Changes In My Lifetime - Space Travel

 SPACE TRAVEL

History of All Logos: All Nasa Logos

In the 1960s, amid national tragedies and social changes, America’s space achievements were a source of pride. It was unfathomable during this decade to watch as we put men into space. On May 5, 1961, Alan Sheppard was launched into the earth’s sphere.  It was amazing and terrifying at the same time. This precipitated President Kennedy to announce a formal ‘space race’ against the Soviet Union on May 25, 1961, and by in February 1962, John Glenn lifted off in a rocket to become the first American to orbit the earth.  The large complex in Florida eventually grew into NASA; and with their discoveries and advances in technology, our lives began to change forever.  During the next 2 years, Project Mercury had 6 successful launches with a solo astronaut, followed by the 10 missions of the Gemini Project, where man continued to conquer space with space walks and spacecraft dockings. This was huge national news as we were able to watch the liftoffs and ocean landings on black and white televisions. The Kennedy Center began to build its massive moon launch facility. With the last Gemini mission in 1966, the stage was set for the final march to the moon. Bigger and more powerful rockets were needed to propel astronauts beyond earth’s orbit and on towards the moon. Tragedy struck on Jan 27, 1967 when the first Apollo mission carrying 3 astronauts blew up during take-off.

This proved that there was enough power, but the launch had to be perfected. America didn’t give up, and with Apollo 7, three men were launched for an orbital mission. They circled the earth and returned.  Just 2 months later, Apollo 8 lifted off and on Christmas Eve 1968, man circled the moon and viewed the earthrise from the lunar horizon.  The unthinkable occurred in July 1969 when Apollo 11 carrying Neal Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, landed on the moon’s surface as all the world watched on television. It was breathtaking and nerve wracking to watch this and not know what could/would happen. I remember thinking they may be stuck in space forever, but their nodule lifted off and was able to take orbit and return to Earth without burning up. It was unreal and some wanted to claim that it was fake and didn’t happen. America did win the space race and Kennedy space center became the launch capital of the world.

Changes In My Lifetime - Automobiles

 Automobiles

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My Maverick was red with a white vinyl top. I later called it the AO mobile because I pledged a sorority at Baylor and their colors were red and white.

My grandparents were the first generation to own vehicles. Pappy had to crank his truck to start it. I remember always having a family car, though for many years, Mother and Daddy had only one family vehicle. Probably about the time that we moved to the home on Bismarck, a second car was added for Mother’s convenience of toting kids around. Cars used leaded gas. Price per gallon for gasoline was about .31 cents. In 1996, with passage of The Clean Air Act, we were mandated to purchase unleaded gasoline. The seat belt began showing up in cars in 1968, but no one used them. By 1995, every state had a mandatory seat belt law. I’m not sure that I always used my seat belt until 2000.  We had very few interstate highways so we drove mainly on U.S. Highways and some State Highways.  I learned to drive on the FM (Farm to Market) back roads around Vernon.  These were the roads that we often drove during our Sunday afternoon drives through the country.  I was small and was never really interested in learning how to drive. One Sunday afternoon, Daddy came outside with a pillow in his hand and said, “Let’s go!” I was like, huh? It was that afternoon that I learned to drive a car, with many follow up Sunday afternoon drives to get a feel for the road.  I took Driver’s Education as a full semester course as a sophomore. We studied from driving manuals in the classroom, viewed tape of the actual driving experience and then we began our training in the vehicle where we would drive through the city with our teacher in the front seat. These vehicles were equipped with a brake on the passenger side, just in case our teacher deemed it necessary to brake to avoid an accident. In the summer before my junior year, I took the Driver’s Test with a patrolman.  My first car was a Ford Maverick, red with a white vinyl hood. Gasoline prices had increased to about 50 cents per gallon. On my birthday, Daddy woke me up and said that we were going to Quanah to pick up my birthday gift, a car! He told it was a VW bug. I invited Terri Howard to ride along. When we arrived in Quanah, a red Maverick was on the showroom floor and presented to me as my new car.  I was shocked, but I do have to say, I was a bit disappointed that it had no a/c. Daddy, too, quickly realized that was a misjudgment because of the weather in Texas. By my senior year, he had an air conditioner unit installed below the dashboard and it was a good thing because the next year, I drove this Maverick back and forth to college. Of course, I added an 8 track tape player and speakers.

Changes In My Lifetime - Transportation

 Transportation

Above: Richard Crabtree supplies this photo of a Frisco 4-4-0 locomotive parked at the Vernon depot in 1951.  The Frisco passenger depot was located on the south side of the tracks between Main St. and Cumberland St.

