R J Reynolds High School
Winston-Salem, NC
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R J Reynolds High School
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Bob Chamber's Presentation on the Year 1953 To begin with, how many of us would have imagined 55 years ago that we would still be among the living today—I would not. And while, alas, ten of us have died, it seems that some 80+ of us somehow live on! I’ve done a little research into what has transpired during the past 5.5 decades, and what I have found is mind-boggling. But let’s look first at some of the amazing events of 1953, a pretty "historic" year, even though most of us probably weren’t aware of the fact at the time. Here’s a "quick and dirty" summary: MAJOR EVENTS OF 1953 Jan 7 President Harry S Truman announces that we have the Hydrogen Bomb (the Big One) Jan 14 Marshall Tito chosen President of Yugoslavia Jan 19 68% of US tv-watchers tune in to the birth of Lucy and Desi’s daughter on "I Love Lucy" Jan 20 the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower as President; Truman goes home to Missouri Feb 13 Christine Jorgenson comes home a new person after a sex change in Denmark Feb 28 Watson and Crick announce their discovery of the structure of DNA in Cambridge Mar 5 Joseph Stalin dies after ruling the USSR for 26 years Mar 13 Georgy Malenkov succeeds Stalin, and the next day Nikita Kruschev is named General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (we’ll live with him for decades) Mar 19 25th Academy Awards, first time on tv, Bob Hope hosting (these awards were for 1952 films) Awards for "Best" in 1953 were: Best Actor William Holden, "Stalag 17" Best Actress Audrey Hepburn, "Roman Holiday" Best Sup Actor Frank Sinatra, "From Here to Eternity" (which saves his career) Best Sup Actress Donna Reed, "From Here to Eternity" Best Picture "From Here to Eternity" Biggest Sin of Omission: Alan Ladd not nominated for "Shane" Mar 24 England’s Queen Mary dies Mar 26 Jonas Salk announces his polio vaccine, wiping out our greatest childhood fear Apr 7 Dag Hammerskjold elected UN Secretary General Apr 13 Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel, "Casino Royale" Apr 25 Crick and Watson publish their double helix discovery in "Nature," changing history May 2 Hussein crowned King of Jordan May 18 Jackie Cochran becomes first woman to break sound barrier (in an F-86 Saberjet) May 29 Sir Edmond Hillary and Tensing Norgay ascend to summit of Mt Everest June 2 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II June 18 Egypt declares itself a republic June 19 Ethel and Julius Rosenberg executed after Ike refuses their appeal June 30 First Chevrolet Corvette built in Flint, Michigan July 27 Korean War ends…well…!!! Aug 7 Ohio admitted as a US state, retroactive to 1803! Aug 8 Malenkov announces that USSR now also has the H-Bomb Aug 18 Alfred Kinsey publishes his first report, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" Sept 5 UN turns down China for membership Oct ? UNIVAC 1103 is first commercial computer to use random access memory Oct 7 US tests H-Bomb Oct 5 Ike names Gov Earl Warren Chief Justice of Supreme Court Nov 5 David Ben-Gurion resigns as Israeli Prime Minister Nov 21 British authorities announce that the skull of the Piltdown Man in the British Natural History Museum is a hoax (so much for the missing link) Nov 29 French paratroopers take Dien Ben Phu, fueling the Viet-Nam War we’ll live with for 20 Years Dec ? Hugh Hefner publishes first issue of "Playboy" magazine with Marilyn Monroe on cover (it sells 54,175 copies at $.50 each…it now costs $5.99) Dec 10 Albert Schweitzer awarded 1952 Nobel Peace Prize Dec 17 FCC approves color television BORN IN 1953 Pat Benatar, singer Paul Allen, Microsoft founder with Bill Gates Mary Steenbergen, actress Rick Wagoner, a "Dookie" now trying to save General Motors Jeb Bush Michael Bolten, singer Tony Blair, British PM George Brett, baseball Hall of Famer Pierce Brosnan, Irish actor Sen John Edwards, NC politician Benazir Bhutto, assassinated Pakistani Prime Minister Cyndi Lauper, singer Ken Burns, documentary film maker Kathie Lee Gifford, tv hostess Dennis Miller, tv host Kim Basinger, actress
DIED IN 1953 Hank Williams (in an auto crash) Joseph Stalin Jim Thorpe, greatest American athlete of all time? Fred Vinson, Supreme Court Chief Justice Edwin Hubble, our greatest astronomer…namesake of Hubble telescope Robin Bush, W’s younger sister (age 4) Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet Eugene O’Neill, our greatest playwright Robert Millikan, Nobel physicist 1953 NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS Sir Winston Churchill, Literature Gen. George C. Marshall, Peace SPORTS CHAMPS IN 1953 NFL Detroit Lions NBA Minneapolis Lakers World Series New York Yankees (fifth straight) Indy 500 Bill Vukovitch Maureen "Little Mo" Connelly first woman to win a tennis grand slam NCAA football U. of Maryland NCAA basketball U. of Indiana Raleigh builds first all-steel bicycle (I have one, now 40 years old)
