1955 Was a Very Good Year
1955 Was a Very Good Year
By Elton Camp
A better year in my life I have never seen
Because, back then, I was only age fifteen
Nobody I knew had, at that time, ever died
Any problems of the world I could brush aside
Nearly eight millions cars were sold in the USA
And never before had they been styled that way
Seven out of ten families owned a motor car
So we ranged freely about, both near and far
And yearly pay was nearly four thousand buck
Inflation of one-fourth percent added to the luck
Minimum wage to a dollar an hour had been raised
And gas at twenty-three cents a gallon was praised
Eleven thousand dollars was the cost of a new house
About a new car at two thousand, nobody’d grouse
Born that year were Whoppi Goldberg, Jobs & Gates
Nobody would have expected their eventual fates
Of the civil rights movement I was only vaguely aware
Dr. King, Rosa Parks, Emmett Till, though, were there
Elvis Presley was then the very latest singing rage
And appealed to screaming girls of most any age
James Dean in the movie, East of Eden, was the star
But he died that year and so wasn’t able to go too far
Finding his thrill on Blueberry Hill was Fats Domino
Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and the Platters on the go
I am not one of those old men who dotes to say
“If only it were still like back in the good old day”
Back in 1955, there many problems and great woe
But not the concern of a fifties teenager, though
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