Growing Up in the 1950s in Metropolis, Ill

Most people eventually die and go to Heaven if they’re lucky.  But I know without a doubt in this old world that I grew up in Heaven on earth!  Geezer has said so many times through the years that we grew up in the absolute best of times.

This is my town in the photo, Metropolis, Ill.  And this photo was taken about 1960 or so, I would guess.

And what a busy, bustling little town it was.  Mom would take my sisters and I to town every single Saturday afternoon without fail to shop for 2 to 3 hours in our clothing stores like Simmons, Cohens, PN Hirsch, Rechter’s, the Fair Store and others.

Now how did mom manage to spend 2 to 3 hours in

When I think of growing up in Metropolis…I have ‘so many’ fond memories…just living on 5th Street and playing most of the day in the Lions Club ball park…  We’d play in that ball park all day long and kids would come from blocks around.  And we had no cell phones to check in with our parents and nobody was worried about us because they knew where  all the kids in each end of town gathered.  There was no fighting or bullying back then…everybody looked out for each other…even as kids and we were so happy and glad to do so. 
We’d play swing the statue in the evening…with some of the neighborhood kids in our front yard…or catch lightning bugs in a fruit jar…We’d go to Ft Massac and play on the swings and get a coca cola in a little glass bottle from the little concession stand. And oh my goodness…we thought we were livin’ it up…and we were. 

I loved going to the skating rink and just the smell of that old rink…and the roar of the skates and all the laughter and music filling the night air….And I looked so forward to the old county fair and walking around that little circle of circus hackers and thinking how BIG that county fair was….hahaha …..the Tilta Whirl..and Merry Go Round…and picking up the little yellow ducks and seeing my number on the bottom to see what I had won…and getting Cotton Candy…ooooooooooh la la…that Cotton Candy…and those SNOW cones…
 
I remember walking up 5th Street to the Massac Theater …again with neighborhood kids…and I remember once…we all wore those little plastic high heels you could buy back then…and how we all thought we were really ‘it’…in those little high heels….hahaha   Of course…we were EXHAUSTED by the time we GOT to the ‘show’…because none of us were used to walking in high heels..and even though they were ‘toy high heels’…they were still…high heels.

I remember the old telephone with no dial or buttons or anything…and all we had to do was pick up the phone and talk to the operator….I’d pick ours up and say to the operator….”I wanna talk to Sue McHaney”…and she’d get Sue on the line for me…Just like on Lassie…hahaha
And sometimes you’d pick up the phone and there would be someone else talking…it was a ‘party line’..and ooooooooooh how nosey little ‘me’ loved the ‘party line’…but mom would come in and find me listening to someone else and I’d get in trouble…imagine that…’me’…in trouble.

I remember walking to Ernie Coursey’s grocery down by where East End Metropolis Drugs is now…and also the little grocery down on the curve just past the Moose Lodge on 5th Street in the other direction…to get a pound of hamburger for mom….to cook supper for all 5 of us…can you imagine? 
And I remember when we were little and we all lived with my granny on 3rd Street by the Lions Club ball park….all the women would cook…while the men were working in the field or whatever and we’d have a big lunch…and just throw a table cloth over the table and have left overs for supper….nobody got sick…and nobody died….from leaving that food out all afternoon.

And oh how I loved the old Dime Store…with the old wooden floors.  June Dyer .. a friend of ours worked in there for years…and at Easter…mom would take us in to the Dime Store and let June put our names on Chocolate Easter Eggs…with a little icing tube…and Easter Sunday always meant new little pinafores for all 3 of us…and little duster jackets to match…with white purses, gloves, shoes, ruffled socks and our very own Easter Bonnets…  🙂
And all the way to church we’d sing “Put On Your Easter Bonnet…with all the frills upon it”  🙂  And we’d finish that Easter song and go right on into “Here comes Peter CottonTail…Hoppin’ down the bunny trail”…We were a musical bunch…if we were in the car goin’ somewhere…we were always singin’.

