Back to the Future

It’s the anniversary of Back to the Future, released in 1985. It’s one of my favorite movies. Future re-visited the fifties, and watching it made me take a sentimental trip through those years and also through the decade that followed.

After somewhere along 1950 the post-war housing boom happened and suburban subdivisions mushroomed all over the country. The GI bill and FHA made them affordable, but they were mass-produced homes built in subdivided cow pastures on the edge of the cities. Cookie cutter.

In 1963, we bought one for $14,999.00 in Sterling Heights, Michigan. We had a thousand dollars, left to me by my father’s life insurance. We put $295 down payment, and when we left the closing, we had $13.00 remaining. The house took nine months to be built. Meanwhile, I built another baby. The house was completed in January, and my son David was completed in February. There were no upgrades—not for us. The bathroom tile was plastic.

Cows still roved the acreage next to the subdivision, leading a few residents to complain about the odor. The farmer’s reply was, “Me and these cows were here first. If you didn’t want to smell manure, you should have stayed in Detroit.” He’s the one who sold the land to the developers. Probably laughed all the way to the bank.

The old sewer lines couldn’t keep up with the influx to suburbia and a good rain meant water in the basement—not ours, we had a tri-level, and the bottom level didn’t go down that far. Sump pumps became in high demand.Why Unemployment is buying viagra in india Denied In order to fight the spam that was then on the rise. Smoking is truly done by burning some tobacco and inhaling the smoke and exhales the resultant. levitra pill It will be found by various names just like Kamagra, Kamagra oral jelly, Zenegra, Silagra, Zenegra, order viagra online , Caverta, and Forzest etc. Although an on line viagra view content argument could be made that there are just so many useless, spammy, pill peddling websites out there that it might not be too difficult to rank a legitimate pill selling business with a well built website (but one would actually have to exist first).

Americans popped out babies faster than the cities could build schools, and most children started kindergarten after being bussed to an older district. We were more fortunate, the schools were right across the street from our home. The library consisted of a trailer parked on a vacant lot. The nearest grocery store was six miles away. You couldn’t walk anywhere-anywhere was too far away from home.

We didn’t get a second car for a long time. On Wednesdays, I drove my husband to work, did my shopping, and went to pick him up at the end of the day. A few years after we moved in, a strip mall with a Farmer Jack’s grocery opened on Van Dyke and Seventeen Mile, only two miles from the house. I got a bicycle with a basket and a banana seat, and off we went. My toddler son sat on the back, clinging to me. We could get a little exercise and one day’s worth of groceries. Except for blizzards, we did have to walk it in the winter, but when you’re in your twenties, two miles there and two miles home is a “mere stretch of the legs.”

My children were young and needed me every day. Looking back to when we pinched pennies and did without, I can tell you…it was the happiest time of my life.