Thursday, June 24, 2010

24 June 1956 “Popeye, Color TV, My Vintage Predicament”

This cartoon came out this year, 1956, and most likely was made for TV. Though the majority of children would watch it in Black and White, color TV is available but VERY expensive. THIS is a great site I happened upon where a gentleman discusses Color Tv in America and features his two vintage color sets one of which is from 1956. Just thought it a fun summer afternoon cartoon.
I am not sure if the modern consumer in me keeps resurfacing, but I am, of late, been feeling the urge to really replace more and more of my daily life with working vintage items. As you may or may not know, we finally recently have gone down to one car. It has not been any inconvenience as of yet, but I have been thinking at some point in the future, how lovely it would be to have a vintage car. Am I merely wishing to replace my reality or to hide from what I don’t like about the modern world in one of make believe? Or, can one really alter their own reality enough so that, though safely and with all rationale live in their own present time (medicine for example and computers) yet truly continue to live out in another? Who can say?
I guess I have come so far into what was once a project, that I find I am not sure anymore. I had also mentioned in my last post that this year has seemed more turbulent than last and a follower asked for me to elaborate on that. Since then I have been trying to find ways to put it into the tangible; to find a way to express it. It is a double edged sword, really. I am happy to have made my website and my forum and to continue on here. But, now with my growing projects outdoors and the garden and my return, though tentatively, to writing some fiction and painting for myself, I wonder if I am spread too thin.
Last year I was able to focus on each day in 1955: Read the news of the time, catch an occasional show from the time, and of course continually focus on my cooking and cleaning skills. There was a simplicity and innocence to my days that seem to have gone in a sense. I don’t mean to say I am not enjoying myself but in some ways feel the balance between all that I have added has me often feeling guilty about this or that thing. If I have not updated the blog or not attended to the Forum. Yet, part of my busy building project is to allow myself not only a home for my growing chickens, but an expansion on our barn that is to be my ‘creative central’ where I can paint but also write here as well as other things. To have a meeting place for my hopeful one day ‘Vintage Club’ or Local chapter of The Apron Revolution. So, there is a method to my madness, but now smack dab in the middle of the year, in the middle of Summer I wonder if I have allowed an innocent little project to steamroll me into an odd position.
Thus, the recent feeling of even trying to alter my physical world through more vintage items. On some level, I feel that is really just the old “modern me” who finds herself daily so busy and always doing that the old ease of the modern world can sometimes seem such a draw. “What to change your feelings, feel better or become a new you? Easy, go shopping. Just buy up whatever you want to be and feel and ‘ta-dah’”. So, not really certain.
But, overall, I am still very happy and content. I do feel rather bad as if my posts are so few and not very entertaining nor informative of late. And, I really do wish for that to remain such an important part of my life, so I suppose if I know some of you will hold on while I am ‘under construction’ as it were and not think I have abandoned my project or lifestyle. I know I have not shared sewing lately (although it has been happening) nor my garden nor food etc. Some mornings I will set the breakfast table and think, “The Gals would love to see this” but then forget to photograph it. I made some lovely blueberry filled crepes the other morning with fresh strawberries and cream that looked a treat, but nary a photo to share.
Then I wonder if the more I do honestly slip into my little vintage world I feel less and less the automatic need to document every action in it. That is a very modern aspect of our lives today, documentation. With the ease of digital cameras, computers, video etc, we find endless aspects of our everyday lives being documented. I have even noticed on YouTube that people will make a video of themselves opening a new product and their reaction to getting it out of the box. Does that not seem rather overkill?
Once people shuddered at the appearance of the slide projector and wheels upon wheels of vacation or baby slides, now we are so used to seeing and taking images and video, it is just a part of our life. I wonder if I had to use an actual 1956 camera to document my life, how much of it I would actually photograph.
So, here I am in the middle of 1956 wondering which of my actions are modern and which is me simply becoming so settled into my new ‘old’ life, not sure which is the best way to turn. I do know I shall forge ahead with all my usual. Having a schedule and such has made my life so much more Open to do MORE that I could not do half of what I do now and still have a clean house, folded laundry, dinners on the table and sewn dresses and also garden, build, write and paint. I just need to find the happy medium that doesn’t leave all of you out of it. And, as winter approaches and the days our shorter and I am, again, inside more, I am sure you will be sick of the hearing my days. Perhaps I shall write 10 page treatise on how I scrubbed my kitchen floor or the best sauce for chicken croquettes ( I do make a mean croquette, if I do say so myself).
So, bear with me and I hope you are all so busy that you don’t notice my absence. Or, better yet, join the Forum and I can catch up with you there.
So, have a great day and Happy Homemaking. If you are in the mood for a fun summer vintage film, I just added Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid from 1948 with William Powell and Ann Blyth on the main page of the site under Movie of the Week. It is a fun way to approach the male mid-life crisis. Enjoy!

