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| James Dean |
Winston Churchill
resigned. Argentina tossed Juan Perón aside. The U.S. began their
entanglement in Vietnam. Rosa Parks refused to move to the back
of the bus. Martin Luther King organized a boycott of the Montgomery Alabama
bus system. U.S. Supreme Court ordered
school desegregation. Emmett Till
was murdered. President Eisenhower
had a heart attack. First televised presidential news conference aired. U.S.
signed Panama Canal Treaty. Fiber Optics were developed. Anti-matter was
discovered. First Atomic Sub was launched. Prednisone was created. First music synthesizer was developed. Sony
announced first transistor radio. The AFL and CIO merged. Hurricane Diane killed 400 in U.S. Hurricane Janet killed 500 in the Caribbean.
Disneyland opened. “The Lawrence Welk”
Show premiered on TV, as did “Alfred Hitchcock
Presents.” William Inge’s Bus Stop premiered on Broadway. The ACLU
defended poet Allen Ginsberg’s Howl from obscenity charges. The
Pulitzer Prize for drama went to Tennessee
Williams for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. The Pulitzer for Literature went to William Faulkner for A Fable.
The Mystery Writers of America gave Raymond Chandler its top prize for The Long Goodbye. We also
read Notes of A Native Son by James Baldwin, Pictures of A Gone World by Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, The Recognitions by
William Gaddis, A Charmed Life by Mary
McCarthy, Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov, and A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor. On The
Waterfront swept the Academy Awards this year. We also watched Rebel Without A Cause, Marty, East of Eden, Bad Day At
Black Rock, and Picnic. We listened to “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom
White” by Perez Prado, “Rock Around
the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets, “The Yellow Rose of
Texas” by Mitch Miller, “Autumn
Leaves” by Roger Williams, “Unchained
Melody” by Les Baxter, “The Ballad
of Davey Crocket” by Bill Hayes, “Love
Is A Many Splendored Thing” by the Four
Aces, “Ain’t That A Shame” by Pat
Boone, “Dance With Me Henry,” by Georgia
Gibbs and “Sincerely” by the McGuire
Sisters. Among the departed were James
Dean, Theda Bara, Carmen Miranda, James Agee, Thomas Mann,
Albert Einstein, Dale Carnegie, and Fred Allen. Arrivals
included Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Billy Bob Thornton, Willem
Dafoe, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleason, Steve Jobs, Whoopi Goldberg
and Kelsey Grammar. If you were around, what were you doing
during this year of the wood sheep?
2 comments:
A great year for me, the year I turned 14. I remember the music, of course. I was a teenager, after all. I confess that I liked Fats Domino's version of "Ain't that a Shame" a lot more than Pat Boone's. Saw all the movies, too. Read the books later one. At the time I was reading SF mostly and didn't know about Raymond Chandler. I caught up with him a few years later on.
I liked that year as well and agree with you on Fats Domino. My grandmother had a blue & white '55 Chevy. Great car.
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