... it was a dream environment of normalcy (whatever the hell that is) compared to today's culture. My baby boomer street was comprised of about a dozen boys, half a dozen girls, playing outside, inside, it didn't matter, we'd ride our bikes all over the place, blocks away, without any parent knowing exactly where we were, as long as we made it home before dinner or before dark. I believe there might have been one divorce on our street of 20 homes. At any rate, my best friend and I knew each other well, but drifted apart in our late teens (college). If I would have re-connected with him in my mid twenties he would have no doubt said, what's with this Mormon thing, you know it is BS. I would be unable to lie to him, and would have to admit to his face that he was right.

Me too, then I joined the Mormon Church—to my shame—and became a dick to my friends.

In the fifties and sixties, Los Angeles suburbs were idyllic enclaves shaped by servicemen getting married and starting families, most working in the aircraft or auto industries. Common backgrounds, common aspirations and common ethics created ideal conditions for the kids they were creating at a rapid pace.
I was lucky enough to be a part of the ‘baby boomers’. We had no worries, walked or rode bikes to school, your ‘turf’ consisted of how far you could ride your bike and be home before the streetlights came on. After dinner were hours long hide and seek games. It was a great time and place to grow up.
There have been no better times In my life than those early years growing up.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2020 11:27PM by csuprovograd.

csuprovograd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In the fifties and sixties, Los Angeles suburbs
> were idyllic enclaves shaped by servicemen getting
> married and starting families, most working in the
> aircraft or auto industries. Common backgrounds,
> common aspirations and common ethics created ideal
> conditions for the kids they were creating at a
> rapid pace.
> I was lucky enough to be a part of the ‘baby
> boomers’. We had no worries, walked or rode
> bikes to school, your ‘turf’ consisted of how
> far you could ride your bike and be home before
> the streetlights came on. After dinner were hours
> long hide and seek games. It was a great time and
> place to grow up.
> There have been no better times In my life than
> those early years growing up.

While for we, the post WWII, southern California kids growing up, this perspective is valid, it is also very misleading.

We kids growing up WERE the ultimate "free range" kids (for which I am incredibly grateful; I can't imagine myself growing up any other way), but inside those inviting, camera-ready suburban homes which were fictionally depicted on all the most popular, national, family TV shows, there were also, often, nightmares of alcoholism, physical and mental abuse, seasoned with a forbidding dollop of accepted racism and ethnic animosity....and, many times, simultaneously, with a pervasive kind of terrifying (and certainly stultifying, sometimes to an almost Saudi-like extent) misogyny.

I am intensely grateful, and I always will be, for the abundance of good which was my growing-up reality back then....and I am still, all these decades later, trying to heal from the, sadly inescapable, bad.

I grew up with SO MUCH "richness" (of a sociological and intellectual and creative kind) constantly around me, and SO MANY options that were mine for the taking....there were so many people in our local areas and communities who were doing stunning (and frequently history-making) creative and scientific and intellectual work, the exceptionally excellent public schools were so incredibly generous (compared to today) with nearly unbelievable opportunities of many various kinds available (mostly at no cost at all) for at least most of the kids who wanted to take advantage of them.

The good back then was spectacularly (as in: nearly unbelievably) good.

And the bad back then was frequently really, truly bad--not just for the kids growing up in those apparently perfect suburban homes, but for all females of any age, and frequently for anyone (with some exceptions, here and there) who didn't fit into an accepted, WASP-y, kind of stereotype.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" applied, all too often, to us Southern California kids--and frequently, it applied to our parents as well.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2020 01:33AM by Tevai.

https://www.goretro.com/2014/08/mothers-little-helper-vintage-drug-ads.html

"Something I've discovered recently is how many prescription anti-anxiety drugs were marketed towards women or their husbands back in the day, to ensure that housekeeping duties would not fall by the wayside. I guess it makes sense...as women became desperate housewives they had to deal with the stresses of keeping the house clean, getting the kids off to school and shuttled to extracurricular activities, and making sure a hot meal was waiting for their husband when he got home. Then as woman entered the workforce, they had to deal with a job on top of all of that. No problem, just take the little lady to the doc's to get a prescription for Butisol, Thorazine, or that old standby, Valium, and your kitchen floor will be shining again in no time. We've come a long way, baby...I think? Let's have a look..."

