Let Me Dig That Jive Once More (Hep! Hep!): In the Age of Big Band, Swing and Sweet - Popular Music of the 1930's and '40's

 ~ Before you read this post I have to tell you....original swing and sweet band music played virtually the entire time as I wrote this out.  Yeah man!  It really kept me In the Mood! ~

 "Teenager:  The U.S. is the only country having a word for members of this age group,  and is the only country considering this age group as a separate entity whose influence,  fads,  and fashions are worthy of discussion apart from the adult world.  Before 1935,  U.S.  teenagers considered themselves as,  and were considered to be,  young adults and not a special group."

Dictionary of American Slang  (from before 1970)

Teenagers...er,  young adults...in the era of Swing and Sweet

I've written previously about my love for pre-Beatles rock-n-roll as well as a posting about the early Beatles music itself.  I've even had a post on mid-60's rock and roll television.
For this week's posting I'd like to go back a bit further...back to the era of the late 1930's through the WWII era:  the age of swing and big band,  and even include the everyday lives of those who lived in the years these tunes were popular...the early days of the original teenagers.
I have been blessed to have parents who are from that era;  my mother and father were both born in the 1920's - and I grew up hearing much of their  music played on the living room console.  I heard it all:  Glenn Miller,   Benny Goodman,  Artie Shaw,  Woody Herman,  Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey,   Kay Kyser,  Harry James...
And growing up in the 1960's - the rock and roll era - I also saw many of these same artists on the TV variety shows.  For my parents to see Benny Goodman on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1967 would be akin to me seeing Led Zeppelin today on some music channel special.  But I remember thinking that Goodman and Kyser  (et al)  was just music for old people.  It never ever occurred to me that this music my parents loved was the popular teen music of their time much in the same way that Zeppelin and Aerosmith were to me.

"Caldonia!  What makes your big head so hard?"  Louis Jordan 
and his Tympani Five - an awesome jump swing band

It wasn't until new waver,  Joe Jackson,  released his Jumpin' Jive album back in,  I believe,  1981 that I began to realize just how cool this music of my mom & dad's time really was,  for it was here that Jackson lovingly paid tribute to the music he had heard his own father play:  Louis Jordan,  Cab Calloway,  Glenn Miller,  and others.  This was a musically life-changing collection of tunes for me;  it opened my mind to a new/old kind of music that just a few years earlier I never thought would mean anything to me.
Though nearly everyone I knew,  including record review critics,  panned the Joe Jackson album,  I loved it.  I listened to it incessantly.  It made me happy and made my feet tap.
I wanted more.

Put another nickel in!

Digging through the record store bins,  I saw a double LP collection of Glenn Miller hits called  "Glenn Miller: A Memorial"  and purchased it.  These were all original RCA Victor recordings from the 1930's and 40's and they sounded great!
I then found a Louis Jordan set,  another album by Cab Calloway,  a wonderful collection of Benny Goodman hits,  fun stuff by the Andrews Sisters,  some great early Louis Armstrong...I was hooked!
And then,  during the 1990's,  the record companies began releasing all of this fine music on CD,  combing their archives for tunes - some which hadn't seen the light of day in well over 50 years.
Time/Life released a terrific 41 CD set called  "Your Hit Parade"  in which the most popular music of our parent's generation was released in a mainly year-by-year fashion.  Though this collection went into the early 1960's,  nearly half of the music covered the era of the 1940's,  beginning with the year 1940,  and every song was a jukebox smash hit!  Here is a sampling of 14 of the 24 tunes on that one disc alone:

In The Mood - Glenn Miller 
There I Go - Vaughn Monroe 
Darn That Dream - Benny Goodman 
Sierra Sue - Bing Crosby 
On The Isle Of May - Connie Boswell 
The Breeze And I - Jimmy Dorsey 
Down Argentina Way - Bob Crosby 
Frenesi - Artie Shaw 
Blueberry Hill - Glenn Miller 
Maybe - Ink Spots 
All The Things You Are - Tommy Dorsey 
Only Forever - Bing Crosby 
Beat Me Daddy  (Eight To The Bar) - Will Bradley 
Ferryboat Serenade - Andrews Sisters...

