Living Through The 1940s I was just thinking about all the different shows which are now available on television and streaming. It sure beats the seven channels that were available in New York City when I was a kid. While it is great for the viewer, it has really hurt the content maker. Today, if you get a couple of million viewers for a show, it is a success. In the old days there was a television show with a comedian named Milton Berle. It was getting incredible numbers of viewers. The same was true for a variety show run by Ed Sullivan. That show was a must for most of America’s television audiences. Elvis Presley made his appearance on the show, became famous, and many were outraged by the way he swung his hips. One of the things some people considered charming was the fact many shows were live and there were often mistakes made. When the advent of most shows being filmed, those mistakes went away. I remember one movie star being interviewed. I don’t remember his name anymore because it was so long ago, but he was not the biggest star and played character rolls in ghost movies and such. He was sitting on what looked like a kitchen chair and answering questions, but he was leaning back on the chair and it was on the two back legs. I bet you can guess what happened. Yes, the chair flipped over and people rushed over to him but he was fine. Today, many might wonder why certain shows became very popular. One such show wouldn’t stand a chance today. It was a music show run by Lawrence Welk who led his band in dance music. He was famous for start out by saying a one, a two and a three. Actually, the music was quite nice, but today the only audience it could probably gather would be the elderly crowd. His music used to be called champaign music. There were some very good dramas back in the old days and one of the most famous was Studio One. They would present a different drama every week. They would be based on all different types of stories ranging from life lessons to science fiction. I remember one which had a theme which has been redone a few times in current movies. It has to do with other dimensions. A scientist invented a machine which allowed him to see other creatures living with us which looked like vicious fish floating through the air. Unfortunately for him they could also see him and attacked him. When baseball started being shown on television it became really big. There seemed to be even more baseball fans back then. So many, that has you walked down the streets of Brooklyn and passed stores, many of them would have the Brooklyn Dodgers game on and you could hear it as you walked by. When televisions became popular, when you passed a store selling them, you could almost be sure they all would be tuned to the game. One thing I remember was how different it was from today when you went to a doctor’s office. First of all, you only went there if you were there for something minor. I don’t recall anyone going there for checkups, and if you were sick the doctor came to your house. When we used to go to the doctor’s office there were no machines or gadgets there, just a case on legs which contained some of the tools of the trade and some bottles of different medicines. One has to wonder how the doctor knew how to treat us, but somehow, he did. When I was a baby, it was before penicillin came into general use and sulfur-based drugs were used and tasted really terrible. I remember having to take a chocolate based one that tasted so incredibly bad, I couldn’t eat chocolate candy for many years after. When the Second World War started, there was different food types we couldn’t get. A lot of food was needed to feed the military. I never understood that because we were still feeding the same number of people and it seemed just the food distribution was different. Two different food stick in my memory. One was the substitute for butter, the other for ice cream. The butter substitute was a lump of packaged white lard with another packet of what looked like paprika. You would mix the red stuff by hand into the white lard. It was terrible. The ice cream substitute was a powder you would mix with something, maybe milk, I forget. Next you would but this in a container and into the freezer if you had one. We didn’t. Even though we were poor, my mother managed to get us to the movies every once in a while. The matinee was a quarter. Movies were different then because famous stars would make appearances now and then. You really got your moneys worth, because you saw two movies not one. There was a movie house which I have spoken about before which cost ten cents to get into. It showed old movies of the kind kids would like. You could see 3 movies, 21 cartoons, and a comedy race and you were given a ticket with a number on it and if the character in the race who wore your number won, you got a cheap prize. The movie house even had a candy counter specializing in really inexpensive candy. They had small chocolate bars for only two cents. Needless to say, the place was packed with kids on Saturdays. In those days the news didn’t travel as fast and it seemed a lot more accurate. News papers would put out more than one edition a day and papers like the New York Daily News had at least three editions during the day. My grandfather had to get the Night Owl edition every day. People didn’t seem to be as political then as they are today and I don’t recall very many political arguments like there is today. We may not have had computers and television in my apartment, but I did have toys and I always went out to play. Something that seems lacking today. On the block where I live there are plenty of kids, but I never see them outside playing. I have heard this from many other people. No wonder why many of the kids today are so weak and others so obese they can’t qualify for the military. They just don’t get enough exercise and fresh air. We kids back then had just as much fun and probably more than the kids today.
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