Introduction

Luacres

We often think that times were much more simple during our youth, but in reality they are very complicated for those passing through their teen years. Bodies changing, feelings often differing from one day to the next because of all the hormonal activity that is taking place…and as first-time experiences are met there are no filters to lessen the shock of the newness or guideposts to recognize as we move toward maturity. Life is complicated at that age, but there is a willingness to drink it all in without stopping for a breath. Youth guzzles life as if it were sweet nectar that will assure “it will go on forever.” So it was when I reached the age of sixteen in the fall of 1957.

During the previous year, as a sophomore, the expectation was to “wait until next year” and the reality of being able to drive, which would give me more freedom. It was both a new independence and new responsibility. Both were foreign to me. I had been cloistered: dependent upon the family, the school bus, and my legs to get me to where I wanted to go. That all changed one month into the new school year (number eleven.) I could now drive. Those last three months of 1957 hastened the process of maturing.

The preceding 10 years were a prelude to the experiences and changes that were about to take place. The world was changing too. I had heard about the Depression and with it the experiences of my elders. It hadn’t seemed to affect my family since they were stable and survived. World War II was another story. While no one died in my immediate circle, many had served including my dad, followed shortly thereafter by my oldest brother.

The Fifties were the ”smooth years” as I remember them.  There was the Korean War, of course, that dominated the early years of my memory. It did not, however, interfere with my love of baseball and all that entailed. But in the three years of the war dominating the news little was said about it in school or around the dinner table. It was troubling to my brother Dave and his friends who were draft-age. Dave had a college deferment and was married in 1952. He and his wife soon had a child, which made him immune to conscription. Beyond that, the Korean War was an adult topic for me. And so too were the McCarthy hearings. TV was new then and the boring political drama that was taking place held little interest to me at the time, but as I grew older I was glad I at least had memories of the players and their points of view. It was not a pretty time in America…all that Red chasing that was going on.

Nonetheless, the single most significant event that I recall was President Eisenhower’s heart attack that occurred shortly after he was re-elected in 1956.  I remember reporting it to my Sunday School class and my teacher, Eleanor Sloan who reminded me that we should not joke about such things. She had not yet heard the news.

There was the “You Auto Buy Now” campaign that signaled the recession of the mid-fifties.  An advertising jingle in early 1956 for Ford said, “You could buy a 56 Ford for just 56 a month. It’s the two-tone beaut with the V-8 scoot, the eight most people want.”  That was almost an unheard of deal that required a three-year contract. Only houses were bought on payments then and credit cards only existed, if at all, to buy gasoline. Credit was tight. People paid cash or put things in lay-away. It was a symbol of the times…just ten years after The War and 15 since The Great Depression. I understand it all much better today, but in the middle 1950s it is just the way life was.

Money was tight, but it didn’t seem to affect us.  My brother, Jim, and I raised sweet corn in the summers of 1954 and 1955.  Then, he enlisted in the Air Force at the end of his senior year in 1956. His leaving home proved to be liberating to me leading up to getting my driver’s license.  With Jim’s departure, I had no competition for the family car. That is how I thought at that time and it seemed that the world revolved around “me.”

Three months after the launch of Sputnik I, the Russian satellite that marked the beginning of the space race and caused much consternation in the lives of young people throughout the United States, it fell to Earth. The date was January 4, 1958.

Sputnik went up on my 16^th birthday, October 4, 1957, and put a boost in science and math education like no other event in my memory. We discussed it at the lunch table at school and we were convinced that “the Russians” were going to do us in. It was said that “we” were behind in the space race and therefore, we risked losing the Cold War to the USSR. It was a wakeup call to students and educators; at least the press said so. It symbolized that evil was advancing and while he had not yet uttered the infamous words “We will burry you,” Soviet- Prime-Minister-to-be Nakita Khrushchev must have been having those thoughts and the chill of falling behind the Bolsheviks in any manner was sobering; we had come to believe that America was the best at everything. I took the event seriously; no more breaks in my math education and I would follow chemistry in my junior year with physics when I was a senior. I was determined to do my part.

After High School (1959) life takes on new meaning. The four years I spent at Penn State changed me. As the alma mater goes (or used to before they made it gender neutral): “Thou didst mould us dear old State,/Into men, into men.” Yes, I had fun, but I realized there was another world out there…beyond the old farmhouse on the “Morning Side of the Hill” as Mother used to call it. I got bit by the Love Bug and realized that the world did not revolve around me.

Four-plus years in the Navy gave me a new World View. Not only had I seen more of the world, I also had successfully competed with young men from all over the country…from big universities and small colleges; from the Ivy League to the Pacific Ten. Those experiences broadened me. And of course, during this time I got married. So, the 1960s were significant years amidst all the turmoil. It was a troubling time and at the same time it was an adventuresome time for our family.

The world from 1958 on will be discussed as long as those of us who were born before Pearl Harbor are still around. It was a great time to be alive.

Foreword

I considered writing some thoughts about my early adult (formative) years since 2000 when I published the story about Luacres (our farm home.) I had several reasons to do this new piece. First, as time goes by and some of these stories get lost. If they are going to be recorded they better get done while one remembers clearly. Secondly, and perhaps the primary reason, is that there is a growing interest among the “forty-somethings” in our family who have an interest in events and experiences as they led up to their early childhood. “What was your dad like?” came up this summer as Amy and Shannon talked about their recollections of their grandparents.  And there are 12 others in their generation that might be asking the same question. I didn’t have that advantage (to discuss those things with the older generation) when I was their age and life is richer if it is shared.

So where does one begin? I chose 1958 because that was my junior year in high school and I had just turned 16 and was beginning to feel like an adult. Also, it was 50 years ago (when I began this project) and there were stories I wanted to tell. It was then that I was truly beginning to experience life at that time and I want to share it.

I discussed the project with Aleene (such a good listener) and casually mentioned it to an old friend’s wife in 2008 that brought the subject up by asking me when I was going to write another book. I told her I was working on it and had a story about “when the cows got out.”  Being a farm person whose family is still milking a sizable herd of cows in Eastern Pennsylvania, she just fell all over herself encouraging me to tell my tale. So 1958 it was, but as you will see, I move backward in time periodically to set the stage of the present.

The other consideration is that when I look back…especially to the years when I was in high school, college, and then the navy; there are side stories that beg to be told.  What was life like in the 1950s? Why did I choose Penn State and what did I study? Why the navy and why four and a half years vs. the three that I signed up for?  What did I do? And the big question: why did Aleene and I get married? How did it come about and how did we make long distance dating work?

Once I got rolling it was easy to just blather out the things that came to mind. But I have tried to do better than that by painting pictures of situations and describing characters that I encountered so that not just my family would want to hear some of the details, but others who might pick this work up to read. The account you are about to read is Tom-centric, but how else can I describe the world as seen through my eyes? If that bothers the reader, then, I apologize. Fifty years seems like a long time ago, but it is really just the blink of an eye, wouldn’t you agree?