Time/Life also released a Big Band series where each disc/record featured a separate artist such as Bob Crosby,  Charlie Barnett,  Stan Kenton,  Jimmie Lunceford,  Les Brown,  Lionel Hampton...and many other artists.  What is unique about this individual artist collection is that each disc not only includes the well-known tunes but many  "deeper cuts"  that are nearly all but forgotten.

Sheet music from 1944

RCA released a series known as  "Nipper's Greatest Hits,"  covering nearly a century of music via two CD's per decade.  The four CD's of the 30's and 40's had the popular tunes such as Glenn Miller's In The Mood and Benny Goodman's Sing! Sing! Sing!,  but also long forgotten tunes such as the King Sisters Hut Sut Song.
And there were literally hundreds of collections and box sets coming out including the complete RCA Victor recordings of Glenn Miller on a 13 CD box set,  the complete Decca recordings of Louis Jordan on a nine CD box set,  fine smaller  (but still extensive)  collections from Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey,  Artie Shaw,  and Harry James.  And the Andrews Sisters,  the pre-eminent female group of the time with such swinging and boogie woogie classics as  'Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar,'  'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,'  'Three Little Sisters,'  'Hot Time in the Town of Berlin,'  and a host of other great tunes,  also had numerous collections released.  When you think about it,  I don't believe there can be a WWII movie soundtrack without the Andrews Sisters.
Many new various artists compilations saw the light of day during the 1990's revival of the 1940's music,  including one called Swing Time:  The Fabulous Big Band Era 1925 - 1955.  In fact,  nearly every record label from the 30's and 40's that was still around in the 90's released multiple compilations:  Decca,  Columbia,  RCA,  Capital.  And new labels jumped on the bandwagon,  such as Rhino Records,  who released the wonderful two volume set of  "Songs That Got Us Through World War II."  The label Vintage Jazz Classics (VJC)  took it a step further and released rare live radio broadcast collections,  and included some of the newly released unreleased  V-Disc music as well.
What's a V-Disc you ask?

I left my heart at the Stage Door Canteen

V-Disc

Well,  in a nutshell,  V-Discs - or  "Victory Discs" - were recordings made as morale boosters when the American Federation of Musicians went on strike for royalties from the record companies to finance an unemployment fund to compensate musicians who lost work because of competition from recorded music.  Because of this,  the production of new commercial recordings was cut drastically,  and the record companies had to dig into their vaults in search of unreleased music to release.
This also meant the men fighting overseas would not get new music as well,  of course.  In July of 1943,  approval from Washington allowed musicians to record music especially for  (and only for)  the troops,  and, thus,  the V-Disc was born.  Many popular singers,  big bands,  and orchestras recorded special V-Disc records,  gathering at special V-Disc recording sessions in various theaters in New York and Los Angeles,  including what is now the Ed Sullivan Theater and the current home of Saturday Night Live,  to make these discs.  The V-Disc records themselves were pressed at the Columbia and RCA Victor pressing plants.  The unions were assured that these recording would be used strictly for the military and would not be available commercially,  that the recordings would be destroyed when no longer of use to the armed forces.
V-Discs were larger than the normal 10" 78 rpm records one could normally buy;  they were 12" with a special patriotic red,  white,  and blue label attached.
Although most V-Discs were destroyed as promised,  many survived and were brought back to the United States.  The Library of Congress has a complete set of metal masters as well as the issued recordings in its collection.
Unless one was in the armed forces overseas during the period of 1944 through 1949,  this music was not heard.  It wasn't until the 50th anniversary of World War II that the musicians unions and the record companies agreed to waive their ban on the commercial release of these recordings and began transferring the collections of music onto compact disc to sell to the public.
To my knowledge,  it was Time/Life that released the first extensive collection of this historic music when they put out a 4-disc collection of these wonderful V-Disc Recordings.
I was in my musical glory.
Funny thing is most of my friends at the time  (except for a very few)  either barely tolerated or downright hated this music I loved so much.  But no matter - I liked it and that's all that mattered to me.  And now the WWII historic reenactors - both military and civilian - have taken to the music of their grandparents era,  and not only to enhance their reenactment,  but because they learned to love the music itself.  And swing dancing really has taken off!  In fact,  historic Greenfield Village has a swing dance every-so-often during their Motor Muster event in June.

