MY LIFE IN 1958
EC's Hopin' It's Great in '58
(I'm a pessimist trying to be optimistic a little bit)
It's nearly May... I will graduate from Murphy High School in Mobile in June... EC as usual has no plans, no goals, no ambition... still just drifting and dreaming through life.
What is life like in the whole wide USA in 1958?
Here is just a sample of what happened in 1958:
The U.S. Army inducts Elvis Presley, transforming "The King Of Rock & Roll" into U.S. private #53310761.
The Wham-O plastic hula hoop is first marketed... eventually sold 100 million... nope, EC never had a hula hoop.
EC's alma mater, LSUNO (now University of New Orleans), begins classes as the first racially integrated public university in the South... EC began classes at LSUNO in 1962... races got along fine... no real problems... we didn't really notice it at all... I know it was a very important step to integrate society, but it wasn't a big deal to us at the time... but I'm sure it was a big deal for the black students.
Federal Government:
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower (R-Kansas/Pennsylvania)
Vice President: Richard Nixon (R-California)
Chief Justice: Earl Warren (California)
Speaker of the House of Representatives: Sam Rayburn (D-Texas)
Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas)
Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier of the Soviet Union.
First Japanese automobiles, Toyota and Datsun, imported into the United States.
Thought you might like to see what America was watching on TV... western series were the rage in '58... Maverick would have been my favorite show, but we only had NBC and CBS in Mobile... only two stations... Maverick was on ABC... of course, your future DJ watched all of the music variety shows: Perry Como, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ed Sullivan, Steve Allen and Jackie Gleason... really enjoyed Have Gun, Will Travel (Richard Boone as the original anti-hero Paladin), Gunsmoke (James Arness as Matt Dillon, Miss Kitty, Chester, Festus and Doc Stone) and Wanted: Dead of Alive... Steve McQueen was a really cool cowpoke as a bounty hunter with a unique sawed-off rifle/weapon... my favorite game show was I've Got a Secret (Garry Moore)... often watched The Millionaire where people were given a $1,000,000 check each week by John Beresford, a fictional rich eccentric billionaire.. it was a study in human nature to see how wealth would affect people...executive secretary Michael Anthony always delivered the check for Tipton... EC had to watch Ricky Nelson on the Ozzie and Harriet Show to hear his latest records... really like the comedy of Jack Benny and George Burns and Gracie Allen.
And just to show what life was like financially, I posted the 1958 Cost of Living.
