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Today in history

<p>Go to many online message boards today and you&#8217;ll probably find fulsome praise of the 1950s.</p><p>So, was that America&#8217;s best-ever decade?</p><p>Who knows? I&#8217;m not going to take a position. But I will say there are some things that we did get right in that period &#8211; &#8220;right&#8221; in the sense that we long for them today.</p><p>So, here are my nominations for 1950s culture I&#8217;d like to see return. What&#8217;s your favorite?</p><p><strong>Store lunch counters:</strong> Woolworth&#8217;s and other retail emporiums nearly all had big lunch counters with swivel seats, sandwiches and dinners galore and low, low prices. Service was speed-of-light quick because most customers were on noontime or late-shift break from work.</p><p><strong>TV</strong><strong> sports events</strong> that finished in about two and a half hours: Relief pitchers, a plethora of challenges, and increased commercial time are just three likely suspects in the ballooning of game time to marathon lengths.</p><p><strong>Stores in which</strong> you could find things without having to ask someone: Whether you had a hankering for a pack of bobby pins, a headache powder or a cigarette load, you&#8217;d find it on a pasteboard card near the cash register and still have enough cash left for a Mars bar.</p><p><strong>Cars with leg room:</strong> I don&#8217;t understand automotive engineering, but I do understand feeling squished into a vehicle and then having trouble getting out. While we&#8217;re on the subject of cars, whatever happened to those little window vents you&#8217;d open to create a breeze?</p><p><strong>Westerns on TV:</strong> They weren&#8217;t all first-class. In fact, some were dogs. The best of them, though, were built around keeping order and solving problems of human behavior in a time when you couldn&#8217;t just grab a cell phone and call 911.</p><p><strong>Ice cream sodas and sundaes</strong> that cost 20 cents: What more can I say except that teenagers tended to have some sort of Guide Michelin for the places that put on the most whipped cream or nuts or cherries or &#8230; I can&#8217;t go on!</p><p><strong>Wild comedy at the movies:</strong> Often when you went out to the local theater, the feature would be accompanied by a hilarious, slapstick shorter film with The Three Stooges or The Bowery Boys. Bugs Bunny wasn&#8217;t bad either. Who&#8217;s that funny today?</p><p><strong>Swimming pool memberships</strong> you could pay out of pocket change: Would you believe that Wilkes-Barre&#8217;s pools once cost 50 cents for an entire summer? My father bought used cars for less than some towns now charge you for a season of splashing about.</p><p><strong>Neighborhood dogs: </strong>Dogs of all kinds were forever wandering around, looking for kids to play with. You couldn&#8217;t relax on your porch without some nondescript canine dropping by for a visit. Licenses? I don&#8217;t remember anyone ever inquiring.</p><p><strong>Local sports:</strong> We had good minor league baseball at Artillery Park, within walking distance for thousands. I preferred the Barons, a basketball team that played weekends at the adjacent armory. Then America got a better idea: watching TV and ordering pizza with eight toppings.</p><p>Well, we&#8217;re not going to bring back the 1950s any more than the Roaring Twenties. But maybe there&#8217;s a glimmer of something in there that we can transport to our own time.</p><p>So, make your choice. What would I pick? I&#8217;ll give you a hint. It&#8217;s a toss-up between the one with grilled cheese and the one with chocolate syrup. But then again, if I could spot a 10-cent pack of cigarette loads near the cash register &#8230;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Tom Mooney Remember When </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/web1_TOM_MOONEY-3.jpg</photo0><caption0>Tom Mooney Remember When </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Tom Mooney</p><p>Remember When</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history columnist. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Remember When: Nominations for slices of ’50s culture I’d like to see return