So much THIS!!!^^^

When I was growing up in Socal early60s-early 70s, my dad was a jack at the time. When he was a grad student and worked as a waiter. We had a pool. Oh, the pool parties he would throw with all the workers from the restaurant. Sergio Mendes on the turn table, up loud. All the neighbors there. It was a blast! Those were on his good days. His bad days were bad, but that's for another post. Sunshine, seawater, and be home before the street lights come on.

Too bad, so sad, that you guys "grew up".

Oh, I do chores, but then it's out/off to play. Not that I enjoy it! No, it's just that it's all I know.

Yorba Linda 65-68. Brand new neighborhoods. Kids had skateboards and StingRays (no Big Wheels yet). High school guys had muscle cars. Played in Avocado and Lemon groves, explored the Shell Oil Hills (Now houses called Anaheim Hills). A&W's and Shakey's Pizza. Block parties on Holidays. Everybody's parents drank and smoked and bought "Hi-Fi's". Pretty sure we had a few swingers on the block. Good times!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2020 10:40AM by stillanon.

East San Diego County, 1950s and 1960s.

It was still common back then for parents to beat the daylights out of kids who refused to eat their broccoli, or who talked back.

In my case, it finally stopped when I got big enough to hit back.

Guess it depends on the parents. That wasn't the norm with my parents or my friends parents.

I grew up in Utah. It was all mormon except for a few. We had one divorce among the kids I went to school with and one divorce up the street of a family who were not mormon. That family also lost a child who died in the creek that ran through our neighborhood. They were Catholic and my mother talked about how they didn't believe in an afterlife. My mother was not a mean-spirited person at all, but she was concerned for the family in terms of how they were dealing with it.

We did have the cold war to deal with and were taught how to hide under our desks in school. Also, we had to make it home in 30 minutes and I wondered if I could run the 6 blocks home in time. AND my mother worried about kidnapping and she reinforced in us what to do if someone tried to take us. My brother had problems from birth, but got hit by a pickup on his bike and I saw it happen. We had a lot of trauma in our childhood. My grandmother was deaf. My grandfather was also deaf, but he died when I was 3. My grandmother was one of the joys of our lives.

My best friend came from a family where the dad was mormon and the mother was not. I spent a lot of time at their home. They only had 2 kids. She was an interior decorator and they had a beautiful home. She owned her own business. This was the 1960s. They argued a lot and they both smoked and drank. My parents had no problem with me hanging out there. When we hit jr. high, we started hanging out with new friends. She quit going to church and I was still going. She asked to see me when she ran into my sister about 10 to 15 years ago in the dark days of my life and I wouldn't see her as I felt so broken. When I was ready to see her, I found out she had committed suicide a year to the day before I found out. I have NO DOUBT that we would have been best friends now if she had lived.

Oh, we played a lot, too. My memories or her are walking on top of the plowed snow on the sides of the roads and bike riding and swimming. BUT I was also raised by a farmer. I worked all summer long and into the fall on the farm with my family. I hated working on the farm, but now those are some of my most cherished memories.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2020 10:53AM by cl2.

>>They were Catholic and my mother talked about how they didn't believe in an afterlife.

I wonder how Mormons ever got that notion about other Christian denominations, since Mormonism is a Christian offshoot. The vast majority of Christians do believe in an afterlife.

I was born in the mid-50s in a suburb 8 miles north of downtown LA. Mom was member and Dad was not. It was pretty close to an idyllic childhood with good memories for the most part.

When I was ten, my dad found a job in Hawaii and we moved to Oahu for one year. That was one of the best family adventures of my youth.

