He Reveals What 1950s Men Thought & Did

well in the 50s the early 50s my father passed away he was very young he was in his early 50s in fact and my mother and my father was in the grocery business and my mother continued on with the business and I never liked the business and that's when I started driving a cab and I used to do the things that most guys my age like say 23 24 and so forth and that age bracket we used to hang around what we called the Hut and while what was the hot shop in those days that was the local hangout and that was one of Mary its first ventures into big business as such and we had a certain hot shop uptown that we've every night just like clockwork we'd go up there because we knew somebody would be there if you've ever watched that show on television happy days it's the same type of thing you know where the crowd assembled every night and these were not teenagers now these are very young adults I guess you would call and from there everything emanated from there I mean we'd go out get something to eat and go to a movie or go to a burlesque show or anything you know and we'd even wait till late at night two o'clock in the morning we'd take a trip over to Baltimore just to get a sandwich or something you know we were that type and these do the same things the kids in those days are a little different I mean we go out on Saturday night we dressed to the tease I mean we'd have in those days the big thing where they ducktail haircuts and he suede shoes and the one button roll jackets double-breasted overcoats and you always wore a hat because if you didn't wear a hat you we we were always told that we weren't completely dressed so we wore a hat everywhere we went we looked like the Junior MAFIA I was walking down the street and we did generally we'd go to the beaches in the summer on the weekends we go up to Atlantic City we go through local beaches down near Annapolis on a Sunday afternoon get dates just like anything else and some of the guys were into gambling and they'd go have their card games they go to the racetrack everybody had their own little thing that they used to like to do you know so we just had a general easy time of it it was a good period of time for us I mean what life wasn't too complicated we didn't need brain new cars like some of the kids have to have today we had well for me I had cars that were always 10 years old and I was always used to pray and hope that they would get me where I had to go for the most part and I was sort of daring in a way I'd take the car and long trips and never worry about it I might have to bald tires on there things like that didn't bother us I mean we weren't reckless but still you know we just had a little easy time of it it was just a easy way of life in fact the Big Bad came out I have to laugh when I think about it it was called cardigan jackets there were sport coats without collars the musician started the fed and I remember I got my first one and my father looked at that and to him that was so way out he couldn't believe it and even though I was wearing a tie and shirt very neat you know with the suede shoes and my purse like understand that jacket though and when I look at the kids today some of the things they wear and I look back at that that was mild compared to what they're doing today you know what their clothes so if the 50s were a good period of time see my father was a little different as long as he had a roof over say he was from the old days you know he believed in having a roof over you had food on the table and clothes on your back nothing fancy you know if you had in one car that ran well he was satisfied he was easily satisfied that's one reason I don't drink today maybe because it wasn't in the house I never thought of it and I don't even like the taste of it really but you know my life was rather simple at that time I mean my mother used to get up in the morning make everybody breakfast and we run into school or work or whatever we did and a father would go off to work you know down in the store and all and I'd come home at night next time I'd see the family I'd be it'd be evening you know when I'd get off from work and all and we'd eat dinner and then that's when television was just coming around I mean we got our first set in 47 but it was still black and white in the 50 shed and we used to come upstairs and watch the the various shows and my grandmother was living then with us and my grandmother was at that time probably in her 70s and she loved anything rough I mean it had to be football it had to be the wrestling match another big thing in those days was the roller derby that was very popular on television she loved that she went crazy for that state thing and that was generally the way things were we used to like to watch the boxing matches in those days they were very popular on two nights a week you had the Pabst Blue Ribbon fights and the Gillette program one was Wednesday night one was Friday night and they always had the greatest fighters in the world in those days we thought that the 50s produced some of the best fighters that they ever came about as far as that went the Redskins were milling along you know as they have this year anyway and that was our other thing we used to watch and of course we had baseball that was a big thing for me it personally I loved baseball and I used to love to go out and watch the old senators and I really that was my team I don't care if they were last place every year they were still my team you know you see I come from a family my mother was born in Russia she came here when she was five years old and my grandmother and all her brothers and sisters from Europe they used to always say four years before all this you know the Communists threatened as they called it they say you can't trust the Russians they used to say in those days don't believe anything the Russians tell you and that was sort of drilled into my head you know that the Russians were bad characters you know you don't mess with him or you can't depend on him or anything else so that was sort of in the family you know it was always talked about and we'd get over my grandmother's house in those days she lived with you know my grandfather was still living you know and they talked about the world events and then I remember back in the 40s even when Walter Winchell was on television I mean a radio I'm sorry on radio and everything would stop and everybody would crowd around the radio and listen to Walter Winchell and the first thing you mentioned about the Russians zapped everybody start babbling amongst themselves you know but the Russians to my family always seemed like a constant threat of some sort I was born in a neighborhood in Southeast Washington about five blocks from the Capitol building we start off with show you how I grew up in a way get a little background into it and my neighborhood was always half black and half white in that area I lived in and those people had been living there the families that's I mean we hadn't but the others in the neighborhood I mean living there for some of them a hundred years the families and everybody in the neighborhood called each other by their first name and my father always told me that you have respect for everybody that's older than you so I didn't care who they were black white Chinese or anything it was mr. so-and-so and mrs. so-and-so and that sort of thing that's why we grew up as kids we were taught this and if I was over there well I had a couple black friends I used to play with you know if I was over one of their houses around dinnertime the mother would say are you supposed to be home for dinner I'd say uh well I guess so you know yeah that's all right I'll call your mother and tell you're gonna stay here for dinner and my mother would do the same thing that you know in our house you know if they were there playing with me we'd eat dinner and we never thought about it we were integrated before integration ever became the fad so to speak and the only difference was in Washington we just didn't go to schools together or the movies together I think that's about the extent of it we used to go play football every day at least you know playing the streets and those days we played games are right in the streets we used to play hockey on rollerskates and things like that we never even thought about it the whole issue it seems came up in the 60s and I was almost thund in the sixties in a way from all this you know the integration and everything not from the why in the 50s to when they started in the early 50s when he integrated the schools and all and then it dawned on me what's been going on all these years you know we didn't had separate schools I didn't think about it in those days never even crossed my mind one of the big things that I noticed and I couldn't stand it at the time it just got to me who was it I think it was George Wallace or a father so I forget which one stood in the school door I forgot which one it was and wouldn't let the black kids in was gonna block the kids from Wallace history and Wallace stood there and I and I said to myself happen to me and do that you know I just don't understand I have a soft spot in my heart about kids anyway and the thing is I can't stand and see a kid denied an education which say every kid should have and another thing I can't stand to see kids go hungry which i think is one of the total disgraces in this country when we have hungry kids on the street but that got me thinking I'm saying what kind of people are these down here then of course you used to see the movies with the Ku Klux Klan running around you know in burning houses and everything else and I guess maybe