March 24, 2015

I'm skeptical.

About what, I don't know. It was 60 years ago.



From the Althouse home-movie archive.

44 comments:

Sebastian said...

"I'm skeptical. About what, I don't know."

Ever the über-skeptic.





Bob Ellison said...

Cute!

traditionalguy said...

Not cute, but CUTE.

The Bergall said...

Very sweet...........

DanTheMan said...

Skepticism... the gateway drug to cruel neutrality.

Todd said...

Little cutie!

Birches said...

I love it

Unknown said...

No one put their cigarette down, even while dancing or playing with child.

Did they smoke during meals too?

Todd said...

My father had a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other from the moment he awoke until he fell asleep. He was at least a 2 pack a day / 2 pots (or more) of coffee a day fellow. He lived into his mid 70s.

Todd said...

By the time I was 8, I could make a hell of a good pot of coffee, using a percolator.

FullMoon said...

Man, I'm getting all nostalgic, and I don't even know these people/.

Love the New Years 1955, Alcohol, Tobacco, Bow Ties, Broads, and wife swapping all goin'on.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

I'm curious, Althouse, did you ever smoke? I grew up with a dad who smoked and couldn't quit even when he knew it was killing him. I believe I was pre-addicted to nicotine, and I smoked or dipped for thirty years, but I got free of it twelve years ago.

Anonymous said...

Lotsa' giggles!

Rusty said...

Please stop.

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm curious, Althouse, did you ever smoke?"

No. As a kid, I wondered whether I'd become a smoker, like it was some habit waiting to grab you. But I never did it. I don't know why. I guess it must have been the original Surgeon General's report in 1964 connecting smoking to cancer. We knew it was unhealthy by then.

Hagar said...

King James VI & I knew it was unhealthy.

David said...

I'm skeptical that I will watch all 100 of them, but I was interested in how you changes the mood on the same 50's scenes with the music.

David said...

"Did they smoke during meals too?"

In our house, smiling at the dining table was not permitted, before, during or after the meal. One had to relocate.

I am about a decade older than Althouse (maybe a little less) and I remember well that the danger of smoking was well known before the Surgeon General's report in 1964. They didn't call them "coffin nails" for nothing.

The report made it official and started off the decline in smoking. Without a doubt that campaign was the greatest public health venture of the last 50 years in this country.

I smoked off and on for 15 years. Too many, but the last cigarette was 45 years ago.

kcom said...

I'm the son of a doctor and I have the same name as the brand of cigarettes he used to smoke. I'm told it's unrelated. And, no, my name isn't Virginia Slim.

The Godfather said...

My parents both smoked Chesterfields (unfiltered) while I was growing up. My father shifted to some kind of filtered cigarettes (Viceroys?), but Mom never did.

After Mom died (nothing to do with smoking -- she drowned), Dad spent half a year as a medical missionary in Africa and came down with TB. Turned out he'd had a latent case all his life. He spent a couple of months in a sanitarium in the US and gave up smoking completely. But other patients in the sanitarium, also with TB, sneaked into the men's room to smoke. THAT'S COMMITMENT!

I quit smoking years after that and have only regretted that I didn't do so sooner. But your home movies are a reminder of how much smoking was a part of life, and hence how hard it was to give it up.

madAsHell said...

i'm the son of a doctor and I have the same name as the brand of cigarettes he used to smoke.

Camel??
Kool?
Parliament?
Viceroy?
Chesterfield?

traditionalguy said...

kcom is Kent.

Ann Althouse said...

Kent.

Ann Althouse said...

I was guessing.

pm317 said...

What a fantastic material to blog and such a wonderful gift to your children (and Meade too). It makes me think about my own parents and how much they loved me.

Meade said...

I'm guessing traditionalguy's real name is Tareyton.

T. A. Hansen said...

I wonder if the kid knew what an unmitigated bore she'd turn out to be.

rehajm said...

Winston

gregwithtwogs said...

All of these old8MM films of yours explain why men shouldn't wear short pants! Short pants and bow ties don't go well together. Then again, nothing goes well with short pants, especially men not even wearing bow ties.

Anonymous said...

This took me back in time. Thanks for sharing. But damn eyes keep leaking now.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Over Christmas I saw some home videos my family recorded in the late 70's and early 80's for the first time.

One thing we all noticed, beyond how young my folks and all my relatives looked, was how some of them would smoke with a toddler on their lap.

The kids would hold the ash tray every now and then, being helpful and whatnot.

Seeing the dog who died when I was about 3 years old was freaky, and the house I grew up in that my folks sold when I was 18.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Clichéd but my courage forces me to say it--and by doing so I've convinced myself realignment of grievances is near:

Twain was off by a decade with his whole "when I was 16 dad was dumb; it's amazing how much he'd learned by the time I turned 21."

Todd Roberson said...

Where's Laslo?

chillblaine said...

These are very endearing!

Somebody said...

My parents had parties like that. (I'm almost exactly the same age as Althouse.) Everybody smoked! My sister and I hated it when they entertained. It was only later that we realized it was because of the way our eyes would burn from the smoke. It was so pervasive that we took it for granted.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Donnie Darko is a metaphor for some of the greatest hero's without irony this county has ever seen, truck drivers.

Guildofcannonballs said...

This might be the last time, and per The Godfather you, me, the senator, all the same hypocrisy you see, so don't matter about individuals whatnot not what.

Then again maybe Althouse and Steyn know something J.R.R. Tolkien knew.

Something C.S. Lewis knew.

G.K. Chesterton.

The Great John Locke most extraordiraoire.

George Washington.

St. Thomas Acquinas.

Winston Churchill.

Audie Murphy.

Chris Kyle.



Guildofcannonballs said...

Intending to be thought racist profits more than the un.

Without-Christ dispense unknowledge.

Hence the rationalization and justification of short-bigotry socialized.

Mrs. X said...

Love the video.

@David - dinner must have been somber at your house what with smiling not being permitted. (Damn you, autocorrect!)

Guildofcannonballs said...

The perspective that includes a priori bigotry is that which allows for unfacts and facts alike.

Guildofcannonballs said...

Including my Lord and savior Jesus Christ was what I was hoping to do.

wildswan said...

The Fifties as they were. Families, smoking, ties, drinking - all so wrong - yet somehow they still had fun.

kcom said...

Althouse and traditionalguy were right. I'm a Kent.

Apparently I was named after a guy my father knew in medical school.

My father smoked until around 1970. That was about 10 years after he became a doctor. I still remember watching him and being fascinated by how long the ashes could grow.

Guildofcannonballs said...

The best "whoa" ever uttered was by Lionel Richie in "Dancing on the Ceilings."