I remember the old time tv.  We have been told we had the 3rd tv in town…and we probably had the ‘first’ ….color tv…..because daddy got cellophane squares in red, yellow and blue…and if we wanted to see red tv…he’d put on the red cellophane….and blue for the blue and on and on….hahaha    And I remember the GOOD tv shows of yesterday…..The Life Of Riley….I Love Lucy…December Bride….I Married Joan…..Daddy Knows Best…..Kukla, Fran and Ollie…and on Kukla, Fran and Ollie….they’d track Santa at Christmas time and I’d get SO excited to see that Santa was getting close….I loved the Lone Ranger and Tonto….and Cisco Kid and Poncho…and Roy and Dale…happy trails to Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…until…we meet…..againnnnnnnnnnnnn……..
And Howdy Doody….Buster Brown…Davy Crockett…Andy Griffith…George Gobel…3 Stooges….oh my goodness…the innocence and the charm of 1950’s tv….and how I long for that to come back.

In the 1940’s and 50’s and 60’s in Metropolis…..supper time…was family time.   And everybody would gather around the supper table … set with a good old fashioned home cooked meal…and share the good and bad from their day.  It was the time families came together…to re-connect and meals always started off with a ‘blessing’…
“God is great…God is good…and we thank Him for our food”  🙂

I loved Wade’s 66 Inn on West 10th Street…and sometimes on Sundays..we’d go there right after church…Back in ‘my’ day…eating out was a treat…it wasn’t an every day thing like it is to most folks now…Sometimes..mom would send me to the back door of Wade’s….to pick up a Black Bottom Pie…or their Sweet Oil dressing…and I always knew we were in for a special treat when that happened…..

I remember going to old Doc Deckers…on Ferry Street…down town..and those creaking steps…and I’d climbed to his 2nd floor office with mom… to get that flat Popsicle stick stuck down my throat….and those yucky little yellow pills he gave for ‘everything’…in little paper envelopes…YUCK!!!!!!!!! I can taste them now…mom would put them in jelly…but it didn’t help much….

And speaking of Lower Ferry Street downtown…I remember my granny Anderson taking me to the Royal theater to see “Song Of The South” and that’s where I met and fell in love with Uncle Remus….and granny saw a rat run across the floor of the theater during the movie and wanted to take me home…but I cried to stay…because I was LOVING that movie  🙂

I remember when Big Johns was Bill’s Market…and Billy worked in the produce section…and every day after school…I’d go to Bills Market for a little bag of potatoes … just so I could go across the front of that store and down that outer aisle and see him standing back there…and oh my GOODNESS how my little heart would go pitter pat…and my knees would get so WEAK…and the butterflies….oh my goodness…those were the days…and I’d go home and fry all of those potatoes into french fries before mom got out of the beauty shop…so I could go back the next day and get more…….

I’ve always said I’m stuck in the 50’s…and that’s a good place to be stuck….I loved it in the ‘old days’….when there was just such an innocence and charm about life in general.  “It was a time when Sundays were sacred, nothin’ was open, church was a given, and no one even dared to cut the grass on that day”…I remember when priorities were just in a much better order…when everything about life…even seasonal decorations were more simple…you didn’t decorate for Christmas until way after Thanksgiving…..everybody had carved Jack -O-Lanterns on their porches at Halloween with a lighted candle inside….it was a storybook time to grow up….and even though most folks were poor…those who lived it…should be millionaires today…with their memories….The good old days may have come and gone for some people….but they will ALWAYS have a big chunk…of my heart!!!

Well I could just go on and on and on…talking about growing up in Metropolis in the 1940’s and 50’s.  I have a dream for Metropolis….and it is SO SO SO do-able.  All it would take is a few ‘little people with a dream and a vision’…a grant or two….or a few good donations from some of our more wealthy businessmen in town…and some elbow grease…

I want to see Metropolis go back to the way it was in the 1950’s…with old fashioned street lights….little mom and pop stores….I’d like to see people washing their own cars in their driveways on Saturday afternoon…and mowing their own yards…neighbors talking across the fence…little festivals in Washington Park…a movie theatre that only shows family movies and old timey cartoons…a real…old fashioned county fair.  And THEN I’d like us to put in a REAL…old fashioned …SKATING RINK!!!
Oh we could all go BACK to those good old days if we’d just set our minds to it and turn back the clock to the days of Old Metropolis.
And I for one…think we should get our heads together and DO it!
“A dream is a wish your heart makes…”  But “Whether you think you can…or you think you can’t…You’re RIGHT!” 

This has been a Bird’s Eye View from Round Knob Canyon and the world of the katydid…until next time…you are loved…loved…loved!