In 1952, the world was a different
place.
There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo.
Or Stumbleupon, for that matter.
In 1952, the year of my birth, the
top selling movie was This Is Cinerama. People buying the popcorn in
the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.
Remember, that was before there were
DVDs. Heck, even before there was VHS. People were indeed watching movies in
the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the
laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D
computer effects.
Do you know who won the Oscars that
year? The academy award for the best movie went to The Greatest
Show on Earth. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Forbidden
Games. The top actor was Gary Cooper for his role as Marshal Will
Kane in High
Noon. The top actress was Shirley Booth for her role as Lola Delaney
in Come
Back, Little Sheba. The best director? John Ford for The Quiet
Man.
In the year 1952, the time when I
arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on
digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US
bestseller of the time wasThe Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain. Oh, that's many
years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it?
In 1952... West Germany has 8
million refugees inside its borders. Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the
United Kingdom at St. James's Palace, London, England. In the Hague Tribunal,
Israel demands reparations worth $3 billion from Germany. The Treaty of Taipei
is signed between Japan and the Republic of China to officially end the Second
Sino-Japanese War. The Diary of Anne Frank is published. The United States Army
Special Forces is created. A British passenger jet flies twice over the
Atlantic Ocean in the same day. Martial law is declared in Kenya due to the Mau
Mau uprising. The first successful surgical separation of Siamese twins is
conducted in Mount Sinai Hospital, Cleveland, Ohio.
That was the world I was born
into. Since then, we have changed it.
The Nobel prize for Literature that
year went to François Mauriac. The Nobel Peace prize went to Albert Schweitzer.
The Nobel prize for physics went to Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell from
the United States for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic
precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith. The sensation
this created was big. But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on,
year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you
were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which I also lost some things.
Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best
friends, I tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?
The 1950s were indeed a special
decade. The American economy is on the upswing. The cold war between the US and
the Soviet Union is playing out throughout the whole decade. Anti-communism
prevails in the United States and leads to the Red Scare and accompanying
Congressional hearings. Africa begins to become decolonized. The Korean war
takes place. The Vietnam War starts. The Suez Crisis war is fought on Egyptian
territory. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and others overthrow authorities to create
a communist government on Cuba. Funded by the US, reconstructions in Japan
continue. In Japan, film maker Akira Kurosawa creates the movies Rashomon and
Seven Samurai. The FIFA World Cups are won by Uruguay, then West Germany, then
Brazil.
I still remember the movie that was
all the rage when I were 15. In the Heat of the
Night. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio at that time? Maybe it was Ode to Billie Joe by Bobbie Gentry. I was in love. Who was I in love with, can still remember it vividly!
In 1952, a long
time ago, the year when I was born, the song Wheel of
Fortune by Kay Starr
topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.
The wheel of fortune
Goes spinning around
Will the arrow point my way?
Will this be my day?
...
There's a kid outside, shouting,
playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and
it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid. When I was 9, the movie Hercules in
the Haunted World was
playing. When I was 8, there was Pollyanna.
6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... it's 1952.
There's TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way
too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show
playing on TV isKukla, Fran and Ollie. The
sun goes down. Someone switches channels. There's The Ed
Sullivan Show on now.
That's the world you were born in.
Progress, year after year. I was wondering where the world is heading towards! The technology available today would
have blown my mind in 1952. Do you know what was invented in that year? Diet soft drinks. Optical Fiber. The Fusion Bomb.
I work here nights parking cars
Underneath the moon and the stars
Same ones that we all knew
Back in 1952
.........
That's from the song 3rd Base,
Dodger Stadium by Ry
Cooder.
In 1952, a new character entered the
world of comic books: Astro Boy. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In
the real world, in 1952,Christopher Reeve was born. And Dan Aykroyd. Douglas
Adams, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone
special. Everyone taking a different path through life.
It's 2013.
The world is a different place.
What path have you taken?
