7D © Classics: A Look Bach at the 1950s 19 Oscar Durkee In the early 1950s Oscar Durkee was an eighth grader living in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. He graduated from high school in 1954 and joined the Air Force soon after. In the early 1960s he became a teacher at D.C. Everest. Where were you in the 1950s? i In 1950, I was an eighth grade student and in 1954, I graduated from Rhinelander High School. In the beginning of the 1950s, I was quite unaware of cultural things that were occurring. By the time I | graduated from high school, I was more aware of the happenings of the day. After 1955, 1 was in the military, the USAF, so life for me was a lot different than that of a civilian. I remained in the military until 1958 and found myself caught up in certain social aspects of the 1950s culture. After my discharge from the military I attended college. ' Did you support a political candidate in the election of 1956? ‘The first time I voted in my life was in the 1956 presidential election. My family was Democratic and voted basically in every election. In 1956, Dwight David Eisenhower was the Republican candidate. He ‘was such a hero to the American people. He seemed to be a mice guy and I remember the posters and slogans, “I like Ike”. He was a father figure, soft spoken, and a great Army General. Following my | conscience, I voted for Ike the Republican contrary to my family’s political position. I do not think it ‘was very political at the time and I do believe because of my military experience that Eisenhower appeared to me as the person who should be president of the country. Since that time I have become more political and have never voted for a Republican since. | What was the U2 Spy Plane Incident? ‘This incident was about the United States’ first spy plane. It would fly really high and take great | camera pictures detailing ground objects. The pilot of the plane was a US soldier named Gary Powers. He got shot down while on a mission over Russia, which was known as the USSR at that time. When he got shot down, he revealed to the Russians that he was a spy taking pictures for the US government. Kruschev got really angry and got on the phone with Eisenhower and told him that we were not supposed to be doing that, I don't know if there were agreements made, but I do remember that at first ‘ Eisenhower denied what had happened and the American people were very embarrassed over the whole incident. What did you think of the Nixon and Kennedy Debate in 1960? ‘The thing that I remember best about the debates was that John F, Kennedy was very handsome and i had a certain appeal that Richard Nixon seemed to lack. Perhaps my impression as a young person at that time was that Kennedy was a hero from the war and the press reinforced that fact, it just seems. Because of that, he had a lot of the young people’s vote. Later, when Kennedy came to Rhinelander £2005 DC. Bret Aes Schoo Peles Darts, seer50 Classics: A Look Back at the 19501 to campaign, I was able to shake Robert Kennedy’s hand outside the paper mill where I worked and I thought that was pretty neat — the presidential candidate in a small northern Wisconsin town. Who was Joe McCarthy to you? I was a junior in high school in 1953 and Joseph MeCarthy was the biggest hero in my school because (We had a saying in he made speeches against communism and we thought that was great. We, a8 students, felt that communism | the 1950s. It was, had penetrated our American culture and political | “Better dead than Red”. system. The communists were going to take over our | YQ just thought country. We were scared to death of communism. We e had a saying in the 1950s. It was, “Better dead than | COMMUnists wanted to Red”. We just thought communists wanted to take | tale over the world... ‘over the world from what we read in the newspapers and what our teachers and parents often told us. We thought that McCarthy was a great hero at first, but later when it was revealed that he had made up most of the charges looking for publicity, we felt quite embarrassed. In high school, he was a hero because communism was going to take over the United States and the world. Many Americans feared communism, in the 1950s. Did you have to take a Loyalty Oath? I did at that time, but when I started teaching at D.C. Everest High School, I applied for a grant to go to a Southeast Asian Institute in Washington State. I had to go down to the local grocery store, raise my right hand and swear before a clerk, who was a student of mine, that T was not a communist and had never been a member of the Communist party. That is the only way that I could get the grant. Even public institutions had responded to the great fear of Communism in the Joe MeCarthy years When you said, “Better dead than Red,” what did that mean? Well, we called the communists, “Red” because that is the color of their flag. Also, in China, the civilian guards are called “Red guards,” so someone made up the phrase; “Better dead than Red”, It rhymed and no one wanted to become a communist. It would be horrible! It ‘would enslave us, take over the world and ruin our lives. I was too young to enter the war in Korea. The Korean War started in 1950 and ended in 1953. I was a junior in high school when it ended. I did have some indirect experiences with the war, however. My cousin, who went into the war, got shot in the stomach and he had to wear a bag to collect his body discharges for the rest of his life. He would write to me and I would write back. I knew it was a horrible war from his letters as well as the news on television and newspaper articles, My impression as a young person in northern Wisconsin was that we had to stop the horrible communist expansion in the world. The issue of communist control of the world was focused on the Korean War now. Dwight D. Eisenhower said that if one country fell to communism, then