In 1967, Dad got a contract with an engineering company that took him to far away Canton Island just below the Equator. Sadly, we moved back to the mainland. Dad eventually accepted a transfer to Antigua in the West Indies and we moved there for several months. During that time, I think Mom had a family home evening or a Sunday school manual, which essentially meant no formal church. It was an amazing place. Other than some friction with my older sibling, we enjoyed some good times.

We returned to the states and my folks bought a house in what is now called Santa Clarita, where we lived continuously in the early 70s. Dad joined the church about the time I turned 15 and my parents and sibs were sealed the following year.

At 15, although my folks treated me well, I was a pretty rebellious kid. I became good friends with another rebel in teachers quorum. In the summer, I went to a youth conference at BYU where I heard a man, Don Black, preach about Jesus Christ and, as a result, I started to straighten my life out. To mom, it was like a miracle and she even wrote a poem about it.

I wasn't a great student in secondary school. Other than considering military service, I didn't really have a plan. For some reason, I decided on attending a church JC like Ricks or Snow College. Ricks accepted me pretty quickly so off I went in the fall of 74.

While at Ricks, I saw a friend from my home stake, who was there attending the LTM for Danish. He invited me to a meeting with some elders in his district. It was somehow inspiring to me. Later, I prayed on my own to ask if I should go on a mission and I immediately felt a great rush of endorphins.

After one semester of Ricks, I put in the paperwork and, just before my birthday, I got the call to South America. I believed in the church and worked to the best of my ability but I never was much of a sales type. We taught a total of a dozen folks, mostly older females and five young teens, who were baptized.

I almost died a couple of times. Once, two of us were cleaning an indoor baptismal font when there was a gas leak. Both of us started feeling dizzy and, fortunately, we got outside before we passed out.

By the end of my mission, I got really sick and some members took me to a hospital, 25 de Mayo, where they did a spinal tap and told me I had meningitis. I was given a lot of medicine over the next three days and then released for a week's bed rest at our apartment. This all took place one month before my release.

I flew home in February and just two weeks later, I'd started the winter block at BYU. By the end of March, I met a lovely young lady in my branch, who really impressed me. We began dating and eight days later I proposed on Temple Square between conference sessions.

I'm sure that some of you are thinking, why were you in such a hurry? In retrospect, I would say that I was strongly influenced by church teachings AKA brainwashing and raging hormones. Also, I always valued feelings over thinking things through.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/31/2020 07:37PM by cuzx.

My wife of nearly 43 years comes from a part member family. In fact, only one of her three siblings joined the Mormon church and her parents didn't attend any church. One of my sincere regrets as an exmo was getting married in the temple because it excluded most of my in-laws.

Today, I'm grateful for the Internet because it brought me to RfM and to an old site called The Foyer, 16-17 years ago. I had developed several doubts after working in my stake's high council for nearly four years. It wasn't a single issue but a steady accumulation that broke my shelf over time. What pushed me over the edge was learning the unvarnished history of the early church in the late summer of 2003.

Luckily, DW is devoted to me despite my disbelief and I truly love her as well. We had to agree to disagree over religion long ago. It's not easy getting older and facing health challenges either; now that we're both seniors, I do worry more, especially with the COVID-19 menace.

At this point, we have three children and seven grandchildren (two step grandsons that we're not close to), and one great grandchild. None of our offspring attends church. One of my daughters resigned about six months after me but she's since rejoined (for social reasons, I think).

Our children and grandchildren all have productive careers. I'm generally optimistic about their future. Hopefully, DW and I will be around to watch our new great grandchild growing up. She's like a ray of sunshine in our lives.

Onward...

The 80's and early 90's was the best period ever of awesome friends in the neighborhood. I am a little bias of course. But it was good times until mormonism literally drove a knife in it all.

I've always liked north California, and the few years I spent here in my childhood were pretty good, whenever I was outside the house. Indoors wasn't so good. My son grew up right here, and he had a nice childhood. People move more nowadays, it seems. Though I moved a lot as a kid.