Swing dancing for modern youth.
Beat me,  daddy,  eight to the bar!

1942 lives!

Anytown USA in 1942:  admiring those who are doing their part
for the War effort.
I took this photo during one of the Motor Musters at
Greenfield Village not long ago.

Beckie has her early 1940s  'look'  down!

Though swing continued into the early 1940's,  the true age of swing was mainly in the late '30's.  In fact,  in the August 8,  1938 issue of Life Magazine,  there was a multi-page article where the author wrote:
It was the fashion two years ago,  and a year ago,  and six months ago to say that the form of jazz called  "Swing"  was on the way out.  It is still the fashion to say that Swing is on the way out.  Maybe so--but the fact is that,  as of August 1938,  Swing is the most popular kind of popular music. 
Proof comes most emphatically from broadcasting chains who report that more than half the dance numbers played today are done in swing style and that Swing is played 50% more frequently today than it was a year ago.  And every half-dozen college boys who merge windy trombones with tremulous saxophones to form a summer resort band automatically name themselves  "Somebody's Swing Sextet." 

Do you jitter?

A couple pages later in the same issue,  there is an interesting article that speaks unfavorably of that group of young people known as Jitterbugs:
Jitterbugs are the extreme swing addicts who get so excited by its music that they cannot stand or be still while it is being played.  They must prance around in wild exhibitionist dances or yell and scream loudly.  In their quieter moments,  they discuss swing with weird words like  "jive,"  "gut-bucket,"  "dog-house,"  and "push-pipe." 
To the hot musicians,  jitterbugs are plain poison.  But, they must be humored because they have brought prosperity to swing.  In 1931,  with the rise in sweet bands,  the interest in swing grew faint.  Only a few jazz lovers wanted to listen to swing.  In 1934,  Benny Goodman played on a three-hour dance broadcast.  He proved phenomenally more popular than any other band that shared the program.  Swing came back and with it the Shag and Lindy Hop and a plague of jitterbugs.
The hot musician knows today that jitterbugs are the people who pay to get into dance halls,  night clubs,  and big outdoor arenas to hear him play,  who buy his phonograph records and who listen to swing radio programs.  But he shudders when he hears Benny Goodman announce his next radio number as a  "killer-diller."  The hot musician is further annoyed when jitterbugs burst into impolite applause after a soloist has finished his chorus.  But the hot musician doesn't care how strange or frantic the jitterbugs dancers get just so long as they don't come up on the bandstand which,  sometimes,  they do.
When you think about it,  it's not very far off from the next generation...you know,  the off-spring of the jitterbuggers,  the much maligned rock-n-roll audiences,  is it?  In fact,  I remember one time when I must've been around fourteen years old  (ca1975)  when I was at a restaurant with my mother and her mother.  On our table was the table-top jukebox that advertised three plays for twenty five cents.  Of course,  I asked my mom for a quarter.  She responded with,  "As long as you're not going to play any of that rock crap!"
To which her mother replied with,  "Well, you're music wasn't any better!"
Ahhh...youth...always a thorn in the previous generation's side!

Who are the top bands of 1941?

