I came across an interesting quote:
"I grew up in the '50s," said Hugh Pearson, 63, a retired builder from Bakersfield, Calif. "That was a wonderful time. Nobody was getting rich, nobody was doing everything big. But it was 'Ozzie and Harriet' days, 'Leave It to Beaver'-type stuff. Now we have all this MTV, expose-yourself stuff, and we have no morality left, not even by the legislators."
It makes for a great news-bite but let's look at this further. If its 2010 now & he's currently 63, that would mean he was born roughly in 1947. He was 3 when it began & 13 when it closed!
BTW, I'm doing the "face-palm" right now.
Back when I was that age, my biggest concern was catching the latest episode of the original Transformers cartoon. Or yelling at my sister for disassembling my latest Legos creation, or playing GI Joe w/ the neighborhood kids in the woods by my old house.
I guess its a testament to the effectiveness of the Madison Avenue cultural propaganda machine.
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In other news...
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This here is Ashley. We met each other many moons ago through the connection of a mutual friend. It didn't work out for quite sometime, she was coming as I was going & vice versa. That sorta thing.
Low & behold she was like 8 months pregnant or something & found herself in my area & inquired about a shoot. I made time the following week.
It was kinda tough considering Mother Nature forced us indoodrs, the limited time available, & not to mention, it was my first preggo shoot in like 7 years. I think both of us did a pretty darn good. Preggo shoots are always tough trying to hit the model at the right angle that shows off the bump (the thing everyone wants to see apparently) & remembering that the model won't have same movement mechanics.
Anyways, here's the lovely Ashley & her then pregnant self.
Feel free to comment away on anything written here, if you so desire.
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6 comments:
The 50s were great if you were a middle- or upper-class straight white male. I'm not sure it was so for the other 70% of the population. This sentiment reminds me a lot of the Afrikaaners in South Africa who long for the good old days of apartheid. They think it's great because they either didn't see The Other. Or otherwise they mythologized The Other's standard of living with self-serving rationalizations like the "nobility of poverty" and "they all seemed happy" (because they learned that honesty was dangerous).
What's amazing about this sort of resentment is that in both cases, the gap was closed not by bring down the elites but by bringing up everywhere else. And yet the elites perceive a personal loss for them and folks like them. It's a testament to how the feeling of privilege is related to relative status, not absolute status.
Oh yeah and I too long for the days when every time you heard a siren, everyone would freak out like there was a nuclear attack.
The fear was so strong that even when I was little, I got very nervous every time they broke into a program to give a special news report.
Ah yes reminiscing about the fear of nuclear holocaust... the good old days indeed.
Brian,
I had a much longer essay analyzing the 50's as well as someone saying they felt really proud of the accomplishments they acheived in the 1960's but axed it due to wanting a tighter focus on the quote.
Proud of your accomplishments (in the 1960s)? Are you sure you actually lived in during that time?! They killed off everyone who wanted to improve it. Its the closest we came to a 2nd Civil War. & they elect the worst possible leader at the worst possible time.
In fairness, the mid-60s through early-70s were a very tumultous time but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. I think it's fair to say that what happened during that time period completely transformed America into a much more meritocratic country. Pretty much everything changed, the whole framework of society. It didn't complete the job of equality for blacks, women, gays, etc. or the job of a fairer society; but what it did was to complete transform societal expectations that said equality was a desirable goal and that forward movement was not only possible but demanded. What that time period did is set the ball rolling forward...
The problem with America is that we need need violence, whether real or rhetorical, to change things. That's why we have civil wars and culture wars and drug wars and wars on poverty... Would the civil rights' movement have gotten as much sympathy if the Birmingham cops hadn't brutalized blacks with hoses and attack dogs in front of national TV cameras? Slavery may not have been the only cause of the Civil War but the Civil War was the only way we could end it. The change that happened because of the 60s and early 70s could not possibly happened in America without widespread social unrest? That relentless pressure is what pushed us to pull our troops out of Vietnam and lack of said pressure is why we'll be in Afghanistan for much longer.
In short, I would not in a million years have wanted to live in that time period (mid 60s to early 70s) but I have no doubt America's better for the social action that happened then.
Wow thank you for the compliments matthew! It was so amazing to work with you and I am so greatful for the photos!
<3 ash and Landon (my lil boy)
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