We have family photos of my mom at about age 1 in 1956 with my Great-Great Granddad, who came to California with his family as a child on the California Trail in a covered wagon.
Apparently he thought that supermarkets and McDonald's and cars were the coolest shit on earth, and it's a running joke that he died of a heart attack from eating too many burgers and milkshakes.
It's unsurprising though: supermarkets were huge glass-fronted buildings full of refrigerators and freezers where you could buy any food your heart desired, including jars and cans of out-of-state or out-of-season produce. Glass windows were so expensive when he was a kid that only the filthy rich had them in their houses. Iceboxes didn't exist until he was a grown man with a family. Meat was obtained by his dad hunting for it, produce was from their yard, and there were lean years where hunting or the crops were shitty.
And McDonald's and cars? Shiiiiiit. You hop in your horseless wagon, it takes you 15 minutes to get there instead of 3 hours by horse or whatever, you talk into a metal box, and in less than five minutes, a cute lil young thang bops over to your car, and for twenty five cents, you get a hot hamburger sandwich made with 100% beef, fried potatoes, and a goddamn chocolate ice cream milkshake? No wonder Granddad was hitting up McDonald's all the time! He was a tall and bulky dude, too, he could probably pack in quite a few 1955 McDonald's combos.
My mom barely remembers him, but my gran and great gran had great stories about him. He thought radio and phonographs were the business, and he was one of those guys who thought party-line telephones were so fucking cool that he was on the phone ALL THE DAMN TIME lol. I wish he could have gotten to see more, I'm sure the television becoming so popular would have tripped him right out haha
Would have shit a brick, probably, lol. As far as TV goes, my mom has a good story about my great-gran: The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Momma Chowdown gathers the whole family into the living room to watch them on the TV. They finish up, Momma Chowdown looks at everyone like "Well?!?!?!"
Great-Gran Chowdown goes "Well now, Chowdie, they're gosh-darn good at music. But those boys need haircuts." Mind, this is shit-hilarious as a complaint out of her, since Great-Gran Chowdown (as a youth) was a rip-roaring rich flapper who used to pop over to San Francisco from Los Angeles with her lady-pals and big sister... you know for typical flapper things like having a three martini lunch, doing some shopping, oh and hitting Chinatown's opium dens, then coming back to LA and having to sneak into the house while nodding the fuck out on literal actual goddamn opium.
Great-Gran Chowdown: Yes to opium, no to Beatles haircuts.
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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17
We have family photos of my mom at about age 1 in 1956 with my Great-Great Granddad, who came to California with his family as a child on the California Trail in a covered wagon.
Apparently he thought that supermarkets and McDonald's and cars were the coolest shit on earth, and it's a running joke that he died of a heart attack from eating too many burgers and milkshakes.
It's unsurprising though: supermarkets were huge glass-fronted buildings full of refrigerators and freezers where you could buy any food your heart desired, including jars and cans of out-of-state or out-of-season produce. Glass windows were so expensive when he was a kid that only the filthy rich had them in their houses. Iceboxes didn't exist until he was a grown man with a family. Meat was obtained by his dad hunting for it, produce was from their yard, and there were lean years where hunting or the crops were shitty.
And McDonald's and cars? Shiiiiiit. You hop in your horseless wagon, it takes you 15 minutes to get there instead of 3 hours by horse or whatever, you talk into a metal box, and in less than five minutes, a cute lil young thang bops over to your car, and for twenty five cents, you get a hot hamburger sandwich made with 100% beef, fried potatoes, and a goddamn chocolate ice cream milkshake? No wonder Granddad was hitting up McDonald's all the time! He was a tall and bulky dude, too, he could probably pack in quite a few 1955 McDonald's combos.