Texas Railroad History - Tower 37 - Vernon

The railroad was still used when I was a little girl. Trains carried mostly grain to the grain elevators and oil to the refineries. Passenger trains also occupied the tracks, as people travelled by train to neighboring towns and occasionally across the nation. I remember going down to the train depot for a field trip with my classmates and riding the train (my first time on a train) to a neighboring town. We turned around and came back, and for me, that was quite a trip! I clearly remember the old train depot.

We also had a Grey Hound Bus terminal and it was OFTEN used by people. I remember taking several trips with mother by bus to see relatives, as it was the most convenient and carefree way to travel. Many times, we went to the bus terminal to pick up family relatives who were coming to Vernon for a visit.

The jet airliner that carried passengers wasn’t invented until 1958 and took a while to catch on for those of us use to taking the train or bus. I remember on several trips with Mother and Daddy to Dallas, that Daddy would take us out on the highway by Love Field and park our car on the side of the road, just underneath where the planes flew over to land on the runway. It seemed surreal to see something so huge and loud and powerful in the air. It was an incredible experience in the 70s to begin using a jet for transportation.  Wichita Falls built a small airport that we used to make a flight to Dallas for our connection to other places. Paula by this time was an air force wife and we would travel by plane to visit her.

Changes In My Lifetime - Music Devices

 MUSIC DEVICES

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The battery powered transistor radio came out in 1955, and I remember always having one in the bathroom to listen to the latest music on AM radio.  There was often static, and the radio had to be in the right position to get reception. There were very few really clear stations.  FM came along later to solve these problems. 

Our favorite music was purchased on vinyl records, mainly 45 rpms.  We would stack as many as possible on the turn table. After one record would play, the needle arm would lift and swing out of the way, while another 45 would drop down.  Eventually we purchased 33s which were larger with a small hole.  They may have 6 songs on each side by the same artist and they had album covers with photos. I had quite a collection of 33rpm albums. After the invention of the reel-to-reel tape recorder in the 1940s, music reproduction evolved into four-track and eight-track cartridges. By the late 1960s, many cars were sold with 8-track tape players. With this popularity, there was a demand for home units and the boombox came out in the 1970s. Eight-track players for the home and vehicle became less common in the late 1970s when the compact cassette (invented in 1962) took over the market. The eight-tracks often came unlooped or creased or worse, the tape would break. Eight-tracks were phased out by late 1982.  Cassettes were only a fraction better, but quite smaller. With these I was also able to tape my favorite music with my own tape recorder.  I used this quite a bit for my teaching, recording my own voice of chapter reading. We were also watching VCR movies (a large tape-type cassette) and Blockbuster stores were renting the most current Hollywood movies. In the 80s and 90s, we spent many hours on the weekends watching movies and on occasion I would show a VCR to my students if a book we were reading had been made into a movie. Along about 1982, the CD music format came out but took a while to catch on. Movies were also now on CDs. Portable music CD players were introduced in the mid 80s but were not popular until the 1990s when anti-skip technology was introduced. I remember listening to my very own music with ear buds when travelling in the van with all the wives for playoff games in the 90s. With the advent of music downloads in the early 2000s and iTunes Music in 2003, CDs are decreasing in popularity.

Changes In My Lifetime - Fashion & Music

 

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FASHION AND MUSIC INTO MY HIGH SCHOOL YEARS

In the 50s, I had play clothes. I wore corduroy pants, and in the summer, I wore short sets. On Sunday, we all wore our “Sunday Best” to church. During the 60s, women rarely were seen outside of the home without a dress on. Mimi never wore pants. Girls were required to wear dresses to school. When I was a sophomore, a new dress code allowed girls to wear pants to school, but only in the form of a pant suit! It was a great day!

As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s, beatniks gave way to a new counterculture, the hippie. Culture closely followed America’s involvement in the Vietnam War which empowered the Hippie Movement. They did not protest; they just wanted “to do their thing.”  Hippies listened to folk music and rock, not jazz. They wore ripped jeans, tie-dyed clothing and flowers in their hair. They sought spiritual perfection through psychedelic drugs, i.e. LSD. Though this culture was miles away from my little home town, I lived some of these things vicariously through music and fashion during the early 1970s, my high school years. I wore hip huggers, bell bottoms, stretchy tops, crop tops, large platform heels and tie-dyed t-shirts. I loved the new age folk music and hard rock: Joan Baez, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Santana, Crosby Stills, Nash and Young, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Then came Woodstock Music Festival in the summer of 1969. Nearly 400,000 people flocked to New York State. It was sickening to see this play out on television, and their behavior under the influence of heavy drugs only confirmed in my mind that I would NEVER be a part of the drug culture. I was appalled at their behavior, yet at the same time, I enjoyed this new ‘revolution’ type behavior. But in my world, the youth were held in check by small community ethics and Christian values.   

