Did You Remember To Fall Back?

7 Responses to Did You Remember To Fall Back?

1. george rebane says:

   November 2, 2013 at 8:21 pm

   Damn straight!

   Reply
2. Michael Anderson says:

   November 2, 2013 at 8:50 pm

   Oh Bob, this is brilliant.

   But to be fair to the elephants, those dang Fifties were pretty remarkable. It was a time when there was still a lot of wonder and amazement about all of the great fantastic things that technology was going to bring to civilization. Sure, the Cold War had everyone’s undies in a knot, but there was still the ideal that science could lead us out of the East-West conundrum. It’s almost as if there was a bi-polar American success process going on during the 50s and 60s. We finally achieved liberty and freedom for oppressed minorities in the South and even landed on the Moon, all the while barely skirting thermonuclear destruction and getting bogged down in Korea and Vietnam.

   I’m afraid the minute that Neil Armstrong left his first footprint in the moon dust, it’s been pretty much downhill from there. The revealing of technology’s dark side accumulates by the day.

   So, for those of us who might want to wallow in some elephant dung (and high-quality elephant-ness it is) here is a marvelous website that I am sure will send you down a rabbithole of both pain and pleasure: http://www.flickriver.com/groups/485055@N20/pool/interesting/

   OMG, I just can’t stop salivating. Which car would I like to drive today, the Buick Wildcat or Centurion, or the Ford Nucleon or Mystere? And while the Boeing 707 ushered in the Jet Age, who wouldn’t want to give a YB-49 (the B-2 precursor) a spin? Well, maybe someone who would like to not drop out of the sky like a stone. I was only able to get in 60 photos deep before I had to stop with Brigitte Bardot, beer and cigarettes, and the wonderful kitchen cleaver. Enjoy.

   Reply
   • rl crabb says:

     November 2, 2013 at 10:02 pm

     Great photos, Michael, and oddly enough I just finished watching the DVD of “On The Road”. Watching the boys driving across the country in those old clunkers really brought back memories. I learned to drive in my dad’s 1940 Chevy Coupe. It was built like a damn tank, no power steering or brakes. You had to be strong to drive those behemoths. When us kids went fishing at Lion’s Lake he would come and pick us up, and since there wasn’t much room in the coupe some of us would ride on the running board. People would have a cow if you did that today. (Especially since the CHP now occupies the corner of McCourtney and Old Auburn Road.)

     Reply
   • Steve Frisch says:

     November 3, 2013 at 9:43 am

     Ha, I would favor the Wildcat, the house of the future and Brigitte Bardot!

     Reply
3. Greg Goodknight says:

   November 2, 2013 at 11:09 pm

   The 1950’s would be hard to replicate; to start, you need a world war that leaves all of the 1st world’s productive capacity in a shambles, except the US and Canada.

   Similarly, a Danish friend of mine told me what might be an apocryphal story of a Danish airliner approaching Norway, with a stewardess giving a pre landing briefing that included “We will be landing in Oslo shortly, please turn your watches back twenty years”.

   Reply
4. Chris Peterson says:

   November 3, 2013 at 6:51 am

   In the wacky world of politics,
   and rhetoric, we find,
   The ass sees only what’s in front of him,
   The elephant; his behind.

   Reply
5. Terry Pittsford says:

   November 3, 2013 at 5:22 pm

   Yes! 1950 would be fine! Would I know then what I know now? Cool, I’ll bet $50 on Google in a few years.

   Reply