View Full Version : 51 years ago quotes from 1955


bert model maker
09-20-2006, 01:49 AM
I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20."

"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $2000 will only buy a used one."

"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous."

"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?"

"If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store."?

"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage."

"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls."

"I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying 'damn' in 'Gone With The Wind,' it seems every new movie has either "hell" or "damn" in it.

"I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas ."

"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the president."

"I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now."

"It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."

"It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."

"Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more; those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."

"I'm just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."

"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."

"The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on."

"There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel."

"No one can afford to be sick any more; $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood."

"If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it."

Lloyd Collins
09-20-2006, 02:01 AM
The good old days!

scotpens
09-20-2006, 02:30 AM
"By the 21st century, we'll be getting all our power from atomic energy. It'll give us electricity too cheap to meter!"

"Those tiny bikini bathing suits may be all the rage in Europe, but you'll never see American women wearing them!"

"The car-buying public doesn't want seat belts or padded dashboards. Safety doesn't sell."

"Color TV? I'll believe it when I see it in black and white!"
— attributed to Samuel Goldwyn

From Back to the Future:
"A colored mayor? That'll be the day!"

john guard
09-20-2006, 03:04 PM
where did you get those quotes?

Griffworks
09-20-2006, 03:15 PM
They prolly got a time machine and got them directly from the sources. :D

El Gato
09-20-2006, 03:34 PM
"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."

Well, this one hasn't happened yet. For the average person, the current tax burden (cumulative) is 32%, about 7 percentage points higher than 1950.

Not that I'm complaining.

john guard
09-20-2006, 05:36 PM
can someone check if Astronauts did exist in 1951?

i'm beginning to think these are not real quotes.

Atlantis
09-20-2006, 06:21 PM
can someone check if Astronauts did exist in 1951?

i'm beginning to think these are not real quotes.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=astronaut
. :confused:

john guard
09-20-2006, 06:27 PM
yeah but his quote says "They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas "
can someone verify if there were any in 1951?
otherwise he is just making up quotes that would sound as if they may or may not have existed in 1951

bert model maker
09-20-2006, 07:04 PM
yeah but his quote says "They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas "
can someone verify if there were any in 1951?
otherwise he is just making up quotes that would sound as if they may or may not have existed in 1951
I found that list on another web site and copied and pasted it here.

Zorro
09-20-2006, 07:35 PM
Um, I think these "quotes" are intended as "humor" - not as verbatem utterances from the year 1955. Ya' think?

bert model maker
09-20-2006, 07:53 PM
i know the term astronauts didn't exist in 1955 or at least i don't think so, i was busy being born so my mind was distracted lol

Griffworks
09-20-2006, 10:17 PM
Heh... Some of y'all'll love this while others will have a stroke.... :D

According to Dictionary.com, astronaut (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Astronaut) has it's origins listed as being sometime in 1925 - 1930. The Wikipedia entry for Astronaut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut) backs this up, stating the first known use of the word was in a short story in 1930.

Regardless, it was in semi-common use at least as early as 1959 - Career Astronaut Biographies - Former Astronauts (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/astrobio_former.html).

Arronax
09-21-2006, 08:16 AM
i know the term astronauts didn't exist in 1955 or at least i don't think so, i was busy being born so my mind was distracted lol

I was 10 in 1955 and we called 'em spacemen.

Jim

john guard
09-21-2006, 10:50 AM
Astronauts
Spacemen
Star Voyager
Rocketmen


what other names can you think of???

beck
09-21-2006, 11:40 AM
Spam in a can if anything goes wrong .
hb

Griffworks
09-21-2006, 11:51 AM
Cosmonaut (Russian)
Space Journyer
Sojourner (SP)

scotpens
09-21-2006, 04:40 PM
According to Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, the original Mercury astronauts sometimes self-deprecatingly referred to themselves as "lab rabbits with wires up the kazoo." I can just imagine that as a photo caption in Life magazine.

Other things we said in 1955:

"The Japanese are starting to get really good at making radios and cameras. Of course, they'll never be able to make a car worth a damn!"

"Well, Richard Nixon's political career is finished -- we won't have him to kick around any more!"

El Gato
09-21-2006, 09:37 PM
Other things we said in 1955:

"Well, Richard Nixon's political career is finished -- we won't have him to kick around any more!"

In 1955?? I beg to differ, but Nixon's career was pretty healthy at that time.

Zorro
09-21-2006, 09:43 PM
In 1955?? I beg to differ, but Nixon's career was pretty healthy at that time.

Well, maybe 1952 then.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/richardnixoncheckers.html

scotpens
09-21-2006, 10:59 PM
Yes, I realized my chronology was off soon after making that post. Nixon's famous quote "You won't have Richard Nixon to kick around any more" was made in 1962, after he lost the California gubernatorial race. The "Checkers" speech was from 1952.

But he just kept coming back, like the Frankenstein monster or Godzilla. (That's not considered a political comment, is it?) :tongue:

john guard
09-21-2006, 11:27 PM
i can do a hand shadow puppet of Nixon!
it all in the brow.............

bert model maker
09-21-2006, 11:33 PM
let me make this perfectly clear, i am not a crook i have never done anything wrong and i swear i'll never do it again

spe130
09-21-2006, 11:50 PM
Richard Nixon was one of the funniest things about Futurama - I hope he's still around in the revitalized series. Him, and the Hyperchicken - "your honor, I move that I be disbarred for introducing this evidence against my clients..."

El Gato
09-22-2006, 12:20 PM
Well, maybe 1952 then.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/richardnixoncheckers.html

I realize we're all in agreement, but... :tongue:

The "checkers" speech was a brilliant piece of political speechwriting, all things considered and giving credit where credit is due. It accomplished the coveted "tripple flip" of politics: getting out of having to say mea culpa while simultaneously tarring his opponents and innoculating himself from future charges of improper behavior (well, for Nixon it kinda worked in the short term). By 1955, Nixon's star was on the rise again because of the "checkers" speech. The man was a crook, a liar, a cheat and should've been tried and executed by a firing squad for what he eventually did to the Constitution, but he knew how to play hardball.

terryr
09-22-2006, 04:51 PM
The man was a crook, a liar, a cheat and should've been tried and executed by a firing squad for what he eventually did to the Constitution, but he knew how to play hardball.

Hoover would be first on that list. And quite a few modern day politicians standing in line too.

I remember looking at a new camaro back in '83, but decided $12000 was way too much for a car.