Print

     For my final post of my Blast to the Past blog, I interviewed Carol about her experiences with print. She told me how magazines and newspapers were incorporated in her life growing up and where they stand with her today.

     Carol definitely remembered that her family didn't have much use for newspapers. There wasn't much use for them, especially if they were getting their news through the radio station(s) and television. So, newspapers had no effect on Carol's life. But she does remember the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspapers being around when she was growing up, which are still around today. Carol told me that the paper was normally delivered by a paperboy, whom she attended school with up until she graduated.

 

An older version of the St. Louis Post Dispatch reporting about the Titanic.

The more modern version of the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper.



     Magazines played a more dominant role in Carol's household. Carol remembers her favorite magazine being Vogue, which is a fashion magazine, which like the St. Louis Post Dispatch, is still in circulation today. Carol said she and her older sister enjoyed looking at the different fashions and clothes in the magazines. Carol told me that fashioned always excited her. When I brought censorship into the conversation, Carol said that she and her siblings were banned from looking at Playboy Magazine and Sir! Magazine. Her mother didn't like how women were explicitly posed on the front cover of the magazines. She felt it gave a bad connotation to women. Also the content with the magazines had were too vulgar for Carol and her siblings to view also. After viewing some of the covers and some of the articles within these 2 magazines, I was not surprising as to why my great grandmother would censor her children from viewing such graphic content.

 

One of very few Sir! Magazines that have an appropriate cover page.



     Today, Carol still does not read any newspapers that she receives. She gets her news from Fox 2 News, but she is still invested in magazines. Her choice of magazines have changed over the years. Now, Carol prefers magazines like the National Enquirer and Star. Carol informed me that she knows that a lot of what these magazines publish are not true, but she finds the articles entertaining. The outrageous stories keep Carol coming back for more, which is why she continues to read these magazines.

An issue of The National Enquirer.

An issue of Star magazine.



Movies

     For my next entry in Blast to the Past, Carol and I talked about what movies were like when she was growing up. It was interesting listening to the memories Carol talked about, and how her movie experience is quite similar in mine!

       Carol started off our conversation by describing what movie theatres looked like when she was a teenager. Carol said she and her family normally went to a theatre. Their favorite theatre was the Esquire, which is located in St.Louis. Carol recalls the Esquire not being nearly as fancy and technologically advanced as it is today. One thing that interested me the most was when she said how the ushers were much more interactive with the customers. She told me that the ushers would actually escort them to their seats in the theatre. I thought it was quite odd how people were assigned seats within the theatre instead of being able to sit wherever they would like, like how we do today.


The Esquire in the mid to late 1900s

 



The Esquire today



       Carol associated the movie theatre with family and the drive-in movie with non-family persons. When carol was growing up drive-in movies were the "cool hang out spots" for teenagers, specifically. Carol went on to tell me how often dates occurred in these locations. She deemed drive-in movies as more private and romantic than the normal movie theatre, because they would be in the comfort of their own car instead of in the open with a bunch of other people. Specifically, she would go to the Airway Centre. This shocked me a lot because I pass the sign of the Airway Centre on a daily basis. I was quite shocked to have learned that that spot once use to be a drive-in movie. Now a Shop n Save and an elementary school have taken over that location.

 

The sign of the Airway Centre Drive-in.


       Next, I asked Carol about her favorite movies at the time. She told me how she greatly favored Disney movies, such as Snow White and Cinderella, at the time. She was a very big Disney fan growing up. I could relate to Carol because I, too, grew up on Disney movies and loved them as well. She told me she liked them because they always had happy endings, and they made her long for a prince charming. Clearly after hearing this, Carol's favorite genre is romance. But, I was kind of surprised when she said she was a little guilty for liking horror movies as well!

 

       As of today, it has been a few years since Carol has been to a movie theatre. When I asked her how does she access movies, she told me that she watched movies either on TV or on Netflix and/or Hulu whenever one of her kids come over. She still makes movies more of a bonding experience with her family to this day!

Television/ Cable

     I had the pleasure to sit down with my grandmother, Mrs. Carol again, and talk to her about cable television. We talked about what television was like for her growing up and how it is different for her today!
    
    Carol recalled to me her first personal interaction that she remembers with television. She told me that she remembers being very excited about the people on the screen, who turned out to be dancing. The dancing figures on the screen made her want to get up and dance and join in on the fun that they seemed to be having. Carol told me that television had a bigger impact on her because she could physically see what was going on instead on trying to visualize or listen to it. This statement in particular made me think of how television does have a big impact today, especially on teens and younger age groups. At those time frames of life, people are more likely to be influenced by what they see on the screen.

     Unlike the radio and the vinyl record player, the television set resided in a different part of the home. The television was put in her parents' bedroom. So, if Carol and her siblings wanted to watch TV, they had to go into their parents room to watch it. Because the TV was in that specific location, Carol and her siblings couldn't watch TV very often like they would have liked. Carol told me that because of this reason they used the radio and/or vinyl record player quite often. I thought of how today, we practically have a TV in every bedroom, while there was only one TV in the household. Technology has really boomed over the years.

 





     Carol told me that their overall viewing experience with TV went well. It became one of many ways that they bonded as a family. She told me that they always watched TV together as a family so their parents could censor what they saw. Carol said they weren't allowed to see any sexually explicit content, violence, and some degrees of racism. I can relate to my grandmother because my mom censored me from those things as well growing up. Carol said that TV now is greatly different that TV today. She said that she was appauled at the fact that there is more sexually explicit content and violence shown on TV today.

     As of today, Carol still watches TV. She does not use DVR or have any television programming online accounts, such as Netflix, Hulu, etc. She did admit that whenever one of her children come over to spend time with her, they will watch a movie or TV series on Netflix. TV has definitely changed over the last few decades in terms of content and censorship. What people see on TV today impacts how they live their lives forever.