Reader's Praise

“...a delight to the heart...
I (was) laughing out loud.”
– Don H.

“...a charming memoir...
a masterful job!”
– Judy L.

“I was mesmerized.”
– Tom S.

“Well crafted and entertaining.”
– David E.

“Inspiring!”
– Mikala W.

Memories . . . and Mischief

One objective for the harvesting of memories is enjoyment. It is common for people of all ages to daydream, and to relive moments simply for the fun of it.

Some of my earliest memories have come from my childhood experiences during the early 1950s when I enjoyed a close relationship with my younger and only brother, Doug. Now in our later years, we continue to share intimate time together. On occasions, we find ourselves looking back at the two young boys who lived every moment—from the time we awoke at dawn, until we safely ignored the monsters under our beds for another night of dreams.

Our dreams fueled our imaginations, and our imaginations channeled our adventures, each limited only by the length of the day . . . and our abilities to dream. Our world was what we made it to be. If we didn’t like the way it was, we simply imagined something different and everything was OK. We had our special heroes—whether real or imaginary—to protect us, not only from the villains and bad guys who stoked our fears, but also from the reality of our daily-life environment. Our imaginations and our heroes carried us through all of our adventures—safely I might add. Heroes, by example, teach that life’s obstructions and difficulties are simply temporary annoyances, although this view is always easier to appreciate when the danger has passed.

These are personal stories of Doug and me, and our neighborhood pals of the time. I have tried to capture our perspectives when we were pre-teens. In telling of the stories, sometimes great lessons in life emerge in the narrative. On such occasions, I have emboldened these passages in order to highlight the significance of those realizations.

The primary focus is on young boys, but girls were always among us. We children all shared the common experiences of early radio, the advent of television, escapes to the movies, and living in a changing post-World War II America.

The most startling realization from writing my memory journeys back to my childhood is that the little boy I was then still lives, thankfully. And that we all can find our boyhoods and girlhoods—those innocent people we were then—striving for expression and helping us dream again . . . if only we let them.

That young boy is with me when the difficulties of adult life overwhelm. He still provides me with the magical escapes to overcome and live another day. He still dreams, and those dreams charge my imagination leading to all of the pleasures and adventures I enjoy now. He makes me aware that we all need heroes, regardless of how young—or old—we are.

I never want that little boy—that Maker of Mischief—to leave me. Precisely because he is by my side and in my heart, I am still a “maker of mischief” today.

Whether we were alive then, or were born later, that period nevertheless is a part of our make-up today. We, our country, and all of our lives today were defined in part by that decade in our history. Yes, whether we now understand it or not, we all were children in . . . or of  the 1950s.

The 1950s

America prior to 1950 simply wanted to be left alone. This attitude came from her history, way back to her beginning. She was founded by people—Pilgrims—who wanted to live their lives in peace. If America had a motto for her first 330 years after Plymouth Rock, it would have been “Live and Let Live.” But the rest of the world saw things in America it liked. It saw a country with enormous natural resources and an almost unlimited ability to grow and expand. It saw a people who had a deep reservoir of character and human strength, a foundation of moral and spiritual values, and a strong work ethic. The rest of the world saw America as a non-aggressor, but it learned when conflict came she was someone to have on your side after “choose-ups.”

This “personality” of America existed through the first half of the 20th century. She continued to develop, but had a semi-isolationist mentality. Contributing to this was her geographical location; she was separated from the older world by two large oceans. Good fortune also had placed her with no aggressive contiguous neighbors. She was content to live and let live.

But some of the world favored exploitation and domination. Two “world wars” ensued in the first half of the 1900s. In both wars America resisted entry, but once committed made the difference; she helped gain victory and preserve the peaceful order. As a result, America grew in stature and became the world’s big sister/brother, a role she never sought, but also never overtly denied. The world looked upon her as a “can-do” nation and she saw herself that way too.

By the end of the Second World War, America had a level of internal morale and positive self-image that was unparalleled in her history at any time. She had emerged from her shell to finally see herself as a country of major influence on the world stage. But with leadership comes responsibility.

In 1950 hostilities erupted in Korea. What began as an intra-country civil war expanded into a major conflict as powerful allies supported their ideologies. America, now a “player,” defended democracy (South Korea) halfway around the globe. But the Korean War became a torturous nightmare for America. The costs mounted (almost 55,000 Americans killed, with thousands more wounded!) and she struggled for meaning and identity. America faced a pragmatic and moral dilemma. She couldn’t be (and didn’t want to be) the world’s “protector,” but she also couldn’t allow the expansion of communism. She asked herself, “What role could/should I play in the world community?” She spent most of the 1950s trying to answer that question.

