Things were different growing up back then. The 1960s and 1970s. Entertainment was basic and the neighborhood you grew up in defined your life. They have been described as simpler times and I guess they were when compared to today’s child rearing activities. They were simple because we weren’t overwhelmed by choices. There were three TV stations and one educational channel. There was AM radio. TV went off the air at midnight with the National Anthem and the Crying Indian, er, Native American. If you were lucky you had a color TV in the living room and little black and white sets in the bedrooms.
We were lucky at my house on Walnut Street in the neighborhood known as Whipper Barony. My sister and I had B&W TVs in our rooms. They weren’t palatial rooms by any means, our house was a ranch, 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath brick house with all of 890 square feet for the four of us to live in. A single carport with utility room and an attic for storage. That was it. Charleston Heights, a suburb of Charleston before it became its own city of North Charleston, South Carolina.
Dad was Navy and retired from 27 years of service at Charleston Naval Base in about 1972. He saw service in submarines in the Pacific Ocean in World War II, and later served during both the Korean and Vietnam wars. He was the only driver in our one car family.
Mom had no desire to learn to drive and was perfectly content riding in the back seat on the passenger side. Station wagons are what I remember most, but he did have a car with the late fifties, early sixties fins that we used to take our early vacations in. Similar to this 59 Plymouth Fury. Yes it was white as well, but the fins, I remember the fins.
Anyway, the neighborhood, Whipper Barony, was unlike any I or my family have ever lived in since. I’m not claiming you knew everybody in the neighborhood, but you sure knew enough of them to have fun and watch after each other. We had a centrally located playground with a ball diamond, basketball court, swings and a clubhouse.
-John