Like a Phoenix rising above the ashes, life in the middle of the 20th century was filled with hope and an opportunity for the world to be reborn. After the Depression, two world wars, and the Korean Conflict, America was ready to start the process of building a modern world. It was the beginning of the Interstate Highway System under new President Dwight D. Eisenhower, polio was being cured, antibiotics were being developed, car styles were drastically redesigned every year, a 27-year-old Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, and television was beginning to be in every home. The space program was being talked about, millions of houses were being built, and the baby-boom was at its peak. We still had mostly one-car families, stay-at-home housewives and mothers, and corporal punishment in schools. We didn’t have air conditioning, smoke-free environments, stereos, color TVs, or seat belts. People didn’t use credit cards, go jogging, or visit the gym. Women didn’t wear pants in public, pets ran loose, and men wore ties and hats all the time — to work, to eat out, even to baseball games. There was no fast food, no clean air standards, no accepted sensitivity to minorities or women, and men rarely sported facial hair. People got most of their news from the newspapers and magazines like Life, Look and Time. The 1950’s did have atomic bomb drills due to the Red Scare. The era had soda fountains and the beginning of rock and roll. Rock Around the Clock, the very first rock and roll hit, was recorded just eight months after I came into the world. This was a great time to be born and start my life — a great time to experience change and the evolution of mankind into the 21st century’s Information Age. 1953 was also the birth year for a lot of things that impacted our culture: The Chevrolet Corvette, James Bond, Playboy Magazine, transistor radios, the discovery of DNA, and the polio vaccine. Unemployment was 2.9%, the average cost of a house was $9,550, and the average worker made $4,000 a year. Gasoline was 20 cents a gallon, and the average new car was only $1,650. You could actually buy a color TV in 1953. It cost $1,175, which would be equal to over $10,000 in 2014. For a synopsis of 1953, here is a You Tube link to the year in review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b3-kjgVULQ