Inbetweeners

We hear so much about the Greatest Generation, and their offspring, the Boomers.  But before the Boomers, an entire mid-generation, for lack of a better term, endured the latent effects of The Great Depression and were children during World War II:  those folks born in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

My earliest years in Thomson were spent on Main Street, next to the oldest house in town, Vada and Virgil Wilt’s house.  Our rental was a two-story with a wide front porch looking out over our small world:  Lewis Motors, Bub Smith’s and McBrides/Sacks groceries; restaurants under various management -  Flossie and Harold Starr,  the McCormacks, Harry and Jessie Bowders. – and Ozzie’s Barbershop, where we got a nickel for an ice cream cone when Dad got his hair cut.

Looking through old snapshots and newspaper clippings for the Sesquicentennial recalls the innocence of that time, the simple pleasures and a breezy, carefree era when the Depression had faded and the Korean War vets were home. World War II was barely in the history books.

People were still dancing to Big Band tunes and Your Hit Parade was the high point of the week.  The youth of the day were dating when the Lamplighters, the Four Freshmen, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and the romantic balladeers were in their prime.  I recall the gym at the high school being full of teenagers dancing over the noon hour – I was so charmed by that, even as a child.  I wanted to be them:  teenagers in love.

The most exotic thing in the neighborhood was the parade of girls who passed through our lives:  Nancy Wilt, Roberta Williams, Norma Cate and their friends.  Carolyn and Joyce Marshall, Shirley Gordon, Vada Spencer, Donna Haas…they wore freshly pressed blouses and sharply pleated plaid skirts; or rolled up jeans and bobby sox, scarves at their necks and stars in their eyes.  They always looked to me as if they were expecting Prince Charming at any moment.

And he showed up, too.  Teenagers were grownups, for the most part.  High school was just a way station before you got married and settled down to have a family.  No question about what you’d be when you grew up:  you were already that person.  There’s a comfort in that.

And comfort in knowing how it turned out:  many of these women are still in the neighborhood, and I get to see them now and again.  Their dreams are intact – life wasn’t perfect for anyone, but they believed in love and happily ever after, and maybe were the last generation to have that blessing.  They endured.