Overview of events and music:

Here's some reflections from back in the 1950's that Skip Massey sent in -

HUMOR & HISTORY

A Wonderful YouTube page has been shared by classmate Arlene Mooney Trenholm in October 2017. It's full of interesting stuff. www.youtube-nocookie.com/QoDXTAaEzY?rel+0

Great thoughts from Ellen Morrissey

1909 Ford Model R

 

Show this to your children and/or grandchildren

 

THE YEAR 1909

This will boggle your mind, I know it did mine! 

The year is 1909. 

One hundred years ago. 

What a difference a century makes! 

Here are some statistics for the Year 1909 :

************ ********* *********

The average life expectancy was  47 years.

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles

Of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel  Tower!

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, 

A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

 

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME .

Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!

Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which

Were condemned in the press AND the government as 'substandard. '

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair  once a month, and used

Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from

Entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were:

1. Pneumonia and influenza 

2. Tuberculosis 

3. Diarrhea 

4. Heart disease 

5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of  Las Vegas ,  Nevada, was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea

Hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day..

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write.

Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school..

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health'

 

 

( Shocking? DUH! )

Eighteen percent of households had at least

One full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE ! U.S.A.  !

I am now going to forward this to someone else without typing it myself.

>From there, it will be sent to others all over the WORLD - all in a matter of seconds!

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

IT STAGGERS THE MIND

NATIONAL NEWS

• Probably without a doubt, that dark November day in 1963 will stand out first and foremost. We were near the end of the school day, and Mr. Vail suddenly turned on the PA system in all the classrooms so that we could hear live broadcasts regarding the assassination of President Kennedy.

• In February of 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated at the Harlem Audubon Ballroom as he gave a speech.
• The Watts riots in the Los Angeles suburb left 34 dead.
• Sir Winston Churchill died.
• Nat King Cole died.
  

OTHER LESS-DREARY NEWS FROM 1965

• There were 194,300,000 people in America then, compared to 306,579,221 (June 3, 3009) and gaining one every 7 seconds, and speeding up. Non-white births and unmarried births outnumber married couples.
  
• Ralph Nader published "Unsafe at Any Speed"and slowly became a household name -- for a while
  
• The St. Louis Arch was completed
• The miniskirt, designed by Mary Quant first appeared in London and then spread across the Western world
• Frito-Lay and Pepsi-Cola merged to formPepsi-Co. Inc.
• Sony introduced the first "Betamax" videotape record

• Jeff Burgess writes:"We did the dance "Clap, Clap, Bow" at the annual May Day festivities ont he playground. It was held every May Day and all the parents were invited. We did The Mexican Hat Dance for 1st grade and "Ball n the Jack" for 2nd. Lynn Dame and I were "featured" in the center of the circle for The Mexican Hat Dance. The 6th grade got to do the actual May Pole Dance. Unfortunately, the "old" Four Corners was torn down after we finished 2nd grade and a new school was built on Ferrante Ave. For some reason they discontinued the May Day events. So I have been eternally frustrated having never gotten to dance around the May Pole."
• Some of the great old cars included that 1958 Black Chevy that George Maniatty drove, at other times, Al Jenest was at the wheel.  John Taylor had a classic 1957 Triumph TR3.
• Then there was Grise's 1953 green and red Jeep that just may have had something to do with the installation of the largest Christmas tree ever in the lobby of GHS's auditorium.
• 
• Mo Taylor used to motor around in a gigantic 1957 DeSoto -- biggest tailfins in the world! Bill Buck had a big-mama Chrysler too.
  
• Bill Phelps tore up the streets around in a '56 Chevy (green with a white hood - affectionately known as "Big White Eagle"
• Randi Kinner was notorious for driving around in an old blue Hillman, way over-filled with classmates
  
• How about band, cheerleader and team bus stops after away football and basketball games at Flavorland Ice Cream Parlor at the north end of Northampton on Route 5.
  
• Speaking of food, remember the fried clams at Denny's (our own Denny Smith's, not the chain)
• Or the lakeside pizza at Robestelli's, and of course the nearly haunted house somewhere out in the fields of Gill (was it really Gill
  
• A&W Root Beer Drive-in need we say more! Some towns still have them!
  
• Shirley Brightman recalls that there were dress codes for school. Girls could not wear pants.  Worse,pantyhose was not prevalent so the ladies had a variety of undergarments holding up their nylons.  Even worse, getting frozen red legs walking to and from school (uphill both ways) because it's cold with no pants!  Guys too, blue jeans were a no-no unless you were in the vocational program
• Speaking of the Dress Code, do you remember  Madras Day, shortly before graduation?  Rich Shortell recalls it well and sent along a clip from the Greenfield Recorder -- although our  own Exponent covered it complete with photo

Here's Tom Purple, Karen Kelsey, Norma Hornado and Rob Pratt being totally cool.  Don't miss the madras stripes along the guys pant legs.