I don't understand cruelty from one person to another maybe that's the bottom line I don't know I really don't right now in this part of the eighties the last part here we're finally seeing a peace coming of a day but they were fighting 30 years ago about and basically it's the the Communists I mean you know it's not so much but yeah the kids were right in a sense about getting out of Vietnam I will give them that they should have got out of that that was a stupid war stupid thing all around we got involved in it we got in too deep the French were the only smart ones they walked out of there and left it and they said that's enough we've had enough they almost went bankrupt in France from that war and we should have learned from the French how much money they lost and they couldn't win it so what do we have to jump in for and now I see the benefits of not being in all these wars and everything kids are starting kids are plenty smart today they get they can get a good education I don't say they are getting a good education but they can get a good education a lot of this is stem back from the 60s they pushed for a lot of different things reforms I don't know exactly which ones the set and the other but a lot of things have happened to us now we're we're doing pretty well in this country I mean we have a little financial problem you know deficits and all that but that's government I mean you know they will have those but the only bad thing that's happened now I don't know why but we don't seem to be educating the kids as well as we should one thing well yeah some of the in the 60s they were laid back a little too easy and you know like they didn't care and maybe some of that rubble you know these kids today they see some of that maybe they picked it up a little bit you know I mean I don't know I mean it's hard to say but it's a shame a big country like this with all the power and money and resources that we have we can't do any better than what we're doing in the school system here I don't mean to bring us into it but still the school system should provide an education for these kids and now good education in fact I can't understand why a kid can't go to college without any money it's always been another thing I'm not crawl I can't understand why it's got to cost ten thousand dollars a semester to go to school and these kids can't afford it school college should be one step after high school just like you go from junior high school to high school you should go from high school to college and if you're not college material at least go to a trade school after that some type of technical school or trade but make sure these kids get some kind of foundation so they can have decent lives I was still relatively young you know and Here I am I drove a cab and I was driving the sightseeing bus in the spring and summer and all I was putting in long days you know anywhere from 10 to 14 hours a day some days you know depends on what happened and we work overtime down to the bus company you know and I'd have to work that in 15 16 hours some day you know just run the tours and in the season some days I worked seven days a week when they got short-handed I had to come in on my day off and everything and I didn't particularly appreciate these kids lolling around doing nothing and Here I am out there killing myself to keep a family going and even today I can't appreciate it I still hack you know I mean and I'm still putting in my 12 hours a day and as you can see I'm not that young anymore and and when I see people just flan during their lives away like that just letting things go it gets to me I guess you know and that's why those guys appeared to me in those days they just didn't care you know they thought they were gonna live off of somebody else and god forbid you should ever give in to them and give them something then you never get rid of them - they they just hang on you know what I mean just like leeches and I just couldn't understand it I guess like I say I'm born in a different era when things were different people were different and even from that time the 60s till today the people have changed a lot more lacs today than they were even in the 60s I feel I don't know I see this on the street all day long with the you know running the cab and all people aren't considerate the day like they used to be and that's another thing those kids in the 60s they didn't they weren't considerate in a lot of time in a lot of cases they could care less what happened to you they it seemed to me they were some of them were so real so sweet that I couldn't believe them I didn't know whether it was an act or what you know but the minute you crossed him I found out one thing the minute you crossed their mind up with anything like they were acting ultra sweet about something you know oh you poor man or something like that you know they'd come on with if you did anything disrupt their routine you could see the ugliness come out in some of them you know it was amazing I just not that I'm a big judge of people but back in their mind somewhere they had a lot of ugliness - not all them but a lot of them and I don't know they were different they just and it got to me like I say because me and all my friends were working hard people younger than me at that time in fact relatives and friends and we were like they say we were busting our hump trying to keep up with things you know keep the rent paid food on the table clothes on the kids back send them to school send them on their projects their field trips and have money for all these things then have a little money left over at the end the week so you take your wife out to a club or a movie or something you know so you life wasn't really disappointing at least you got something out of it you know but you had to work I mean it was just no way you could get around it but I remember one incident in Georgetown they told the kids out there it was back in the 60s too that they didn't like the way they were dressing they were sloppy and everything so they told him they gonna have to wear jackets and ties to class sport coat or a suit coat or something so the kids wanted to rebel but they didn't know how to do it so he did they got all dressed up and what they did they didn't wear socks I thought that was funny in a way to me it struck me funny that was their way of rebelling but that was a general way of rebelling so that I can go along with because it got a little humor in it and they weren't bad kids you know they pretty decent kids but they had to find a way to make a statement and that was it not wearing socks and I don't know whatever became of that regulation as it was but I think when you get older you get a little more cautious anyway more so than when you're young because when you're young you know you don't think about a lot of things you do it it's you know spontaneous but when you get older you think out things a little more you get a little on the cautious side and you're not gonna you jump into something real quick without thinking about it I guess it made me that way I mean I became a little more conservative as time went on and I think everybody does everybody becomes from Democrats they go to Republicans when you get older it's always seems that way everybody ever talked to when I was young they were all Democrats now find out half the people I know are Republicans now I don't know why but that's the way it works out now my father once said to me I'll never forget this as long as I live he doesn't like a reformer or as he used to call him a do-gooder in office he's calm do-gooders I said why papi he's because every time they get in office it seems like all the businesses go out nothing that happens in business they make it tough for a guy to operate and business then he would lie and you know add on to it he said I only want a man in office that I can get to he said that's the American system he says and that system works and nice to poopoo the thing I'd say you can't be serious you know I was for ideals yeah I was gonna set the world straight now as you can't be serious these when you get older you'll understand what I'm saying and as I got older I started understanding what my father had said and it made a little bit of sense I mean I still can't condone a guy going I'd just out-and-out stealing you know I mean a politician and all that but it seems to work in a sense that system of you take care of me I'll take care of you and miss that in the other like up New York many years ago ii used to have what they used to call the ward healer in every ward in new york city had one guy used to go to with all your problems he'd get you jobs he'd get your health care he'd get your food and everything well when lindsay became mayor up there and many years ago he wiped all that system out and now what happened was everybody came down to City Hall to get what they needed and City Hall couldn't handle it so they wipe you know they cut off their left arm telling what's the oldest version cut off the nose despite the face and that's what happens I just I don't like to be real liberal I don't like to be real conservative I like somewhere dead in the middle you know moderate I guess is the better word to use I don't like crowds first of all I mean after working out on the street all day long smelling these gas fumes and arguing with people over the fair and the cab and bratty kids breathing my face with colds and give me the cold I've got things like is when I get home at night believe me I shut the door and I stay there the only way I know anything about the outside world nowadays is what I see on television with the newscast and the documentaries that I watch

