Of course I discovered Auto Week at McDonough Tire while I waited for the Camry to be upgraded. Later on I discovered Reminisce, a magazine that takes me back in time, shows pictures from the forties and fifties, and of course there’s a crossword puzzle I can solve about things from the past. One neat challenge has readers try to identify a retro car, and most of the time I  know the make and model, not the year though. This week I knew the car was a Hudson immediately, but wasn’t familiar with the Commodore model. It was a 1949! 

  Another interesting article was about the first station wagons that came along in the mid-fifties and one ad showed an Oldsmobile Super 88 Fiesta promoted by comedian Jerry Lewis. Chevrolet had a top-of-the-line Nomad that sold for $3,000; the average annual income that year was around $5,000. Interesting that Studebaker-Packard was going through financial turmoil when they came out with the Lark station wagon in 1959 and it kept them afloat until 1963. They called it the Lark Play Wagon.

  I saw another section about swimming in public pools and of course the females all wore one piece swim suits. The article talked about the smell of chlorine, about lifeguards being totally in charge of the children and teens and mentioned words that soun-ded very familiar coming from them; no running, no horseplay, no food or drink, and anyone who doesn’t obey has to sit on ‘the penalty bench.’ I still recall our head lifeguard being that strict and all the swimmers doing exactly as he ordered. (People could rent a swimsuit at our Indian Springs public pool at the time.)

  I didn’t remember that Alaska and Hawaii joined the union in 1959. (That was the year I graduated from high school; maybe I was too focused on my senior classes.)  That was also the year Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash. They usually toured in their old school bus but decided to pay $36 each to fly on a chartered 1947 Beechcraft flown by a 21 year old pilot. No one knows why the plane crashed into a cornfield five minutes after take-off in a light snow. I also read that the famous Barbie doll came out in 1959 (for $3 each) and boyfriend Ken joined the collection in 1961. Barbie debuted at the New York Toy Fair and then Astronaut Barbie arrived in 1965 in her space suit. I wasn’t into dolls in my youth and had no idea she came out the year I graduated. It was also interesting that on January 1, 1959, the Soviet Union launched Luna 1, the first manmade object to escape the earth’s gravitational pull.  Then on August 14, 1959, the Explorer 6 satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida and transmitted the first picture of Earth from space. Of course the Xerox 914, the worlds’ first plain paper copier arrived. Dennis the Menace became a TV hit that year too. And Bonanza, the first TV Western to air in color premiered on NBC September 12, 1959. One other amazing fact was that Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 that year too.   I still remember riding to Atlanta every day not long after I graduated, to work at Life of Georgia, first filing insurance policies and then becoming a stenographer, which I loved! There was no AC in the car our co-worker drove, but somehow it didn’t bother us. It was neat riding past the prison every day, the Atlanta Zoo, and Grant Park with all those pretty Craftsman homes. I enjoyed my trip back in time, as usual and am so glad to receive Reminisce in my mail box every other month. I’m glad I’ve always loved to read!