The hippie movement was waning in the late 60s. Attitudes towards the “love generation” changed drastically when 5 people died at another large music festival, coupled with other violent acts: the Manson Murders and Kent State. There was growing opposition to the Vietnam War, and once again, times were changing. 

Changes In My Lifetime - Music

 HOW FASHION AND MUSIC CHANGED OUR CULTURE

Rock & Roll emerged. I can only imagine how the older generation felt as the music changed from Big Band to this new loud beat and electrical instruments. Music in the 1950s changed the world. The clothing styles changed drastically. Guys wore jeans and leather jackets (in Vernon the guys wore their letter jackets); girls wore pedal pushers and scarves. Family morals, though, remained conservative through it all. American Bandstand hosted by Dick Clark from 1952 -1989 aired on Saturday mornings.  It featured teenagers dancing to the Top 40 songs.

45 RPM records were popular, and with an older brother and sister, we were in good supply of the most current tunes.  I remember most Saturdays were spent in downtown Vernon meeting up with friends to take in a movie and then wandering around town. Mother would drop us off at the Herring National Bank where we would eat at Jacks, a well-known hamburger place where hamburgers were cooked on an open griddle. We would then walk to The Plaza on the Main Square and take in the current movie. Afterwards, we would wander in and out of stores, eventually making our way to Norsworthy Record shop. It was fun to check out the current music there because they would give us several 45s and we could take them to the listening booths in the back of the store.

The Beatles - 1960s - Original Vinyl Record 02 Stock Photo - Alamy

Changes In My Lifetime - Television

Television

Me in 1958 with our new TV 

Paula and Cousin Pam at bottom of page.

During WWII (before my time), families would gather around the radio to listen to President Roosevelt and his fireside chats. During the 50s, black and white televisions exploded onto the scene. I remember a road trip we took to see Daddy's sister (Billye Merle) and her family. They were doing well financially and had a TV, a brick home, and Billye even had a mink coat. My memory of the TV is less than desirable, as the picture was only snow and my attention was quickly diverted to play time with my cousin David so most of my memories of that trip were playing with Lincoln Logs and erector sets. This television must have made an impression on Mother and Daddy as I don't remember not having a television. Daddy must have promptly purchased one.  I would have been pre-school at the time of this trip.

So the first televisions that I remember were a very primitive form, probably a Zenith or RCA. Many times it had a snowy picture that sometimes could be adjusted by the rabbit ears on top. Tin foil wrapped around those would sometimes help with reception.  Most houses had TV antennas to pick up the only 3 channels available. TV stations would sign off at midnight with the playing of the national anthem and the iconic countdown with the Indian chief being the center of the spinning digital dial. Initially, there was no remote control. That came into vogue in the 60s, and by the late 60s, most everyone had a remote control color TV.

 Shows like I Love Lucy, and Leave It To Beaver gave birth to the modern sitcom. Game shows like The Price Is Right, What's My Line, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, Jeopardy were the rage. At its peak between 1955-1958, there were 22 game shows on air. In 1958, it came to light that the shows were rigged. It was called the fall from innocence as the American public realized that they  couldn’t blindly trust everything seen on TV.  The winning contestants in a show called The $64,000 Question had been supplied the answers in advance and this scandal prompted Congressional hearings. Though there were no laws prohibiting this, the networks and sponsors kept game shows off the air for quite some time.

 The first half-hour serial "As the World Turns" began on CBS in 1956. It became the highest rated show on TV. (In 2010 it was cancelled by CBS due to low ratings.) I remember Mimi taking time out of every day to tune into “As the World Turns.” Other TV shows that I remember: The Lawerence Welk Show, Lassie (every Sunday evening) Bonanza, The Munsters, Hee Haw, I Dream of Jennie, The Andy Griffith Show, The Today Show every morning, Captain Kangaroo, and late night Johnny Carson. I watched Popeye every single day while I munched on my after school snack which was often homemade cookies that Mother had baked. I loved Popeye, Brutus and Olive Oil. I adored the Wizard of Oz, as it always aired Thanksgiving weekend, which was the kick-off to the holiday season. I loved Saturday morning cartoons and the Christmas cartoon classics of Rudolph and Frosty.

The Ed Sullivan Show brought to light many budding stars, including Elvis Presley and The Beatles. I remember as a child being appalled at their hair styles, music and antics.  But they took America by storm.

Dressed in their Easter best, Paula Quillin and Pam Jackson