Nostalgic for the Fifties and Sixties

Post any pictures or reminiscences here that show why the 1950s and 1960s were the best - even if you weren't alive then.

I'll start with these two paint-chip sample folders from the 1950s that I bought this weekend with a lot of other ephemera and books (and a chrome dinette set) at an estate in Kingman, Arizona. Check out the cool names and colors:

Maybe tikifish can post a few pics from her collection of vintage houseplans?

Sabu

Sabu, I have so many images of 50's ephemera, I wouldn't even know where to begin! How about this one.... "5 Ways to be Very, Very Popular"

#6: "Let him feel you up under the sweater."

I hope the house I get in heaven will be half as nice as this.

On 2005-09-28 12:11, Satan's Sin wrote:

I hope the house I get in heaven will be half as nice as this.

Oh! Baby! SS, we're on the same page.

Similar (but small) image of Mexico City at night:

[ Edited by: johntiki 2005-09-28 12:33 ]

[Beavis]hehe, Beaver, hehe Paint the bedroom "Beaver"...[/Beavis]

Johntiki, I just ripped out that cadillac ad and stuck it on my wall yesterday! Weird!

It would be a few more years before they discovered you could also ride a white horse while wearing one...

Just so you know, this is what us girls do when our husbands go out with the guys...

eat slim jims?

Tikifish I always knew you had great taste! :)

For most people the iconic 1959 Cadillac is the glaring example of America's excessive automotive design of the era but I have always admired the '60 even more. The '59 had those Sputnik-esque taillight cones perched on either side of those "jet-powered" massive tailfins and man do I love them. For me they tend to sum-up the whole atomic-age, "forward-thinking" mind-set of the 1950's that we "remember" so fondly.

The razor-sharp fins on the 1960 Caddy on the other-hand tend to present a representation of the steadfast determination and preparedness America had moving into a frighteningly new and potentially apocalyptic age. The fins on the '60 appear less frivolous then the ornate tail-pieces on the '59 while unmistakeably maintaining that distinct American ideal that 'bigger is better.' To put it simply the 1960 Caddy just appeared more intense than its predecessor.

I'm sure the Cadillac designers in Detroit gave no thought to how the improved streamlined appearance could be construed 45 years later but I nonetheless find it interesting and maybe even a bit plausible. The 1960's began where the 50's left off as another prosperous, nervously peaceful decade that quickly came apart at the seams and as you see... the future was foretold in the fins. Unfortunately with the tragic and gradual banishment of the tailfin from automotive design that portal into "where we're heading" is closed for good. :)

It's funny that Sabu uses the word "Nostalgic" in
this thread.
I have been pondering this word Nostalgia for a
couple of weeks now.
I find it interesting that so many people are so
consumed with "the good ol' days" and what it
means to them, weather they were there or not.

Is this a fairly new phenomenon?
Like say the past 100 years?
I don't know if I can see Benjamin Franklin
saying "man life in the 1690's would have
been sooo much cooler".

Although I am sure there have always been
the "why...back when I was your age" kind
of statements.
But thats not quite what I'm talking about.

Even though I was born in 1965 and remember
bits and pieces, I have been drawn to the 40
year period from the 20's through early 60's
for as long as I can remember.

It's like somehow I came in on the tail end
of something I should have been more apart of.
And trying to find it in the here and now
but always fall short.
Why?
Cuz you can't go back in time...well,
at least not yet. And would you if you could?

This Nostalgia thing even influences
what my family watches on TV and always has.
Do we watch Steve Irwin? Heck No!
Only Marlin Perkins thank you!

On my son's first day of kindergarten,
he met this kid who's name was blah blah Ricardo,
my son asked if him if he was related
to Lucy and Ricky. The kid was huh? who?

So not only am I looking for something that's
long gone and can't be replaced, am I turning
my son into some nostalgic creature, pining
for the past too?
No need to answer that one...

Why are there so many of us and what
is it nostalgic people are looking for?
It just seems culturally this must be new, why
are so many people looking into the past
and not focusing more to the future?

I'm just askin'...

[ Edited by: DawnTiki 2005-09-29 11:56 ]

Hugeness. 1960 Chrysler Imperial

In response to Dawn's musings - (and maybe we need a new thread for this, so as not to hijack Sabu's pix thread?) - for me, nostalgia has NOTHING to do with it.

The 1930s-1940-1950s-early 1960s were NOT times I would have liked to have lived through. Great Depression? World War II? Prohibition? Ray Conniff? No thanks! A lot of people idealize the 1950s, but that era was just as problematic and difficult - in it's own unique way - as any other.

I have no nostalgia, and no illusions that things were better then.
I don't miss it, because I wasn't alive then.

For me, the appeal is simply and purely aesthetic.

I think the fashions of that era were far more interesting than now... but on the other hand I'd have had my ass kicked in past decades for being a "vagrant"(I'm not) or a "queer" (I'm not) or a "Commie" (I'm not) or something like that for dressing how I did as a teenager. Now I have the freedom to dress how I want.

I think the cars of that era were far more interesting than now, but look where they got us: global oil shortages. I loved my very efficient Nissan, and I am thinking about ditching my new car and getting another smaller one. But damn, those old cars LOOK COOL!

