The "Shared Memories From When I Became A Teenager" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Talking with my granddaughters about being a teenager when I was growing up.  Both of them have now become teenagers and are now part of a new era in their lifetime.  On September 9, 1957 I turned 13 and became an official teenager.  I was a gangly kid with a crewcut who loved baseball, cars, music, and raising guinea pigs.  Oh yeah ... maybe girls, too.  School was just something I had to do since ... well, that's what you were supposed to do.  I was entering 7th grade (known as junior high back then) in the Manheim Township School District in Lancaster County, PA.  I had a crush on a young neighborhood girl named Marilyn, but I'm not sure she even knew I existed.  She probably didn't even know what a guinea pig was, either.  But, there were plenty of other things for a teenager to do in 1957.  Hard to believe that was six decades ago.  Looking  back on that year, I can let you know some of what was going on in my lifetime as well as in the world.  So, here goes...

1. It was early in January that my dad brought home this really neat watch that was made a few miles from our house at Hamilton Watch Co.  My dad worked as a jeweler as well as a watchmaker and he showed me the first battery-operated wristwatch.  Little did I know that when I graduated from high school six years later that I would be the proud owner of one of those watches.
2. In late January our country once again swore in it's President.  Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first President that I have any remembrance of in my lifetime.  I can remember him making visits to nearby Gettysburg where he and his wife would visit.  Gettysburg is the only home that Dwight and Mamie ever owned and they later retired to the home which adjoined the Gettysburg Battlefield.   
3. How many of you can remember the Frisbee?  It was on January 23rd of 1957 that Wham-O Company introduced the Frisbee. 
4. One of the greatest recording musicians in history, Elvis, had one of his biggest sellers in 1957 with Jailhouse Rock.  Elvis was voted Artist of the Year and also had hits in All Shook Up, Teddy Bear and Too Much.  The second best recording artist that year was Pat Boone with Love Letters in the Sand, April Love and Don't Forbid Me.  Third place went to Buddy Holly with hits That'll Be the Day and Peggy Sue.  That'll Be The Day was released on May 27th and featured Buddy Holly and The Crickets.  The remaining artists in the top 10 were: Harry Belafonte (who?), Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Mathis, The Diamonds, Paul Anka, The Everly Brothers and Little Richard.
5. I can still remember mom having a set of the new bowls that were patented in April of 1957.  Remember the bowls you could "burp"?  Known as Tupperware.  It was modeled after a paint-can lid.
6. It was on July 12 that the Surgeon General announced that smoking is linked to lung cancer.  Duh!  What took him so long.  For some, 60 years hasn't been a long enough time to learn a lesson since there are still too many people who smoke.  It killed both of my wife's parents.
7. Being a car nut, I could hardly wait for the new cars to be introduced in 1957.  I lived a block from a Lincoln/Mercury dealer, a Chrysler/Plymouth dealer and a Buick dealer.  Each dealer would cover their windows with brown paper so no one could see in and place their new cars behind the paper.  Naturally had to be done in the black of night so no one got to see it before he grand opening.  On a day in September all dealers would take the paper down and introduce their new cars for the year.  1957 was the year that Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel that had a grill that ran vertical rather than the traditional horizontal.  Many hated it, but I thought it was cool.  I must have been in the minority, since it didn't last long.  
8. On September 25 I can remember sitting in front of the TV with my parents as we watched the reporters telling us about federal troops who had to protect nine African-American students in Little Rock, Arkansas as they tried to integrate the formerly all-white Central High School.
9. On October 1st our nation added a line on the nation's currency which now stated: "In God We Trust." 
10. Then on Tuesday, June 25th in 1957, a group of teenage boys in the suburbs of a Northern England port city known as "The Quarrymen" began to practice their primitive brew of homemade folk, blues-hillbilly and rock and roll in preparation to play at a church social.  That was the start of what the world got to know as The Beatles.  John, Paul, George and eventually Ringo changed the world forever.  They became the love of the Baby Boomers.  I was born two years to early to be a Baby Boomer, but I still loved the music of The Beatles.
11. One of the biggest events of 1957 happened on August 5th when Dick Clark debuted one of the most popular nationally seen musical shows of my lifetime when American Bandstand began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The show actually began five years earlier with another guy named Bob Horn, but was seen only in the Phila. area.  I can still remember hustling off the school bus at Frey Lumber Yard so I could get home in time to turn Channel 6 on the TV and watch, in black and white naturally, American Bandstand.  Every day he would say, "Hi, I'm Dick Clark.  This is American Bandstand!"  Eight iconic words I will never forget!  The 90 minute show featured high school boys and girls who would dance to the most popular rock and roll songs of the day.  And, since it was live from Philadelphia, many local singers would appear including Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon and Fabian.  The show launched the career of these three guys and a few years ago I had the chance to see them together once again when Carol and I went to the American Music Theater in Lancaster for a concert featuring the three of them who are now known as "The Golden Boys."  Frankie did most of the singing and his son was the drummer in the band that accompanied the three of them.  Well, Bandstand featured guys who wore ties and jackets while the girls wore skirts with poodles on them and bobby socks and saddle shoes.  I might have only been 13, but I loved the show.  Watched it all through high school.  And then, a few years after it started, another guy with the name of Chubby Checker (aka Ernie Evans) introduced the Twist on American Bandstand.  Even I could do that dance.  The show was broadcast from Philadelphia until 1964 when it went to Los Angeles and was a weekly show until it faded away in 1987.  Many musicians played on the show over the years with Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon making 110 appearances on the show.  Can still remember when the guys and girls on the show rated new songs on the show.  They would tell whether they liked the song or not and how well they could dance to it.  Had my favorite girls that I liked to watch every day after school.  

After reading my story, my wife's friend Marg made a collage to share with my story.

As you can see, 1957, my first year as a teenager, was very influential in how I grew up and saw the world.  Wonder what my granddaughters will remember from the year they turned 13.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.