1953 MUSIC NEWS Frank Sinatra begins recording at Capitol Records Elvis Presley meets Sam Phillips and makes first recording at Sun Records in Memphis Frankie Laine sets UK all-time record for weeks at #1—27—it still stands These careers begin: James Brown, Jackie Wilson, the Four Tops, the Platters Bill Haley and the Comets record first rock and roll single to make the "BillBoard" charts— "Crazy Man, Crazy" Biggest US singles of the year: Dean Martin, "That’s Amore" Les Paul and Mary Ford, "Vaya Con Dios" Perry Como, "Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" Eddie Fisher, "I’m Walking Behind You" Hank Williams, "Your Cheatin’ Heart" Tony Bennett’s "Rags to Riches" was #1 for six weeks Biggest R & B singles: The Orioles, "Cryin’ in the Chapel" The Clovers, "Good Lovin" Big Mama Thornton, "Hound Dog" Ruth Brown, "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" Ray Charles, "Mess Around" With Elvis now on the scene, the Beatles waiting just off-stage, and scores of new-style singers beginning to record, Rock and Roll was in 1953 on the verge of changing music history. Only five years later, when we were graduating from RJR, the big songs were: Danny and the Juniors, "At the Hop" Jerry Lee Lewis, "Great Balls of Fire" Ricky Nelson, "Stood Up" and "Poor Little Fool" Elvis, "Don’t" and "Hard-Hearted Woman" Royal Teens, "Short Shorts" The Silhouettes, "Get a Job" The Champs, "Tequila" Chuck Berry, "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Johnny B Goode" The Platters, "Twilight Time" Everly Bros, "All I Have to Do is Dream" The Coasters, "Yakety Yak" Little Richard, "Good Golly Miss Molly" Buddy Holly, "Oh Boy" and "Maybe Baby" BIG BOOKS OF 1953 FICTION 1. Lloyd C Douglas, "The Robe" 2. Thos. B Costain, "The Silver Chalice" 3. Annemarie Selinko, "Desiree" 4. Leon Uris, "Battle Cry" 5. James Jones, "From Here to Eternity" 6. Ernest K Gann, "The High and the Mighty" NON-FICTION 1. Holy Bible, RSV 2. Norman Vincent Peale, "The Power of Positive Thinking" 3. Kinsey, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" 4. Dale Evans Rogers, "Angel Unaware" 5. Bishop Fulton J Sheen, "Life is Worth Living" 6. Catherine Marshall, "A Man Called Peter" TEN BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR "From Here to Eternity"* (*=Oscar nominee) "Julius Caesar"* "The Robe"* "Roman Holiday"* "Shane"* "War of the Worlds" "The Glenn Miller Story" "Stalag 17" "The Wild One" "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" "Niagara" (#11 because of Marilyn) Movie note: "The Bridge on the River Kwai," best film of 1957, grossed $27,200,000 and won seven Oscars; "The Dark Knight," the Bat Man film released last week-end, grossed $155,000,000 in three days! SUMMARY (1957 VS 2007) 1957 was something of a watershed year for the United States…and the world. The US today barely resembles that of fifty years ago. States that were just deserts in 1957 are now the fastest growing—Arizona, Nevada, Utah. There was only one interstate highway fifty years ago—I-70. In 1957, the average family income was $5000 (4 million were making $10,000 or more, 6.5 million were making less than $2000). In 2006 the average family income was $48,000 (but now we need two individual incomes to reach that). There were 170,000,000 Americans fifty years ago, now there are 330,000,000. Generally speaking, average income has risen tenfold in fifty years, and so have costs. In 1957, a gallon of milk was $1, in 2007 it was $3 (amazingly little for something so essential) In 1957, gas averaged $.30 per gallon…today it is $4+ (if milk had gone up like gas it would be more than $10 per gallon now) In 1957, a postage stamp cost 3 cents…it’s 42 cents now In 1957, a loaf of bread cost 19 cents, today it ranges from $1.90-$3.90 In 1957, a dozen eggs were 28 cents, now still just over $1 In 1957, a new car was $2100 ($1650 in 1953), now it’s $28,000+; since in 1957 hardly anyone financed purchases and most paid cash for cars there were almost no car loans; but only fifty years later, in 2007, the average car loan was $378 per month for 63 months ($23,814, eleven times the cost of a car in 1957) In 1957, the average house price was $2330 ($2006 in 1953)—a house and a car cost essentially the same thing!! Today, seemingly "normal" people might pay $2330/month just to rent an apartment ($28,000 per year)! Fifty years ago the average price of a house represented about 50% of annual family income; today, the median price is four times MORE than a family makes in a year. The culprit here is easy credit. 1953 saw the birth of our buy now-pay later mentality, with car makers leading the way by allowing longer and longer periods to pay for your new car. This mindset is what gives us our debt load and ultimately destroys marriages and families (today’s divorce level is 50%...in 1955 it was 2.3%). What happened with the automobile also happened with houses, so that today many Americans simply cannot afford the houses they live in—thus today’s huge foreclosure rates (and the threatened demise of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). This is exacerbated by the fact that few people remain long in the same home today (I have lived in nine different places so far!). Most want to "move up," meaning that they never get to an equity position. Not all that long ago, most people simply "made do" on what they had and could afford (my parents, for example). Now credit cards—major villains in the case—and cheap credit lines have conditioned us to go for whatever we want whenever we want it, from the White House down (the US is looking at a record deficit this year)…and this is passed on to the next generation, who have been conditioned (by us) to have everything they want without working for it, saving for it, or waiting for it. Our generation happily forgot the Depression that so deeply scarred our parents and ushered in the greatest spending spree in American history (golfer Greg Norman just spent $103,000,000 to get divorced so he could marry tennis great Chris Evert!) With this has come utter incompetence in financial matters at home, within business, and in the government. Perhaps a good recession would be the wake-up call we need!
