The Old Tomster was born June 2, 1949, in Hammond, Indiana, a city which neighbors Chicago, IL, to the east.
Hammond was a great place to grow up back in the 1950's and 1960's. I guess those two decades were good times pretty much anywhere in America, though. (I realize that they were not good days for black Americans, and I am truly sorry that racial discrimination was so prevalent in those days.)
Life was much less complicated in the 1950's and the 1960's than it is today, and it was, in my opinion, much sweeter.
Dads worked and supported their families, and moms stayed home and kept house. Moms did not feel that being full time housewives and mothers was demeaning; they took pride in being good homemakers and good mothers. Moms poured out their love in every task that they performed for their families, and they were held in high esteem by their husbands and by their children.
Parents taught their children to respect them and to respect their teachers, they took their kids to church, and they kept their marriage vows.
If all that sounds a little "Happy Days-ish", all I can say is that the system seemed to work very well, and they truly were "happy days." The kids brought up in such homes turned out to be well-adjusted, responsible, honest, and hard-working adults.
Hammond was thriving during my early years, its population increasing by 25% from 70,183 in 1940 to 87,595 in 1950, then increasing approximately another 25% to 111,698 in 1960. After peaking sometime during the decade of the 1960's, Hammond's population dropped in the 1970 census to 107,983.
Unfortunately, Hammond's decline continued, and the 2000 census listed the population as 83,048; Hammond had more than 4500 fewer residents in 2000 than in 1950. How sad.
I left Hammond "officially" in 1971, after receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Forestry from Purdue. I spent very little time in Hammond after completing my first year of college at Purdue Calumet in the spring of 1968 and then working that summer at the Youngstown Sheet & Tube #3 Sheet Mill.
From the fall of 1968 until my official departure from Hammond in the spring of 1971, most of my time was spent either away at school in West Lafayette, attending Forestry summer camp (1969), or working a summer job in northern Wisconsin (1970).
To be sure, Hammond had begun its decline by the time I finished high school, but my childhood coincided with the last days of Hammond's glory. I feel fortunate to have grown up there and have often said that I would not exchange the time and place of my birth for any other time or place.
We had one FANTASTIC downtown in Hammond. It was clean and safe, and it had a nice variety of stores. There were two theaters and some good lunch counters and small restaurants. Downtown was a fun place to shop, or to just "hang out." Below is a picture taken in 1966 at the corner of State Street and Hohman Avenue, looking south down Hohman. The Parthenon Theater on the right, the Rosalee's Womens Clothing, and the Walgreen's Drug Store on the other side of it were torn down when a railroad overpass, which was dedicated in 1995, was built. The huge Goldblatt's store that occupied the entire next block on the same side of Hohman was also demolished in the early 90s.
This is the house at 6432 Woodward Avenue, my home from November of 1955 until I finished college in the spring of 1971. I was only six years old when we moved to this house, and virtually all of my childhood memories take me back there. What a wonderful, wonderful childhood I had!
I thank God for the loving parents He gave me and for that great home in which I grew up. God truly blessed our family.