• Greenfield wouldn't have been Greenfield for us without the summer Greenfield Military Band concerts in Shattuck Park, and  ice skating at Highland Pond
• Then there were the dances: first Friday nights at the Yand HT. Bill Seretta, Rick Richardson (who had sort of a band) and Phil Grise set up dances at the (then) recently abandoned Weldon Hotel
• Similarly, some of the musicians in the class would gather for Jam Sessions and just general fun times, recalls Gerry May

• There were endless stimulating political discussions in Mr. James O'Neil's class, along with his plastic Democratic elephant. And listening to him say "Guadalupe Hidalgo", or noting how Audrey Bullard always spoke in such "dulcet-tones"
• Then there was the Sociology class gatherings at Ms. Davenport's house to discuss all the issues that could not be discussed in school - it was only the mid-60's after all. And remember, as Jeff Burgess adds "Miss Davenport's sociology class in was the first social science spinoff course to be offered at GHS......pretty "radical" for Greenfield!" [Guess we all should reflect on the non-fiction book, The Conservative Rebel which is a history of Greenfield.]
  
• How about that seemingly endless hike - what was that German term? - that Mrs. Metzroth's intern, Shirley Pottern led us on -- all the way to the Leyden Glen from GHS! Talk about crueland unusual punishment!!
  

• Batman
• Bonanza
• Rawhide
  
• Hogan's Heroes
• Andy Griffith Show  and lest we forget,
• Days of Our Lives premiered in 1965
• The Sound of Music won the Academy Award for Best Picture
• Doctor Zhivago
• Fiddler on the Roof opened 9/22/64
  
• Help!
• Flight of the Phoenix
• Thunderball
• The Great Race

• Back In My Arms Again -Supremes
• Downtown - Petula Clark
• Eight Days a Week - Beatles
• Help! - Beatles
  
• Get Off My Cloud - RollingStones
• (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
  
• Hang On Sloopy - McCoys
• Help Me Rhonda - Beach Boys
• I Can't Help Myself - FourTops
• I Got You Babe - Sonny& Cher
• Bob Dylan was still strictly acoustic, 'till '66
  

• Charlie Sheen (Carlos Irwin Estevez)
• Sherilyn Fenn
  
• Will Smith
• Robert Downey Jr.
• Brooke Shields
• Sarah Jessica Parker
• Scott Thompson (Carrot Top)

PRICES in 1965

• Median Household Income$6,900
  
• New House $13,600
• New Car $2,614
• Monthly Rent $118
• Gasoline $.30 per gallon
• 1st Class Postage Stamp 5 cents
• 2nd Class Postage Stamp 2 cents
• Harvard Tuition $1,760 per year
• Sugar 5 lb $.55
• Milk $1.05 gallon
• Eggs (from a local farmer) $.35
• Hamburger  $.42 per pound
• Bread $.21 a loaf
• McDonalds goodies
• Burgers 17 cents
• Fries 11 cents
• Milk Shakes 9 cents
  

• Microwave ovens weren't sold for home use until 1967
• We used slide rules in math, not hand-held calculators (early 1970's) or computers (mid1980's)
• Music was strictly vinyl recordings. Eight-track tapes didn't appear until the late 1960's, followed by cassettes. CD's, while invented in 1965 by James Russell, didn't get marketed until 1980 when Philips began mass manufacturing the equipment. Then too, the now-ubiquitous CDs didn't really show up for widespread home use as many albums became available until the mid 1980's.
• Color television wascoming on strong in 1965, after all, the first color broadcast of the Tourament of Roses Parade took place in 1954 -- not that we saw it, or even saw any television that far back! More of us saw Disney'sWonderful World of Color beginning in 1961.  By 1965, many folks had color TVs in their homes and some of the major network programming (only 3 networks then  - yet those three had vastly more independent news presentation than we get today from two dozen network sources!) was routinely broacast in color.  In 1966, NBC went full color with its broadcasts - afirst, with CBS and ABC soon to follow suit.
  
• Hard to believe, but the Internet wouldn't sow any roots for a few more years - until1969 as the ARPANET with the US Defense Dept.   And even then, it took until 1993 for the WorldWideWeb to get off the ground.
• Cell phones? Hah! Many of us still had one black, rotary-dial telephone that was on a party line when we graduated high school.  But did you know cellphone technology first started around our birth -- 1947 as portable  2-way radios?  In 1973 the first real 'cell phone'was in prototype phase. By 1978 Chicago had 2000 trial customers. In 1982 the FCC permitted the selling of cell networks as we now know it so that by 1987 there were over a million customers.
  

• Arthur Ashe became thefirst Black to play on the U.S. Davis Cup Tennis Team
• LA Dodgers won the WorldSeries
• NCAA Basketball was won byUCLA
  
• Gary Player won the U.S.Golf Open
• Football Champs were theGreenbay Packers and the Buffalo Bills
• Jim Clark won the Indy 500at 150.7 mph