10 comments:

  1. I remember when color tv came out -- wealthier families had them and would invite their less-fortunate neighbors in to watch Bonanza or The Virginian (westerns were very popular; so was showing off your latest gadget) or Disney's Wonderful World of Color. The less-fortunate neighbors would watch it, thank their host for having them inn, and then go home and say, "Aaah, the faces were green...who wants a color tv? Not worth the money!" (Green faces were the drawback of color tv back then -- guess they couldn't get the flesh-tone quite right.) Kind of a sour-grapes attitude. Pretty soon, though, everybody started getting color tvs. Mary R.

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  2. Just remember that it's not a black or white issue....it's not "be in 1956 100% of the time" or "be in 2010 100% of the time." It's all about balance.

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  3. Thank you 50sgal for this interesting post. Please don't feel guilty in any way if you haven't written for awile. You do have a life to live and by all accounts, you're doing a great job! We're here waiting (while keeping busy in our own sphere, working 'along side you')for when you do have the opportunity to write. Don't feel pressure. There are different 'seasons' to our living. I do love reading all your ideas and accomplishments which are so very inspiring! Bring on the 10 page treatise. Linda

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  4. You're so right about how instantaneous and easy it is to document our live's now, it's almost become expected of us. The easier that progress has made life become, the more it also seems to clutter it back up.

    I see this in my own home, literally. It was plenty roomy for 4-5 people back in the Fifties and Sixties, but today with only two living here there's just never enough room.

    ps. You can never go wrong with William Powell... Thanks!

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  5. I can highly recommend a vintage car, but since they are old and worn and therefore not 100% reliable, I will recommend it as a second car. Perhaps I should find time to write my guest blog about vintage cars during my Summer holiday. Right now I am working myself to death at my new job, so I don’t have energy nor time for much in the evenings. I still have all my household tasks to take care of and I am tired and have to relax and go early to bed these days. I haven’t been much in the forum lately neither, since I am so envious of you fulltime homemakers and I have to admit that I cannot bear hearing some of you complaining about not having time. If you would change life – just let me know! ;)

    I also love vintage things and appliances since they often are strong and reliable and have so much more soul than their modern counterparts. And most often you get them for nothing at flea markets.

    Think of the website and your blog as something you do because you enjoy it, if you don’t, then you shouldn’t do it. I don’t want you to go around feeling guilty and bad about what you have started. I’ve mentioned it before, and will do again: You could dedicate two days a week for updating your blog and visiting your forums. Write the two days on the main page of both your blog and your website, so everybody knows and don’t expect you to be around every day. And again – I think it is natural that we spend more time outside and away from the pc during Summer than during Winter. Winter is time for inside cosyness, and that might include sitting in front of the pc.

    I’ll go home and fight the meter-high weeds in my garden all this weekend, ough!

    Have a lovely weekend, dear. :)

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  6. Sanne-You always put it in perspective and it is true that you are always busy at home AND at work and find time for it all. For me, it is not that I cannot make the time for the blog, but I have been so into my daily living in the moment that to sit down and put it into 'posterity' as it were has been increasingly hard. I think, again, because I am so much enjoying my life and projects that it doesn't happen. But, I also know it is much to do with the weather and being inside, other than to do my chores, is just not an option. Even when I take my 'lunch break' with my vintage magazines and tea (now iced tea, we Americans LOVE ice!) I sit in the garden, watch the chickens, and dream up more gardens and how I will landscape around the new chicken house/studio addition (which of course does not have its cedar shakes as of yet, just the ply exposed and such. The last time hubby and I were sitting on the terrace, he reading, I with a magazine on my lamp and a dreamy stare, he said, "Your planning more projects aren't you?" "Yes," I had to admit, "how can you tell?"
    "I can see the wheels spinning and the smoke coming out of your ears" he replied, smiled and returned to his book.
    It's true, much of my day is dreaming up and planning the other bits of my day. I find it so easy to keep myself amused and busy and yet I really want to this fall, if my barn is presentable, to try and force myself to be more social and more apart of my community. It will be a concerted effort, but one worth trying I think.

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  7. Well if I ever happen to be down on the cape I'll be sure to stop by and have a cup of tea in your barn ;-)

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  8. You said:

    "That is a very modern aspect of our lives today, documentation. With the ease of digital cameras, computers, video etc, we find endless aspects of our everyday lives being documented."

    I have had the same thought recently.

    And I agree with Sanne, even a once a week post would be perfectly fine. Then it would be easier to include photos of some of the things you have done instead of having to constantly think of taking pictures of everything you do. (o:

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  9. Post when you feel inspired, or else it will be come a drudge. Some kind of schedule is fine if it helps you, but not if it becomes a burden. Mary R.

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  10. Keeping up appearances can be a bit of a chore, it is true. However, though you may be spreading yourself thin, you once mentioned that cleaning, cooking, creating and being the 50's HW is the joy for you. If you can only publish a thorough blog post one a week, I agree with the girls: that is fine! You are the inspirational creator of this community, but you are also a real human being with a life to live full of duties and fun to be had. Wouldn't coming online more be a bit of a contradiction to the 50's lifestyle?
    My two cents. All of your wisdom, wit and cleverness are highly valued both online and off.

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