In 1952 America elected Dwight D. Eisenhower as her president. “Ike” and his wife Mamie were effective caretakers to shepherd America through that dilemma and the uncertain 1950s. He was everybody’s lovable grandfather and she was the perfect image of the American housewife in that period—domestically capable, sweet, motherly, and always supportive without controversy.

Then on October 4, 1957 everything changed. America suddenly was dragged into the second half of the 20th century, almost against her will. That historical turning point was the surprise launching of “Sputnik”—the first man-made satellite of the Earth—by the U.S.S.R. (“Russia”), who was America’s (North) Korean, and now “Cold War” atomic adversary. Sputnik demonstrated that if Russia had a rocket powerful enough to send a satellite into orbit, then that same rocket conceivably could also lob a nuclear-tipped warhead onto any American city from the other side of the world. That impressive leap in technology single-handedly changed the world’s geopolitical dynamics in an instant. The race for world leadership now was on, and America had no choice but to join up and run hard.

The decade of the 1950s was the transition period—from “old” America as an uncertain and sometimes reticent country of major potential, to “new” America as a fully-committed world leader.

Life was not easier  in the 1950s. Society experienced diseases without cure, organized crime, social injustices, racial segregation, military conscription, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and economic upheavals, to name a few examples. It still was a difficult time for families to simply maintain, and there never was a “free lunch.” Survival and happiness could never be taken for granted.

And yet . . . there was something special about that time. There was a general confidence in institutions, including governments. There was respect for service organizations and anybody  in uniform. Someone’s “word” meant everything. There was a perspective that things were “good” and could only get better; upward mobility was  possible. Technology was  our friend and it would  improve our lives. Things worked! Kids felt secure playing on the streets and fields of America or riding a bus, alone, clear across town and back. Their moms didn’t worry about such things. It was a golden age for Hollywood and entertainment. Church (and God) had more of a presence in our lives, and society in general. There was almost . . . an innocence  in the way people approached life. It was, in short, life in a simpler time.

Like the rest of America, Seattle had been changed dramatically by the Second World War. Due to its access to the Pacific Ocean, its prior military presence, its industrial and manufacturing capabilities (Boeing Aircraft and others), its history as a commercial port, its great natural resources, and its moderate weather, Seattle became a strategic location for mobilization and industrial efforts to support America’s war effort in the Pacific. Its resident and transient population grew dramatically immediately prior to and through the War.

There was a great displacement of population from America’s mostly agrarian heartland to Seattle and other West Coast cities. Thus Seattle and the surrounding region during the 1940s became a significant defense-based economy. There were occupations in, and in support of, the military, and there were also civilian jobs crying to be filled. Things boomed!

My family was drawn into this dynamic, actually sucked into it would be a better expression. My mom, my father, and I (as an infant), found ourselves uprooted as sharecrop farmers in the sugar-beet fields in northern Colorado, and relocated to become part of the military activity in Seattle. My brother Doug was born as the War ended.

Once the War was over, the size of the standing military was dramatically reduced and most of the non-career soldiers and sailors were recycled back into mainstream America. However, for much of the large population who had been displaced into  the War, the path back  was not simple, or desirable. Many now ex-servicemen and their families either didn’t want to return to their rural roots in the central states, or for various reasons those paths no longer were open. Once you’ve seen the big city, the bucolic fields lose their allure. And those self-sufficient family-owned farms had begun to disappear due to post-War economics.

For many, such as my father and mother, this was the case; they, too, were “in transition,” and it was painful. They lacked the education, the skills, and the training to compete in a non-military and non-agrarian life. As such, they were betwixt and between.

When I was almost four years old and my brother was almost two, my mom and dad divorced. She found herself with two small children and no job. Her domestic work in the War was no longer needed, plus opportunities were not prevalent for women in the working force, as they are today. She was stuck: she had no money, no promise, no opportunity, almost no hope. One of life’s earliest lessons was: It is very difficult, without help, to rise above what you do know or to migrate into something you don’t know.

The man who became our stepfather was similarly displaced. And, in that time, in their situation, one place where such poor and desperate people converged was in the government housing projects. This is where we came to live, almost without choice. We remained there for half-a-decade, during my pre-adolescent boyhood, until we completed our own transition into something better.

That is where my brother and I spent our formative years as young boys. Neither he nor I then had an understanding of all of the dynamics influencing our lives. The “projects” was where we were, and where we experienced life during that period, the first half of the 1950s. The approximate half-mile radius around our home in south Seattle was our world. It was all we knew.

We had the same needs and desires as boys everywhere: to play, to discover, to win in our competitions, to always have fun, and to dream about our futures. We learned to do all of those, and more, in the projects—our world within a world.

We made it our own special place.

—Jack Osborne