When We Were Lions: Ch. 9A Snippet from the 1950's

He was born in 1947, yeahhh what else?

What else happened in 1947…

Al Capone died. What? Who is Al Capone?

Seriously, you need to read a book!

What else? Let’s see.

Well,

there was only 48 stars on the American flag, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League baseball and signed with the Dodgers, 1947 was also the first year a World Series game was on t.v., and there was less than 50,000 t.v. sets at the time, but you gotta start somewhere.

What else, oh yeah, Henry Ford died too, yeah, that Henry Ford, India and Pakistan got their independence, ever hear of a guy named Gandhi? and UFO’s landed in Roswell New Mexico, no really, Google it.

Yeah Coach was born at a pretty cool time in history.

You know what cool is don’t you?

The ’50’s man, now that defines cool!

Can you imagine being ten years old in 1957 like coach was?

Seeing the new 1957 Chevy Bel-Air 2 door hard top for the first time, the most iconic automobile ever, listening to the radio and hearing your Milwaukee Braves win the World series with guys like Warren Spahn and a kid named Henry Aaron and winning against those dreaded pinstripers from New York, who by the way had guys like Whitey Ford, Micky Mantel and the best catcher ever, Yogi Berra!  

AND THE MUSIC!! Rock -n- Roll was born kid!

Elvis was King, Little Richard was Tutti – Frutti and Chuck Berry was ‘playing that guitar just like ringing a bell!’ In ’58!

That’s all true stuff, people forget to easy.

Well maybe not the UFO’s and area 51, but the rest is.

What’s cool about that!? Come over hear so I can slap you.

Coach said he was 12, around 1959 when he built a house with his Grandpa on the home farm and, “He bought me my first hammer.”

Is there anything cooler than seeing a kid hanging out with his grandad…

I don’t think so.

What shapes a man?

Hometown, Family, Hard work, Service.

Working with your Grandpa is a good thing. My own kids had the blessing of living close to their Grandparents and doing things for them like mowing the lawn, pulling weeds or shoveling snow off of the garage roof.

I know!

Who puts a flat roof on a garage in Wisconsin, oil well.

What does coming of age mean? Check out this link.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/13-amazing-coming-of-age-traditions-from-around-th/

Well, it’s the process a young person goes through, usually considered the teen years into young adult hood.

Being a little kid in the Fifties, looking back nostalgically of course, just seems…

better.

My mom said it was.

She said people didn’t have the type of things to worry about like they do now. Drugs and drinking were not so rampant, radio, t.v. and even the movies didn’t give you cause for alarm, “it was safer”, she would say.

Coach was born just after World War II, the world was getting back in order, people were working, farmers were farmin’ and Doctors and Lawyers were living next door to Plumbers and Heating and Cooling business owners.

Neighbors were neighborly and even if you didn’t have enough kids for two baseball teams, the parents were teaching the kid’s at home how to get along out in the world and with each other to keep the game going.

I think The Greatest Generation was the last generation who really knew how to prepare a man to be a man, what that meant, what your responsibilities as a man were and how to live up to those responsibilities in a mature manly way, at an early age.

There were things to worry about, sure, Korea was on the horizon, The Cold War was kindled and sooner than later we would be talking about Vietnam.

Both as a Nation and in an interview, 37 years in the making.

Funny huh! How Coach’s Grandpa bought him his first hammer and Henry Aaron’s nickname is ‘The Hammer’.

No, I thought it was.