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Eugene Church · 08-05-2019, 11:10 PM

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN 1951?

1951 unemployment dipped to 3.3% in the US... and new roads highways were built to take the ever increasing numbers of cars... the New Jersey Turnpike was opened.

Children were given more than any other time in previous history with guitar lessons and sets of Encyclopedias to improve their minds... certainly didn't know it then, but I must have been poor and neglected... never got any music lessons... never got a set of encyclopedias, either... had to go to the public library to do my book reports and research... I still got a very fine education without that set of Encyclopedia Brittanica... actually, I was not neglected... there was always plenty of tender, loving care and love at my house.

The average family income was $3,700 per year and people had money to spend, so cars became more luxurious and had more powerful engines with options for two-tone paint, during this time things like turn signals were still an extra and most drivers still used hand signals to tell other drivers which way they were turning.

Television continued to grow with popular programs like "I Love Lucy" and the first tests for Color Television Pictures were broadcast from Empire State Building on June 25th... Europe continued to export many cars to the US including Volkswagens and Austins…

Looking back, we didn't have a car of our own... my dad worked at a used car lot in New Orleans as a salesman... Fairchild Motors... at the corner of Gentilly Boulevard and Elysian Fields Avenue... he would just take one of the cars home at night and use one on the weekend... otherwise we just had to use the public transportation system... good old buses and streetcars in New Orleans to get youself around... you could ride across the whole city from Audubon Park Zoo to New Orleans East where I lived for 7 cents... 5 cents for a ticket and I think 2 cents if you had to get transfers... it really was a well-run system... the buses ran often and would eventually get you where you were going.

We still didn't have TV... they were too expensive... but my next-door neighbor had one and Mrs. Maier would let me watch wrestling from Municipal Auditorium every weekend... she would also let me watch Tulane Green Wave basketball, too... WDSU-TV, channel 6, was the only station in town... a guy named Mel Leavitt did everything for the WDSU... he would do play-by-play for both the wresting and also the Greenies basketball games... Leavitt must have worked sunup to sundown... and later... during the day he was the "booth announcer"... everything was live at this time... no tape machines yet.

Actually, we didn't miss TV... there wasn't much to watch on it anyway... we all preferred the movies, which had that wonderful thing called "air-conditioning"... we didn't have it in our house... too expensive.

08-05-2019, 11:10 PM	#808
Eugene Church Hall Of Famer Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 36,206	WHAT'S HAPPENING IN 1951? 1951 unemployment dipped to 3.3% in the US... and new roads highways were built to take the ever increasing numbers of cars... the New Jersey Turnpike was opened. Children were given more than any other time in previous history with guitar lessons and sets of Encyclopedias to improve their minds... certainly didn't know it then, but I must have been poor and neglected... never got any music lessons... never got a set of encyclopedias, either... had to go to the public library to do my book reports and research... I still got a very fine education without that set of Encyclopedia Brittanica... actually, I was not neglected... there was always plenty of tender, loving care and love at my house. The average family income was $3,700 per year and people had money to spend, so cars became more luxurious and had more powerful engines with options for two-tone paint, during this time things like turn signals were still an extra and most drivers still used hand signals to tell other drivers which way they were turning. Television continued to grow with popular programs like "I Love Lucy" and the first tests for Color Television Pictures were broadcast from Empire State Building on June 25th... Europe continued to export many cars to the US including Volkswagens and Austins… Looking back, we didn't have a car of our own... my dad worked at a used car lot in New Orleans as a salesman... Fairchild Motors... at the corner of Gentilly Boulevard and Elysian Fields Avenue... he would just take one of the cars home at night and use one on the weekend... otherwise we just had to use the public transportation system... good old buses and streetcars in New Orleans to get youself around... you could ride across the whole city from Audubon Park Zoo to New Orleans East where I lived for 7 cents... 5 cents for a ticket and I think 2 cents if you had to get transfers... it really was a well-run system... the buses ran often and would eventually get you where you were going. We still didn't have TV... they were too expensive... but my next-door neighbor had one and Mrs. Maier would let me watch wrestling from Municipal Auditorium every weekend... she would also let me watch Tulane Green Wave basketball, too... WDSU-TV, channel 6, was the only station in town... a guy named Mel Leavitt did everything for the WDSU... he would do play-by-play for both the wresting and also the Greenies basketball games... Leavitt must have worked sunup to sundown... and later... during the day he was the "booth announcer"... everything was live at this time... no tape machines yet. Actually, we didn't miss TV... there wasn't much to watch on it anyway... we all preferred the movies, which had that wonderful thing called "air-conditioning"... we didn't have it in our house... too expensive. Last edited by Eugene Church; 08-06-2019 at 06:27 PM.