all the countries would fall. We all knew this to be the “domino theory”, :Classics: A Look Bach at the 1950s a Who was General Douglas MacArther? General Douglas MacArther was the general in charge of the war in Korea. He was from Wisconsin and that made him special to us Wisconsinites. We thought he was the greatest general that had ever lived. When Truman fired him it was a shock to us. I cannot remember exactly my attitude about him being fired at the time but I think it was that Truman was dumb for doing it Later. I agreed with the firing because I understood that Army personnel have to follow the directives of their leader and not 20 to the press and attempt to make policy. T think of MacArthur as a great general to this day, | | | | Do you remember what happened with Castro and Cuba? I remember Castro and what was happening in South America. Americans began to think that some communism was not too bad because it could help better the lives of the people who were living under the dictators that controlled South American countries. I remember hearing about one of Castro’s right hand men, His name was Che Guevarro and a lot of young people thought he was a hero because he wanted to liberate the oppressed people in the Latin American countries. Many people thought that communism would be a better alternative (o dictatorship. That thinking caused a lot of confusion at the time. Did you live in the suburbs? T did not live in a suburb, Little old Rhinelander really did not have suburbia. Historians said that people in the 1950s were conformist. I think that we Hodags were really conformist! Everybody wanted to do ‘what everybody else was doing and had the same outlook on what they thought was the good life. Family was strong and we didn’t have a teenage culture in the early 1950s that developed as the 1950s developed. Later, teenagers could get together, socialize and started to gain money by part time jobs. For instance, when I graduated from high school there were only a handful of teens working at part time jobs. Most teens just did not work. Everyone generally had the same life style. What did kids wear to school? Historians said that People wore the same clothes to school and there were people in the 1950s few fashion breakers. For boys, poplin pants were the favorites- it was the style. I probably had four pairs of were conformist. | pants in my closet and three were poplin; one & Levi think that we Hodags jean. There were farmer’s pants. Most kids who wore jeans, it was the kids on the farm who mostly wore jeans and bibs, and we nicknamed them “farmers.” ‘The gitls all wore dresses and skirts to school. My sister wore saddle shoes and loafers. She, like all the girls, never wore slacks to school. The girls were all in Home Ec classes and learned all the needed things to were really conformist! Everybody wanted to do what everybody else was doing... ‘©2005 D.. Bares Are Scho Pacts ests, ceeG2 Classics: A Look Back at the 19501 be a good mother and housewife. The tradition at that time was to get married and have a family. It was very conformist and the attitudes of all the kids were the same. Did you find people to be conformists in the 1950s? All the kids seemed to conform to the same ideas and fashions, We would meet every now and then at the local soda parlor. Drive-in theaters were coming in, as well as A&W Root Beer restaurants. These things did get us out a bit but most kids generally did things with their parents and there was not The first time | went to | much socializing after school and on weekends a McDonald’s was in 1957 | side the families. This was the idea of : y ormity. in Washington State and | “™°"™™ the hamburgers were 25 | Do you remember McDonald's? When I graduated from high school there was no cents. Fast food places McDonald’s in Rhinelander, The first time I went were developing along to a McDonalds was in 1957 on Washington State with the suburbs. and the hamburgers were 25 cents, Fast food places were developing along with the suburbs. While I was growing up we had our own neighborhood grocery store and each neighborhood had a store of their own. We still had little family run ‘meat markets. The first large suburban grocery store was Reeves IGA. In fact I got my first job after high school working as a butcher apprentice there. We thought it was really something to have such a huge store in Rhinelander. It is still there today but it is very small by today’s standards, By the 1960s the small neighborhood groceries and meat markets were disappearing, What types of jobs were there in the 1950s? I worked in the supermarket for a while after high school and then I joined the United States Air Force. T got to travel then so I did see life in the fifties from the standpoint of city life; a faster pace and new developments. There were bigger cars, kids listening to the new songs on the radio, viewing TV shows, going to the beaches and even some music festivals. ‘The kids were just starting to create a teen culture that persists today. Most kids did not work when I was in high school so you did not have much money. You went home after school to your family and that’s it. When I graduated in 1954 there were 16 seniors with a car in school. We did with the cars was to cruise a little at night, meet down at the end of the main street of town and then leave for home about 9pm. Were there any major differences between school today and the schooling of the 1950s? ‘As fat as schools, there were not many differences. The classes were all pretty basic, History, English and Biology. I remember quite a bit about them because I enjoyed them very much, We had to go to school with the expectation that we would be getting good jobs after graduation. The girls did not have to este, cee (©2005 De, Everett Sense PableionsI Classics: A Look Bach at the 1950s 83 | | | | worry much about that because marriage