Gary Brown: Born to cheap gas, black-and-white TV in 1951
"It's lifelike! It's real!"
I read those words in an ad that was reproduced in color, even though the product that it promoted was only black-and-white – a "new 17-inch GE Black-Daylite Television."
"You'll feel real, too, when you see the picture on this ... clarity, detail, sharpness are breathtaking," claimed the ad, which then went on to praise the box the TV came in. "Hand-rubbed cabinet, veneered in richly grained genuine mahogany for enduring beauty."
I saw this in a card I got for my birthday the other day – a booklet, really, of more than two dozen pages – that reproduced vintage advertisements, recalled news events, remembered achievements, reprinted a movie poster, recollected accomplishments, reviewed news events, and called to mind prices paid in my birth year, 1951.
A new house was $9,000, for example, and a new car was priced at a little more than $1,500, with gas to fill the vehicle pumped at 19 cents a gallon.
When my parents went grocery shopping, they paid only about 92 cents a gallon for milk. Coffee was 72 cents per pound. Eggs were 24 cents a dozen. And bread was 16 cents a loaf.
Of course, according to the card that was produced by MemoryRoad.com, a division of Seek Publishing, under the title "Remember When ... A Nostalgic Look Back In Time," the average annual income in 1951 was only $3,515.
What happened in 1951?
News events near the time of my birth in February 73 years ago were charted on a timeline.
Joe DiMaggio, the Yankee Clipper, signed a $100,000 contract for the New York Yankees about the time I was born. It was a last hurrah for the star Major League player, who would be retired by the end of the year, the booklet noted. But, across town, outfielder and slugger Willie Mays arrived that year, signing a contract at age 20 with baseball's New York Giants.
Only weeks after my birth, the comic strip "Dennis the Menace" hit the newspapers. No doubt in the years that followed my parents would note a similarity between the funny pages and family reality.
In national news, the sitcom "I Love Lucy" premiered on CBS, a list documented. Another listing of sports news reported that the Indianapolis 500 winner in 1951 was Lee Wallard, who drove at a speed of 126 mph.
The president of the United States then, as many will recall, was Harry S. Truman. His vice president, the publication notes, was a now-less-recognized Alben Barkley.
Life expectancy in 1951, according to the card, was barely more than 68 years. So far, I've lived five years longer than I was expected to at birth. That overachieving, I must admit, is much of what makes the card so welcomed.
Ads depict different time
No, actually, my favorite part of the bulky card – the company calls it a "KardLet" – were its seven-decade-old advertisements.
Ads hawked the Hudson Hornet, with its "Miracle H-Power" and "Hydra-Matic Drive", and the streamlined Pontiac convertible, which was "wonderful – in Sunlight or Moonlight."
Other sales pitches were made for soda – "Hires To You!," one ad toasted – and haughty-sounding dog food. "Friskies provides up to twice the nourishment of low-quality dog foods," the ad compared.
An ad showed a grandmother-sort in a dress happily mowing a large front lawn with a "Royale De Luxe power lawn mower" – essentially an old reel-style mower with a motor on top. "Why should the boys have all the fun?" she exclaimed with a smile.
And, you apparently could buy a "Color-Keyed" International Harvester Company refrigerator in 1951 that was the "most exciting idea in refrigerators since the ice cube." All you had to do was "Pick a Color from the Rainbow," one from nearly a dozen that were offered that year.
Oh, the refrigerator itself was white. But, you could get a handle that had a "color flair" that would fashionably match the color scheme of your kitchen.
"They're femineered!" the ad proclaimed.
I didn't say that. The ad in my card did. The refrigerator people probably wouldn't repeat word today. As the ad itself said, the "femineered" handles were "years ahead" of their more politically incorrect time.
Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP.
This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Gary Brown: Born to cheap gas, black-and-white TV in 1951
