Long live Pleasantville.

When I was growing up, milk was delivered to your doorstep a couple of times a week, and if you needed cream, you just left the milkman a note. All milk was whole milk, there was no other kind. Labels were sensibly inside of clothing. Boys were beginning to wear jeans to school, Levis one and all. Girls wore dresses, blouses or sweaters with skirts, or jumpers. I really miss jumpers. I had several things that had fur collars, real fur. We rode our bicycles to school, and parked them in bikeracks or on their kickstands, without locks, and they were all there when we got ready to leave. We played outdoors whenever we could. Electronics meant you traded in your manual typewriter for an electric one. Phones were big, bulky and mostly black, and you were grateful for a private line that you didn't have to share with a lot of other (nosy) people. The thrill of the day was when the ice cream truck toodled through the neighborhood with its music-box playing and we bought popsicles, for a dime. The movies were double-features (two movies, for you uninitiated) with two cartoons, a newsreel and an episode of a serial, like Zorro, or Flash Gordon, or Captain America, all for 30 cents. Another dime bought a tube of Flicks, little chocolate disks, or a Three Musketeers bar the size of Wyoming. Stereos were new, and built into furniture (ours was a roll-top desk, built by Robert Montgomery, husband of Dinah Shore). Music came on vinyl, and in three speeds, 78, 45 or 33 rpm. Automobiles were huge landboats, laden with chrome, heavy as elephants, and got about 8 mpg, but that didn't matter, because the gallon indicater moved much faster than the dollar one, gas was about 19 cents a gallon. And a small army of uniformed guys would scurry out to wash your windshield, check your tires and measure your oil level. Television was new, mostly broadcast live, in black and white. And radio was still hot, with shows like Inner Sanctum, and the Whistler, and the Shadow. Scary then, and even now, because we used to catch a retrospective on our way home from Grandma's house when the kids were little, and they would be scared out of their tiny minds by the time we arrived. Thrilling. Divorce was the exception rather than the rule. It was a time of great prosperity, after the long trial of World War II. Ike was president, Nixon (later tricky Dick) was vice president, the cold war was raging; we had regulad air-raid drills where we all ducked under our desks and covered our heads so the flash of the nuclear explosion would not blind us, as if we all wouldn't be toast anyway. Dinosaurs were reptiles, Jupiter had only 9 moons, and history really was the chronicle of dead white men on horses. Life was simple, and simplistic. I love to remember it, but I don't really miss it. I like 1% milk and computers and birth control pills and the diversity we now celebrate. And someday I will get used to my clothes having labels on the outside.