The Fifties had a great slenderness to them,
the cut of the ties, the lines of the cars,
the beveled malt glasses, as though everyone
hoped to slide along on a greased conveyance.

I imagine pets were happier then, and radios,
though we consider them (radios) relics now,
something we, wielding metal detectors,
might find and discard on Floridian shores.

Many of the housewives entertained
mainly innocent visions concerning
over-the-road truckers (a shade less
tattooed and beard-ridden back then).

My own parents, teens at the time,
wore coonskin caps and worshipped the Everly Bros.
and limited their sexual proclivities to the purely
rational and an occasional sullied tube sock.

Generally, we now agree, there was
a between-wars nervousness and pining
for great stakes that led many to drive out
to the lake and neck for awhile.

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I guess I'm amused by false histories and factual fuzziness, or maybe it's just that my knowledge of the past comes mainly from TV & movies & made-for-TV movies.