Channel: David Hoffman

Views: 2,264,330

Rating: 4.9347801 out of 5

Keywords: 1950s, 1950s teens, 1950s cars, 1950s tv, roller derby, Redskins history, communism, American dream, Walter Winchell, Russians, Washington DC history, streetball, George Wallace, Little Rock history, David Hoffman filmmaker, pool hall, 1950s college, trade school, 1960s, manners, bring back the 50s, maga, trump, ok boomer, Conservatives, Republicans, education failure

Id: NS4UT_t73b0

Length: 18min 10sec (1090 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 05 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/LessCarpenter]

This video demonstrates how rarely we ever see a real person just being themselves in the media anymore. I’m not sure how many humans still have a solid sense of identity at this point - hence the contemporary obsession with identity? We need more reminders like this that a decent life requires a decent society. Thanks for posting.

[u/Metadine]

This was incredibly interesting to watch and listen. Thanks for the post!

[u/PatrickBrown2]

This was great to listen to, I wonder if he's still around.

[u/[deleted]]

Sad to see so many people influenced so heavily by corporate entities which have corroded the identities of the majority of society. Many people seem to be very high strung or stressed out all the time, do not have any sort of personal identity, and their main source of identity is materialism (e.g. the brands they wear or the amount of followers they have). The quality of education has fallen, universities are pumping out more kids who are not only dumber, but think they are intelligent and do not have any critical thinking skills. One "wrong" opinion and they have a mental breakdown or panic attack. It doesn't take much of a stretch to compare today's events to the fall of the Roman Empire.