Some boomers may have been too young to remember, but President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act into effect in 1964, in a landmark move that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, national origin, or religion.
And, although they didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the signing or passage of the act itself, they were definitely feeling the effects of it in a rapidly changing world.
Wearing Coonskin Caps
Ala David Crockett. This crazy hat is not so common these days - thankfully. This fifties fad was particularly popular among rambunctious little boys fad of the fifties who all wanted to be the famed Crockett from the 1954 Disney miniseries.
The Disney show seriously drove coonskin sales up to a point, $100,000,000 in sales to be exact. All you needed was a play rifle and a coonskin hat. Oh, the power of Disney.
Candy Smokes
These days, smoking cigarettes is majorly frowned upon due to all of our modern knowledge of how it negatively affects our health. But back when boomers were young, it wasn’t uncommon to share a box of candy cigarettes with your six-year-old friends.
As far as candy is concerned, they were disgusting, with a chalk-like flavor and texture. But it wasn’t really about the flavor, was it? It was all about the aesthetics and the feel.
Jell-No
Although there are some things that shouldn’t ever be served in gelatin form, boomers were in the experimental phase of Jell-O.
If you find a cookbook from the ‘60s or ‘70s, you can bet it’s going to have some weird type of ham, vegetable, or fish gelatin mold in it! Thankfully, our palates have evolved, and there aren’t as many cookbooks in circulation that are promoting ham and gelatin crossovers!
Using a Phonebook
Long before the invention of Google and other forms of instant searches, looking up a phone number was a little trickier and took some more time – especially if you weren’t near a phonebook.
Most families and businesses kept one of the thick volumes of local numbers on hand for when they needed to call someone whose number they weren’t familiar with. If you had to find someone with a name like Bob Smith, it could take you all day to get through them all to find the right one!