Wednesday, August 26, 2009

26 August 1955 “Some New, Some songs, and a town through visitors eyes.”

tennis 1955 1st color telecast (NBC) of a tennis match, the Davis Cup.

1st airplane to exceed 1800 mph (2897 kph)-HA Hanes, Palmdale, California

The movie “Pete Kelly's Blues” is from this year. It takes place in the 1920s. It is interesting to see how they ‘represent’ the 20’s in a movie shot in 1950’s. I have notice that up until the late 70’s movies set in the ‘past’ often rely heavily on modern takes on the past. Today, I am frustrated if they do not do an accurate job of recreating a time period. I wonder then, if it didn’t seem to matter as much, because their own present style was often rather good, so one thought little of it. When you look at the styles of 1955, I wouldn’t want to completely lose their look just to recreate the 1920s, today, however, go ahead and get every detail down, because I don’t want to see any printed t-shirts with ‘23 skad00’ printed on them!

This version of “he need’s me” by Peggy Lee is one of my favorite and I have to admit I listen to it often as it is on one of my ‘radio station cd’s’ and on an album of mine as well. I now find out this rendition is from this movie.

And here she is this year doing the same song, I think to promote the movie possibly.

Well, I just wanted to put up something today. The packing continues.

After I settle in I will take pictures of my ‘new town’ that our home is in. It is very idyllic and nice. Today a friend was in from Austin TX visiting. We took a break and went to our favorite tea shop and had tea on the porch of the old building. It is on one of the shady tree lined streets of Sandwich and the ocean breeze blew our skirts. We relaxed and visited and the cool sounds of late summer surrounded us. My visiting friend turned to me and said, “You don’t realize how beautiful it is here. You know much of the rest of the U.S. doesn’t look like this. All the greens, the big trees, old churches and buildings”

I already appreciated our little town here on Cape, but seeing it through a visitors eyes made me love it all the more. As we left and strolled down the street, I heard bagpipes in the distance. There was a corp practicing at the local town school. I realized one of the reasons I love this little town is it is very New England. And, in being so, is much as I often fantasize about old England. Of course I have been to Old England and love it and would live there in a heartbeat, but it is very hard to emigrate to that country. Funny, when I think my relatives started out there, but then again, they left and said Phooey to the monarchy, so maybe there is still a little grudge there. Anyway, I was glad to see my ‘new’ town through my friends eyes. It makes all the stress and sweat of the move worth it.

I hope all of you are enjoying summer and get a few moments to sit on a porch, drinking tea or lemonade or G&T’s what have you, and enjoy or lovely summer. I would love to hear what some of your towns or areas are like in the summer.

15 comments:

  1. lovely imagery! i liked your description. it is very stereotypically midwestern where i am. nice, flat ohio with it's fields of corn and soybeans. i am in the middle and it is much less rural, but my neighborhood is a secret rural block in the midst. we have about an acre, and enjoy our gardens and space very much. the kids have a fort/shed that is double decker. hub built it himself from his own design. they spend time there, riding bikes, swinging, playing in their own flower gardens. at least once a summer, we camp in the back yard, and use our fire pit often. it is, what i hope, the makings for an idyllic childhood. :)
    more good wishes toward your moving! i hope this last push goes smoothly.

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  2. Thanks kelly, it sounds wonderful. A two story fort? Does it have traditional stairs and all? Wonderful. Any animals? Chickens etc? Enjoy your lovely yard.

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  3. oh i wish!!! we are just a teensy bit shy of a full acre, and in our township, one must have an acre to qualify as a "homestead". therefore, no "livestock". many of our half-acre neighbors have chickens, and we would LOVE to, but are trying to teach our children honesty, even when it's not convenient (or seems ridiculous, as this does). *sigh* i hope the payoff is fine citizens and leaders in our kids!! the bottom part of the structure is a shed for the mower, and garden tools. the top is the fort w/stairs up the side. it's really quite impressive, if i may brag on hubby!!
    wouldn't it be lovely if we could all be neighbors?!

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  4. I watched the movie "womans world' it was great, all wonderful actors/actresses. The clothes were great. thanks

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  5. You wouldn't like summer here Donna :) or winter either at the moment. We have broken records for the hottest August winter with high temps around 33 degrees Celcius. It's just a 15min drive to many beaches with only one 'touristy' with highrise apartments.(5 story limits.) Growth (population, housing) has been booming here of recent years. We have sugar cane fields, sugar mills, strawberry farms, many small crop farms and lots of macadamia nut trees.

    We live in front of a 40 acre Pony Club, (with close neighbours around us), on a 'normal size block' in a humble home with our small rental property next door.

    There's also a lovely river that goes through our town/city. Our town isn't on the main highway but we still have plenty of visiting tourists and many people from Southern states holidaying in our beautiful climate. (Older retired folk too, travelling with their caravans; grey nomads.)Plenty decide to buy property and live here.
    From, Linda

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  6. sounds wonderful and yes, I wish I were rich because I would be 1000 acres and build a town and neighborhood like we would all love to have. A downtown you can walk to with ONLY private small business/restaurants. Darling houses on blocks with big trees and sidewalks built from craftsman style to victorian queen annes, there would be a neighborhood with lovely little 50's modern houses for those purist and outside of town would be larger properties with a few acres each to allow animals an such. There would be a farmers market and a coop grocery store that anyone who grew vegetables could contribute to to sell their food. We'd have closed on sunday policy and a good privately run school. Wouldn't it be a dream?

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  7. 50's Gal:

    I'll take two, please!

    I would like one of the properties with a few acres--and since we are rich (in this fantasy)--how about a retro 50's bungalow as well?

