Chicken at 46 Cents a Pound

The dinner table mantra: "Eat everything on you plate whether you like it or not." This was a tough one for me because I was the typical picky eater and my parents' insistence that I eat whatever they piled onto my plate became a daily battle. The more they persisted, the more I resisted. Tricks to escape eating anything remotely good for me, specifically eggs or vegetables, included: hiding any and all vegetables beneath the rim of my plate; slinging peas across the table at my brother; sometimes, my brother would sling his peas at me; or putting unwanted food in a pocket and burying it in the backyard after dinner. Once, I tried sticking a portion of my dinner down my undershirt but when I stood up it fell on the floor and I was caught. Regardless, I was made to eat it. Fortunately, Mom kept her floor clean. Another ploy was to artistically push my food around on my plate so that it would look like less. Once in desperation, I puked my diner back on my plate wherein my father gagged and ran to the bathroom to lose his own dinner in the toilet.

Food appeared to be relatively affordable in the 1950s and perhaps my parents could have been a bit more forgiving about what they perceived to be their eldest child's death wish: "You are going to starve to death!" "You are going to get sick and die!" "One day, the wind is going to blow you away!" However inexpensive the chicken at 46 cents a pound in 1950 appears to us today, the average income was only $3,300. My parents were just in their mid-twenties when I was five years old and I am sure they struggled to make ends meet, so an obstinate child at the dinner table had to have been frustrating for them. Waste of any kind was unacceptable, and as Depression era adults the idea of throwing away food was sinful. Gasoline was 26 cents a gallon: we owned one car for years and only went out in it when necessary. A U.S. stamp was 3 cents and junk mail was unknown. A McDonald's hamburger was 15 cents; I didn't eat one until I was in high school. You could buy a Philco television for $150 but we only turned it on after dinner and on weekends. Old Spice aftershave for a dollar, and Chanel No. 5 for five dollars; both were saved for special occasions. If you were wealthy enough to fly to London, your ticket would cost $265 and you could probably find a cheaper flight today, but in 1950, you could buy a pack of cigarettes for just 25 cents and smoke your guts out on the way over. The ashtrays were built into the armrest of the passenger seats and the attendants would even light them for you.

And yet, the one thing I have noticed that doesn't seem to have changed is the battle to get children to eat what is "good" for them. How in the world do children appear to survive only on macaroni and cheese and birthday cake? Somehow - and fortunately - they do.