I'll tell you one thing I miss. Trick or treating is over in this town. Trunk or treat swooped in like a conspiracy and drove the old tradition out. Halloween isn't the same.

Ahhh, California-

My family's California living through the 1900's-current... though the current has taken me on, and I'm currently taking it on (as I take it all off, to sleep).

Corona Del Mar, Costa Mesa, Laguna Hills, Laguna Beach, Lake Arrowhead, I'm out of my head... but, I'm in bed...

In 1887, the family took a Pulman train trip throughout the Southwest, Utah, California, and back toward the mid-southwest, took a couple months (2 weaks in today's time). I have a booklet, reprinted in it's centennial, in 1987, that tells all about the trip. Must have been a blast (but that's in the past).

Though I have been back to, and through (though I'll never be through), the sunshine state many times, I'll never climb enough hills, make enough friends, or catch enough waves (almost everybody in California - or anywhere - waves at me).

California is the place you gotta be... Unless you gotta be somewhere else.

I left a little while ago... but I will be right back.

I was raised in a small Northern California town, that was as close to perfection as any town could be. Many times, it has been voted one of the Nation's top bicycle towns. It's on a flat, between the foothills and the Bay. Just a 30-minute drive over a windy, wooded road, and we were at the beach. I remember the town as one giant, patchwork garden of carefully manicured yards. My father's dream (which came true) was to reach out his dining room window and pick fresh oranges. Out my upstairs bedroom window, I could reach out and pick bartlett pears. I could also climb out the front dormer window, slide down the roof, and make a jump onto the ground, and freedom.

Yes, I remember my Mother calling after us as we rode away on our bicicles: "Come home when the street lights come on." and "Don't go near East Town". "East Town" was where the black families lived. Our little town was one of the first in the US to be fully integrated.

Two of my brothers went to Harvard. My genius cousin invented stuff in his garage, just like Hewlett and Packard, and at just about the same time. He made a million dollars when he was 16 years old! Silicon Valley and electronics--my cousin was the right person in the right place at the right time. It seemed like everyone was prosperous. My parents bought their home for $12,000 cash, and lived there their entire lives. We used to ride horses in the surrounding fields and orchards. Now, comparable houses sell for 3 million dollars.

We had the beach, the City, several universities, junior colleges, skiing 5 hours away, lakes, award-winning public schools, a Community Center that was more like a country club, with tennis courts, 3 swimming pools, a large library, a children's library, 2 theaters, and a junior museum. Every May Day there would be a pet-parade down the main street of the town, culminating at the Community Center for a huge picnic. The climate was mild, sunny, with four distinct seasons, and no snow. There were two movie theaters, and we would alway run into someone we knew. I worked at Christmas and summers at a fashionable women's boutique, and knew a lot of the customers. I went to BYU with my Mormon friends, and we would ride to Provo on the California Zephyr out of Niles, through the Feather River Canyon, and we would dance in the starlight in the "vista dome" railroad cars. Yosemite! Carmel! Northern California is still in my soul.

I grew up in a small suburb of L. A. It was glorious.

We had the Beach, the Mountains, deserts, museum's the Zoo,

Parks, the observatory, libraries, Universities beautiful

scenery and plenty of relaxed and tanned people. There

was always something to do, some place to see. It was the

ideal place to be a child, or raise children. I have nothing

but gentle, sunshiny dreams of happy days and smiling people.

At least, thats how it felt to me and my friends. We considered

outselves lucky

I'll jump in. My high school was in the East Bay area. 1968-1971. There were certainly good times. But always hanging over our heads was the spectre of Viet Nam. That was when Nixon started doing clandestine bombings and really pissed off large portions of the country when word got out. We had protests. We had Altamont. And all we really wanted was to figure out how to talk to girls.In my personal experience, a great many of the LDS adults thought that kind of stuff was immaterial because it was obvious that the Last Days were upon us.