I think the mainstream movies of that era were far more interesting than the mainstream movies we have now. But look at all the great indie movies we have now that couldn't have been made in the 1940s, for example. And all of the foreign films that we can enjoy in art houses and on DVD. And DVD players at all! Yeah, I love me some Marx Brothers, Thin Man, Bogart, Film Noir, Garbo, Hayworth, and Tierney... but I also dig that Hal Hartley, Jean Pierre Junet, and Darren Aranofsky are getting a chance to do what they do today, and that I can watch it all - new and old - at home, whenever I want to.

I think the architecture of that era was far more interesting than now. I love some googie, some Tiki, some Frank Lloyd Wright, and a lot more. And I hate all of the generic condos popping up all over the place. They're all flimsy looking travesties buit with no sense of aesthetics and no thought as to the impact of the building on the community. But face it: all of the old buildings will eventually crumble.

I think the Tiki Bars of that era were far more interesting than the new ones today, with a (very) few exceptions. But I love me a Tiki Oasis, Hukilau, and Hot Rod Hula Hop. I know of no festivals of Polyesian Pop fans that took place, ever, before less than ten years ago. Modern Tiki has a sense of community that I don't believe existed in the old days.

I could go on and on: furniture, graphic design, music... it all just seemed better in the middle century. But all of those things are really superficial stuff, the window dressing for life, and are all distractions from the things in life that are really important: health, peace, prosperity, family, education, etc.

As an archivist, an aesthete, and a preservasionist, I like to surround myself with old things from the 1930s to early 1960s. But this is form over function. Since I prefer the way the old clothes, old appliances etc., LOOK, I have them.

But a lot of that old stuff is also simply falling apart, and in many cases (household appliances, cars, etc.) the new stuff is, functionally, better.

So no, I don't have any nostalgia for 'the good old days' as a whole, except for where purely superficial things are concerned: the industrial designers, graphic designers, architects, musicians, film makers, and fashion designers back then were a whole lot more hep!

But those things are the little things in life, the frosting on the cake, or maybe I should say: the umbrella in the Tiki mug.

All of that said... I'd really like it if modern architects, designers, car makers, TIKI BAR OWNERS, major record labels and film studios etc., were all more interested in that 'umbrella'...!

I blame the dirty hippies.

Dawntiki brought up some good questions in a thread that she must have deleted...

On 2005-09-29 11:22, DawnTiki wrote:
why are so many people looking into the past
and not focusing more to the future?

Simply because the future doesn't look as promising as it once did... in fact it looks pretty damn scary. It's easy to look back at history with "rose-colored glasses" because we know how things turn out and we take comfort in that... we know now that a good majority of us survived the Depression, we know now that the good guys won World War II and we know that we survived the Cold War... but if you lived during those times things definitely weren't certain. History has been written... the future is anyone's guess.

I'm posting a picture of my parents in Las Vegas in 1955. They're standing in front a slot machine that says: "Three bars showing in any position wins $5 jackpot". I think they both looked pretty zazz in plaid.

(edit to keep on topic)

[ Edited by: ookoo lady 2005-09-30 07:45 ]

On 2005-09-29 11:06, tikibars wrote:
Great Depression? World War II? Prohibition? Ray Conniff? No thanks!

Don't be dissin' Ray C!

-Sweet Daddy T.
Because crap doesn't buy itself.

blog

[ Edited by: Sweet Daddy Tiki 2008-05-23 13:24 ]

To bring it back to the original direction, I have been looking everywhere for 50's paint colors. My Mom's house needs repainting and the neighbors have all started restoring their 50's tract homes in the original paint colors. Unfortunately, the previous owners painted our house a nasty two tone brown and we want to change the color but make it different from the others. One neighbor has the "Tropic Green" with "Bay Leaf" trim, the other has "Surf" with "Mellow Ivory" trim. We have the original blueprints from the house but exterior paint color isn't specified. These chips give me an idea of what direction to go in! I seriously have been looking for 3 months now, all I could find was an old flyer from Sherman Williams and it wasn't much help. Kind of a tribute to the 50's paint scheme rather than actual color. Thanks for posting these Sabu!

Also, on a side note, she purchased this house in 1975 for $22,000. It was appraised for $545,000 last month. Doesn't seem possible.

[ Edited by: DawnTiki 2005-09-30 00:51 ]

Stuff-o-rama, if you track down an original paint chip from the 50's you could take it to Home Depot or Lowes and have them match it... I know a local Home Depot in my area has a cool machine where you place a color sample on a mini scanner and it does all the necessary work in providing the pigments needed to replicate that color as well as listing its complimentary shades... I've never had to use it put you basically could scan a chunk of orange peel and it'd replicate the color!

I know this is technically from the 40's but I would have absolutely loved to have traveled on a Streamliner!

I love this topic!

Heywood Wakefield made some of the coolest furniture ever!

I dig the clean lines, the neon and even the use of the word apothecary!

JohnTiki

Aloha from the enchanted Pi Yi Grotto in exotic Bel Air Maryland!

[ Edited by: johntiki 2005-09-30 12:28 ]