was in their future and, the husbands did the work while they raised the children. My views about the opposite sex were basically that of the typical views of the day, that is, the girls were to be protected by the men and they were special because of motherhood. An example of this is when the boys would be out in the halls at school talking a little roughly and a girl would approach, someone would always say, “Oops, watch your language guys, here comes a girl.” Now days the girls speak just like the guys. 1 think that today teenagers are more independent, more equal, and more knowledgeable about what is going on in the world. Was family life importa Family life was very dominant. If you did go out with the gals, or go to a game with friends, it was just a short time out of a Jong time spent with your family, Generally, teens did not have the money to do a lot with their friends, so they stayed bonded to their families. Most of a teen’s life was with his or her family, Very seldom did I have a friend stay over because at the end of an activity with another teen, you went home. I can remember going to some parties and we would play “Spin the Bottle.” It was a bold thing to get to kiss a girl for the first time, but you never got to kiss the girl in front of the group because it was too embarrassing. You had to go out of the room with the girl, and when you returned, no one knew if you had kissed her. Life was so simple and we were so innocent. On a weekly basis, relating with friends was about five to six hours at the most What do you remember about the origins of rock and roll in the late 1950s? When Elvis came on television he was the big shocker, {| Can remember | Everyone watched American Bandstand and to most it going to some pa rties ‘was quite shocking especially to see the black - Negro in those days - entertainers. We got our first television set in | @ nd we would play the mid-1950s. When Elvis came on it was a sensational | “Spin the Bottle.” It hit and everyone in America crowded by the television | was a bold thing to sets to watch him. Big Band music was still in, but rock - ¥ was shaking it's popularity, Television affected all of | Jet to kiss a g irl for America. The game show got a lot of attention and there | the first time.... were new stars being born all the time. Movies were still | popular. My favorite stars were Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Ronald Reagan. I can remember that Marlon Brando and James Dean were such a sensation when they starred in movies. Everybody was talking about Marilyn Monroe. I think that she embarrassed many women, The year that Playboy Magazine was published it was Marilyn in the center that caused the str. It was shocking to see women portrayed like that. What do you remember about the civil rights movement? The Civil Rights Movement was just getting started in the 1950s. The Supreme Court decision, Brown | versus the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas started it was not right to have segregated schools. I e 2005 DC. Evo Aes Sch Pbcans Dertes, Oee4 NN ETSW=SCéCé‘(“‘(‘é Classics: A Look Back at the 19501 did not feel much about it because in my hometown of Rhinelander, it was not an issue, We had few, if any blacks in town. In 1957, while in the air force, a friend from Mississippi invited me to go to his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi. | went with him and he showed me how nice whites were to the blacks. He took me to the black school and said, “Look at this nice school,” and I looked at a beautiful new brick school. He drove me about eight blocks away and showed me the white school. It was old and made of wood. Later, he took me to downtown Meridian where he showed me the nice benches marked “blacks only” and benches marked “whites only”. As we were walking on the sidewalks we came upon a couple of black men walking in the opposite direction. I stepped out of the way and around them. My friend grabbed me by the shoulder, shaking and explaining to me that I should never step around a black person, but they should step around me. He was upset with me. It gave me a real feeling of how blacks ‘were being put down in the south, but he did not even realize it. Do you remember Sputnik’s launch in 1957? In 1957, the Russians launched Sputnik. My reaction to it was the same as the ones you read in books: “Wow,” the Russians beat the United States! We had cheaper books so that mote people could read and ‘get caught up on the new technology being created. It was called the “Paperback Revolution”, When I went to high school, there were only hard cover books available, How did you feel being one of the few to own a car? 1 felt that I was very lucky. I did not come from a wealthy family. We moved out to the country and my father wanted me to have the car since he bought a new one. He gave it to me. It was a 1936 Chevy, one with big fenders. It was not fancy but it made me feel very special. We had lots of fun with it. How young were you when you got your driver’s license? I was sixteen. It wasn’t a tough test like today. My dad said, “Well, you're getting a car so I’m going to teach you how to drive.” He took me on the road three times and said that I was doing okay and that I should take the test. I went down to the police station and filled out an application. The officer came in and told me that we could go for a driving test. I drove around four city blocks and he sat in the passenger seat and observed me, We came back to the police station and he said, “You pass.” I felt really fortunate to get a car and a license so easily, Oscar Durkee is presently retired from teaching social studies, but ke still occasionally comes back 10 the classroom to substitute for other teachers. Interviewed: Hai Peng Lec, Hlee Yang, Micahel Walker & David Trask ‘Transcribed: Mai Lee Vang Durkee, Osea (©2005 D.C, Beet Ae Seba Panos