Being a teenager in old-time Phoenix


At the risk of promoting stereotypes, I kinda like it when people act their age. Children should be noisy (and run back and forth for no apparent reason), old people should be grumpy (and complain about the government, and taxes) and teenagers should be sulky (and bored with everything, and disinterested in anything but what really interests them). Sorry, but quiet and polite children, and old people who are cheerful about the state of the world today, and teenagers who smile politely and flash winning smiles just seem wrong to me.

As a teenager of the seventies, I really don't remember much about it, except that it was awkward, and there were pimples. Lots of pimples. I really try not to think about my teenage years, preferring to imagine myself going from a chubby little kid to the mature adult who got his first corporate job. But today I'm thinking about being a teenager in old-time Phoenix.

I'm no math wizard, but I know that people went through their teenage years even before the 1950s, but it seems as if the concept of being a teenager began at that time. You know, poodle skirts and duck tails, and all that. From what I'm learning about post-WWII America, it was a great time, with plenty of money, with a good chunk of it going to what was really a new consumer at the time - teenagers. They bought records, went to soda fountains, all that stuff.


Still, our concept of what life was like, by looking at what has been preserved from that time, like the pic up there of Gary Driggs looking at a collection of fine cashmere sweaters in the 1950s, may just blur the reality, the way that in the future looking at pictures on Instagram and Facebook won't really show things perfectly accurately.

Gary does seem cheerful there talking to Wally, but my best guess is that he's thinking about tennis, not cashmere sweaters.

Thank you for being a teenager in old-time Phoenix with me!
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