    Can't wait to host a cocktail party in the bungalow. You would all be invited to stroll on over! (Just leave the gate open on the white picket fence.)

    Kris7

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  8. I always said if I ever got rich I would buy several thousand acres, and build my own little utopia. With a GREAT BIG fence around it to keep out the world.

    Kris7, we could all have bake sales and tupperware parties as well... :)

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  9. I love your idea for this blog. My husband was born in 1955 so I'm very interested in reading about that year. I did find out that on October 2, 1955, the day my husband was born, Love is a Many Splendored Thing was the #1 song in the country. Just thought I'd throw that out there. I look forward to spending more time here looking around. I love the styles of dress during that time and the slower way of life.

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  10. welcome darcylee. I hope you enjoy it. You may want to go back and start at the beginning, unfortunately my latest posts have had to be rather sparse as I am in the midst of moving, in fact the next three days I am all out running back and forth with boxes an such and monday the truck comes!
    I am all in on that plan. A wonderful 1950's utopia. Everything up to 1959 will fly. we can keep up with the 'outside' world with our computers but all tvs will be wired to a central location that plays old tv shows and commercials of the day with a small studio for anyone who wants to make any 'new shows' that fit along the 50's guidlines. Ah, if only...

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  11. Let's see...which town would you like to hear about? ;)

    North Carolina was always SO humid in the summer. It made for very nice nights, but the days we're sticky and bordered on miserable.

    Twentynine Palms has some beautiful sunsets--the likes of which you can only imagine with all the purples and oranges coming together in ways I didn't know was possible. But again, the dry hot days feel like the inside of an oven. The sun is so intense sometimes it feels as though your skin is burning. :(

    North County San Diego (my hometown) was always nice. Days in the 80's with a nice ocean breeze and cool nights perfect for having bonfires on the beach.

    The only other town I loved during summer was Salem, OR. My cousins lived there and we'd always spend a couple of weeks with them. It used to boggle my 12 year old mind how it could rain in the middle of a sunny day for only an hour or so, and then we could ride our bikes again. Hubbs and I are trying to plan a trip up there in October so we can see what it's like in fall as it's one of the places we'd like to live eventually.

    Sorry if I hijacked your comments! :)

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  12. Back to our hometowns in summer thought...

    I grew up in a small (pop. 650) town. My cousin called it Mayberry. When I was little, it was a world within itself. We had a grocery, bank, gas station, feed store, car dealership, some industry, post office, insurance sales, two barber shops (RIP Bob *sigh*), and a couple of restaurants. Our main street was brick and was a dead end into a corn field. There was the "Sunday Shoppe" which was an ice cream parlor, and the Classics, which was an antique store. And most improtantly, we had a school. When I was in 4th grade, they shut our school down and shipped us to a neighboring district. It was awful. We were treated like second class citizens.

    After the school closed, slowly other things started to go. When we moved about 5 years ago, the grocery, the gas station, the car dealer, most of the industry...it had all gone. Looking back, I realize that the town began to fall apart when the school closed. People moved out. It is sad. I now drive through there (it is about 10 miles from where I live now) and the town is a shell of its self. They tore down the school building a couple of years ago. I cried. I believe in my heart it was the end of an era.

    I recall on summer nights when we would walk uptown and get an ice cream cone at "The Sunday Shoppe" and then head over to the park to listen to the local bands that would play there. Afterwards, we would walk around, stopping to chat with friends until it got dusk, and the mosquitos came out. My summers were filled with bike rides, long walks, chasing lightening bugs, fresh produce from the local farms and the HUGE fireworks they would have on the 4th.

    I had never realized it until just now, but in alot of ways, I was very lucky to a near ideallic childhood. We were not wealthy, but we were very blessed. Still, I am saddened some by this walk down memory lane, for the fact it is a memory.

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  13. We lived for a short time in a sweet little town near Springfield, IL. I really hated to move from there.

    The town itself was ideal...town square which included a small library, a doctor, a hotel, a fabric store, a clothing store, a post office, a gymnastics place, a beauty shop, a restaurant, and an old movie theater (which was empty and for sale).

    There was a Pepsi machine outside the beauty shop and that was my sole destination sometimes. To walk the other direction was an IGA store, a dollar store, an old-time pharmacy (with a fountain), a pizza parlor and a shaved ice stand.

    Either group of places was within walking distance.

    The greatest thing about this town, I think, was the women. They were so accepting. When I moved there, they saught me out and included me.

    I am, of course, leaving out the part about the women whose families had lived there for generations. While they were nice enough, their clique was closed. But let's not go there.

    Anyway, when I moved here...neighborliness was lacking. That's why I decided to become a welcome lady and start a community newsletter.

    Oh...I remember the summers in IL were really hot. :-) -- to stay on topic. Sorry!!

    Kris7

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  14. Just checking in again in between packing. I am very tired of wrapping paper around dishes! It is funny that I don't mind washing them over and over again and putting them away, but for some reason the act of wrapping them in paper is mind numbing. And of course you somehow always seem to wonder how one little cabinet will fill multiple boxes! To top it all off the rain is coming down in sheets today, so I have had to do NO car trips full of items. I have had the 'luxery' if you can call it that, to have a building on the property that I can 'store' the stuff in until we move, but it is only going to feel, in the end, that I have had to move twice. Oh well, what can one do but charge forward. I keep taking tea breaks and dreaming up new design schemes for the house and garden.

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  15. so sorry about the rain!! i will try to suck it southward to my yard!! i absolutely loathe packing, so i am also sending you prayers of speed and a peaceful heart. xo

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