburetor.  I asked  where the car was, she told me, "In the lake."
  2. She got a mud pack and looked great for two days.  Then the mud fell off.
  3. She ran after the garbage truck yelling, "Am I too late for the garbage?" The driver said, "No, jump in."
  4. Remember, marriage is the number one cause of divorce.
  5. Statistically, 100% of all divorces start with marriage.
  6. I married Miss Right, I just didn't know her first name was "Always".
  7. I haven't spoken to my wife in 18 months.  I don't like to interrupt her.
  8. The last fight was my fault.  My wife asked, "What's on the TV?......."I said, "Dust."



Hey Dad
Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, "What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?"  "We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I informed him. "All the food was slow." "C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?" "It was a place called 'at home,'" I explained. "Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it."

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the picture look larger.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called "pizza pie." When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our family was my grandfather' s Ford. He called it a "machine."

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. I delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at  4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

________________________________________________

MEMORIES from a friend:

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to "sprinkle" clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3 Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5 Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6 Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fi's
17 Metal ice trays with lever
18 Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25 Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than the hills!

I might be older than the hills but those memories are the best part of my life.


Billboard Top 100
1960

01. Theme From "A Summer Place" » Percy Faith
02. He'll Have To Go » Jim Reeves
03. Cathy's Clown » Everly Brothers
04. Running Bear » Johnny Preston
05. Teen Angel » Mark Dinning
06. I'm Sorry » Brenda Lee
07. It's Now Or Never » Elvis Presley
08. Handy Man » Jimmy Jones
09. Stuck On You » Elvis Presley
10. The Twist » Chubby Checker
11. Everybody's Somebody's Fool » Connie Francis
12. Wild One » Bobby Rydell
13. Greenfields » Brothers Four
14. What In The World's Come Over You » Jack Scott
15. El Paso » Marty Robbins
16. Alley-oop » Hollywood Argyles
17. My Heart Has A Mind Of Its Own » Connie Francis
18. Sweet Nothin's » Brenda Lee
19. Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini » Brian Hyland
20. Only The Lonely » Roy Orbison
21. Where Or When » Dion & The Belmonts
22. Sixteen Reasons » Connie Stevens
23. Puppy Love » Paul Anka
24. Why » Frankie Avalon
25. Walk, Dont Run » Ventures
26. Save The Last Dance For Me » Drifters
27. Baby (You Got What It Takes) » Brook Benton & Dinah Washington
28. Sink The Bismark » Johnny Horton
29. Chain Gang » Sam Cooke
30. Let It Be Me » Everly Brothers
31. Good Timin' » Jimmy Jones
32. Beyond The Sea » Bobby Darin
33. Go Jimmy Go » Jimmy Clanton
34. Night » Jackie Wilson
35. Burning Bridges » Jack Scott
37. Because They're Young » Duane Eddy
38. Lonely Blue Boy » Conway Twitty
38. The Big Hurt » Toni Fisher
39. Pretty Blue Eyes » Steve Lawrence
40. Way Down Yonder In New Orleans » Freddie Cannon
41. Paper Roses » Anita Bryant
42. Mr. Custer » Larry Verne
43. I Want To Be Wanted » Brenda Lee
44. Mule Skinner Blues » Fendermen
45. Cradle Of Love » Johnny Preston
47. Please Help Me, I'm Falling » Hank Locklin
48. You've Got What It Takes » Marv Johnson
48. Love You So » Rod Holden
49. Finger Poppin' Time » Hank Ballard & The Midnighters
50. Harbor Lights » Platters
51. Let The Little Girl Dance » Billy Bland
52. He'll Have To Stay » Jeanne Black
53. Theme From The Apartment » Ferrante & Teicher
54. Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu) » Bobby Rydell
55. A Million To One » Jimmy Charles
56. The Village Of St. Bernadette » Andy Williams
57. White Silver Sands » Bill Black's Combo
57. The Old Lamplighter » Browns
59. Devil Or Angel » Bobby Vee
60. Down By The Station » Four Preps
61. Forever » Little Dippers
62. Image Of A Girl » Safaris & The Phantom's Band
63. Kiddio » Brook Benton
64. Mission Bell » Donnie Brooks
65. I Love The Way You Love » Marv Johnson
66. It's Time To Cry » Paul Anka
67. Tell Laura I Love Her » Ray Peterson
68. Mama » Connie Francis
69. Footsteps » Steve Lawrence
70. So Sad » Everly Brothers
71. That's All You Gotta Do » Brenda Lee
72. Walking To New Orleans » Fats Domino
73. Among My Souvenirs » Connie Francis
74. Swingin' School » Bobby Rydell
75. A Rockin' Good Way » Dinah Washington & Brook Benton
76. Stairway To Heaven » Neil Sedaka
77. My Home Town » Paul Anka
78. Georgia On My Mind » Ray Charles
79. Cherry Pie » Skip & Flip
80. Wonderful World » Sam Cooke
81. Tracy's Theme » Spencer Ross
82. Lady Luck » Lloyd Price
83. Step By Step » Crests
84. Happy-Go-Lucky Me » Paul Evans
85. Young Emotions » Ricky Nelson
86. Dreamin' » Johnny Burnette
87. Poetry In Motion » Johnny Tillotson
88. O Dio Mio » Annette
89. You Talk Too Much » Joe Jones
90. Beatnik Fly » Johnny & The Hurricanes
91. When Will I Be Loved » Everly Brothers
92. Let's Think About Livin' » Bob Luman
93. Heartaches By The Number » Guy Mitchell
94. In My Little Corner Of The World » Anita Bryant
95. Doggin' Around » Jackie Wilson
96. Mule Bitty Girl » Bobby Rydell
97. Money » Barret Strong
98. Stay » Maurice Williams
99. Lonely Weekends » Charlie Rich
100. Sandy » Larry Hall



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Take a musical trip back to the 50's with this musical montage of some of the hits of the 50's. 




A day in the life of a senior citizen
Anniversary Music

  • Anniversary Waltz...................................................................Eddy Howard
  • When your old wedding ring was new.......................................Jimmy Roselli
  • Always together...........................................................................Al Martino
  • Moonlight Serenade....................................................................Glenn Miller
  • Stardust ...............................................................................Various Artists
  • May each day.........................................................................Andy Williams
  • Through the years..................................................................Kenny Rodgers
  • Cruising down the river..............................................................Russ Morgan
  • I'll see you in my dreams........................................................Jimmy Durante
  • In the mood................................................................................Glenn Miller
  • Always..............................................................................................Nillson
  • Anniversary song...................................................................Lawrence Welk
  • By the light of the silvery moon.................................................Jimmy Roselli
  • I love you because....................................................................... Al Martino
  • Memories.................................................................................Elvis Presley
  • Could I have this last dance........................................................Anne Murray
  • Our love is here to stay...............................................................Natalie Cole
  • Endless Love......................................................Lionel Ritchie & Diana Ross
  • Unchained Melody.........................................Neil Diamond or Righteous Bros.
  • Can't help falling in love with you.................................................Elvis Presley
  • Memories.................................................................................Elvis Presley
  • What a wonderful world.........................................................Louis Armstrong
  • It had to be you.......................................................................Harry Connick
  • Young at heart.........................................................................Frank Sinatra
  • Sentimental Journey.....................................................................Les Brown
  • Twilight Time...............................................................................Three Suns
  • To each his own............................................................................Al Martino
  • I love you truly.......................................................................Lawrence Welk