Simpler Times ... 1961

I run at lunch, and pass my grade school and its many memories.  I actually remember a bit of my first day in first grade in September of 1961.  I was thinking of that time period – and wondering what was going on in the world that week.  And after a tough first week in school, what’s a kid want to do on his first Saturday morning off from school?  Watch Saturday morning cartoons.  What was on? 

I checked the Delaware County Daily Times for September 9, 1961.  One page told you all of the television shows for the week (see attached pdf file).  Old friends on Saturday and Sunday morning:  Gene London, Pete’s Gang, Captain Kangaroo, Shari Lewis, Bertie the Bunyip, Popeye, Mighty Mouse Playhouse, Sky King! 

Note that there were only three broadcast stations:  channels 3, 6 and 10.  Later in the 60’s came channel 12 – the educational channel.  And then came the “UHF” stations:  17, 29 and 48.  But in 1961, we were pretty happy with three stations.  And we were largely watching it in black and white.  Color television was just beginning.  See the separate listing for “Color shows”, mostly on channel 3 – which then was NBC.  And just because you were broadcasting them in color did not mean that you could receive them in color, unless you bought a fancy color television set.  My father was in electronics sales, and so he was out there on the cutting edge.  We got our color television set in 1964, in time to watch the World Series that year – the Cardinals vs. the Yankees.  We were the talk of the neighborhood. 

And on TV that night in September of 1961:  the Miss America Pageant.  A Marple resident, a former Miss America, was called on for her thoughts about the pageant:

“The third Miss America has an impartial opinion of beauty 37 years ago and in 1961.  Asked whether Miss America contestants were more beautiful then than now, Mrs. Carl A. Schaubel of 311 Kent Road laughed and then retorted: 

"That's the most unfair question I've ever heard.  I don't have any way of knowing.  Mrs. Schaubel was selected Miss America in 1924 and was the third young lady to be so honored.  At the time she was Ruth Malcomson, and lived in Philadelphia.”

First grade, cartoons, three stations, black and white T.V., Miss America.  Ah, such a simpler world!

And what other simple things were going on in the world (as reported on the front page – which I was not paying any attention to in 1st grade)? 

• President DeGaulle of France escaped an assassination attempt by what were thought to be Algerian terrorists.  Terrorists in the Middle East.
• Soviet Premier Khrushchev formally rejected today the U.S.-British appeal for a ban on nuclear tests in the earth's atmosphere.  The nuclear arms race continued.
• Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced today that about 40,000 additional regular Army troops would be sent to Europe "in the immediate future."  Most of them will go to Germany to strengthen combat units because of the Soviet Union's threat to West Berlin.  American troops serving overseas in an unstable world. 
• United Electric Local 107 answered Westinghouse Electric Corporation's get-tough policy with some tough talk of its own today.  The union, in a pamphlet distributed to workers, said it will fight disciplinary policies announced Friday by Westinghouse vice president William C. Rowland.  Unions and management fighting. 
• Britain intends to form a new combat - ready division for swift movement to Germany "if the situation worsens.”  International events that at any moment could trigger the next war.
• New terror campaigns by Europeans and nationalist rebels appeared to be underway today across Algeria.
• Hurricane Carla, her 125-mile winds stirring up the Gulf of Mexico, veered slightly to the north early today and plowed toward the Louisiana and Texas coasts.  Natural catastrophes threatening lives and property.

The times were simpler in my mind only because I was in 1st grade, and not reading the front page news.  Our problems today are much like the problems of yesteryear.  The times were not simpler.  The problems were the same, and the world was a dangerous place.  

And would we exchange our problems today for what they faced then – the distinct possibility of a third world war with nuclear weapons, the prospect of incineration of our cities, and a nuclear winter for the unlucky survivors? 

Not me. 

But I wouldn’t mind checking out Bertie the Bunyip and figuring out just what the heck that was all about!