GENERAL OBSERVATION Despite this considerable downside—our creation of the buy now-pay later mentality—1953—Our Year—could be viewed as the most important, most shaping year in America since 1865, perhaps since 1776! We were, to borrow from Dean Acheson, "Present at the Creation" of rock and roll, the prospect of nuclear annihilation, the sexual revolution, and genetic engineering. In "our year" alone, the DNA molecule was unlocked, polio was conquered, James Bond was born, Mt Everest was surmounted, Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, the first Kinsey Report was released, UNIVAC issued in the computer age, H-Bombs were tested, the Viet-Nam War heated up, "Playboy" initiated the Era of Porn, color television was unleashed, Frank Sinatra hit his stride again (with the help of North Carolina’s own Ava Gardner), and Elvis Presley first wiggled on stage, thereby changing music forever (contra Ray Burke…remember him?). FURTHER OBSERVATIONS: BIGGEST CHANGES/SHOCKS IN FIFTY YEARS (FOR MANY DRAMATIC—AND BENEFICIAL--ADVANCES THERE SEEMS TO BE AN IRONIC, EQUALLY SURPRISING COUNTERPOINT) For example, the dramatic improvement in health care and life expectancy today is countered by the ironic fact that almost 40% of us are now obese ( half of us are better off, half worse off). The end of the Cold War, making the US the only true Super-Power (of the moment) is countered by the irony of our relative actual powerlessness amidst the realities of today’s very scary world. Any tin-horn dictator or renegade terrorist seems to be just as powerful as a democratically elected president or prime minister. The Civil Rights Movement and the supposed "end" of segregation is countered by the fact that some parts of the US are more segregated today that in 1953. The fact that smoking has virtually ended for most American adults is countered by the realities that it is increasingly seen as "cool" by today’s kids and is rampant throughout the rest of the world. Amazing technological advances—computers, the Web, cell phones—that were expected to give us greater freedom and allow us to "communicate" better are countered by the accompanying irony that we now seem to be enslaved by those very same gadgets and actually communicate even less well than before (as Philip Roth notes of the omnipresent cell phone in "Exit Ghost," "I did not see how anyone could believe he was continuing to live a human existence by walking about talking into a phone for half his waking life." The astonishing and wide increase in personal wealth is counter-balanced by its obscene side—the absurd payoffs garnered by second-rate business leaders, film stars, government personalities, and sports figures—and the disgraceful fact that more Americans now reside below the poverty line than ever before. The striking rise of the travel industry (made possible by airline advances as well as increased wealth) means that most of us are far more widely-traveled than were our parents, and yet many Americans now seem even more provincial and xenophobic and less sophisticated than ever. Despite our lives today of relative luxury and seeming ease, shocking rudeness and non-stop noise constantly disturb our peace and plague us at every turn. And next year, the cell phone comes to air travel! Despite broad advances in education—a college degree is now available to almost everyone who really wants it--the clear decline of public literacy and the accompanying deterioration of everyday language is shocking and everywhere present, mocking those proud advances daily. Worst of all, our seemingly improved health, the ready availability of technological gadgetry, our increased wealth, and our vaunted educational advances are today poor compensation, indeed, for the fact that the singular American nuclear family that defined and shaped so much of our history has, in only one generation, practically disappeared. Where once there was family unity—symbolized by the dinner table and regular familial conversation—there is now divorce, dysfunction, and loneliness for almost all. As Dickens so aptly put it, these are, indeed, "the best of times" and yet also "the worst of times." But ain’t it always so? That’s why we retreat into the past with our airbrushes, rewriting memories as we go The past, despite everything—polio, segregation--always seems somehow better—thus our nostalgic longing for it. But whatever the case may be, better or worse, we can’t escape it. As Faulkner correctly noted, "The past is never dead…it’s not even past."
Bob Chambers Gainesville, Florida
PS Here’s a little ditty for us to sing when we are feeling particularly nostalgic and in need of an injection of joy from the past: THE ARDMORE SCHOOL SONG SING WE NOW TO DEAR OLD ARDMORE, TO THE SCHOOL WE ADORE, PLEDGING TO THEE OUR ALLEGIANCE NOW AND EVER MORE. TO THE SCHOOL WE OWE OUR PLEDGE OF LOYALTY AND TRUTH. MAY WE ALWAYS HOLD IN MEMORY THESE GLAD (GREAT?) YEARS (DAYS?) OF YOUTH.
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