 Popular music also played part in descriptions of events,  just as they do to this day.  In this first-hand account of when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7,  1941,  you will see of how music,  in part,  played a role in the memory of one man,  and thus enhances it for us:  The first torpedoes hit the Oklahoma with a crump and a boom.  One sailor later remembered a phonograph playing the popular song  "Let Me Off Uptown."
The battleship's lights went out;   emergency lights flickered on,  went out,  came on again.  The big ship started to list.  Within twenty minutes it started to roll over.
(From the book Time-Life History of World War II)
And it was during the anniversary date of Pearl Harbor that my mother liked to tell us where she was when she first heard about the attack:  she was playing jump rope on her front walk.  She remembers hearing the adults speaking of this foreign place in Hawaii that she had never heard of.  My mother also explains the details of how,  later in the war,  she and her sisters would comb the neighborhood to collect tin,  rubber,  grease,  and newspapers for the  "war effort."  And then the  'home-y'  stories of listening to her favorite radio shows,  playing games such as  'kick the can,'  and working at the local 5 and 10 cent store,  where she met my father  (who would stop in wearing his military uniform).  One of the first dates she and my father went on was to White Castles,  by the way.
Between my mother's young teen memories and my own deeper research of the era from my book collection,  words pop out of mom's mind and from the pages of the books and becomes visions in my own mind:  bread lines,  banana splits,  Jimmy Cagney,  rationing coupons,  Model A Fords with rumble seats,  Scarlett O'Hara,  jukeboxes,  Li'l Abner,  trolley cars,  K-rations,  saddle shoes,  Mickey Mouse...
A date night might consist of walking to the corner burger joint,  where a fountain Coca Cola with lots of ice was five cents and a burger was ten,  so you might only be out thirty cents for the evening.  Movies were twenty to twenty five cents,  while a dance date might cost a buck or two per couple.
Almost every American home had a radio and listened to the great comedians of the era:  Amos n' Andy,  Jack Benny,  Charlie McCarthy,  Fibber McGee and Molly,  and Burns & Allen all kept listeners glued to their radio sets.
Then there was the music shows that were broadcasted.  Saturday nights carried  "Your Hit Parade,"  which was a review of the top ten hits of the week.  And artists such as Goodman,  Miller  (sometimes with the Andrews Sisters),  and Bing Crosby had their own weekly shows as well.

Hey!  Car hop!
You got any fries to go with that shake?

One of the wonderful things that really took off during the swing generation is the drive-in restaurant.  To me,  drive ins and swing music go hand-in-hand much like cruising and rock-n-roll.
And one of the places that helped to put the car hop waitresses on the map was Sivils in Houston,  Texas.  Though car hops have been around since the early 1920's,  the practice really took off after the February 26,  1940 issue of Life Magazine featured one of the  "curly-haired cuties"  ready to serve a customer on its cover.
The accompanying article stated that: 
Twenty one year old Mrs.  Sivils induced her husband to abandon his restaurant in downtown Houston to open an eating-place for the drive-in trade.  She selects the girls,  designs the costumes,  makes the rules.  Applicants must be between the ages of 18 and 25,  have good figures,  a high school education,  health cards,  and  "come-hither"  personalities.  They must smile,  stand erect,  memorize the menus,  endeavor to sell large orders of food.  They work in 7 1/2-hour shifts,  six days a week,  for which they get no pay but average  $5 a day in tips.  Rules forbid them to touch a customer or his car,  or to leave the lot while on duty.  They must stand and  "visit"  with a favorite caller for ten minutes,  but then must get back on the job.
Loud-speakers connected with a nickel record-playing machine flood Sivils' three acres with the latest hot music,  inspire the girls to patrol the lot with military rhythm.  Last week,  the most popular record with the car hops was  "The Man Who Comes Around."

Cigars?  Cigarettes?

Folks during this era felt no qualms about smoking.  Why not smoke?  It was good for you.  Full page magazine ads told them   "By speeding up the flow of digestive fluids and increasing alkalinity,  Camels give digestion a helping hand."
And Humphrey Bogart,  among the many other great actors and actresses of the time,  almost single-handedly turned the cigarette into a  "swagger stick"  and showed just how cool one could look and be.  Cigarette girls were a common sight in clubs,  bars,  airports and casinos during the 1930s and 1940s in the United States and were sometimes called candy girls.  The cigarette girl would walk around with a tray held by a neck strap offering to sell cigars and cigarettes.
My own mother remembers being told that smoking would actually help her voice!
Truth in advertising lives...

And where would the hot music of the swing era be without the jukebox?  After prohibition ended in 1933,  taverns opened up on almost every street corner.  For every speakeasy that disappeared,  four or five bars opened,  and many of these places added the nickel-in-the-slot music machine.  From 1933 to 1937,  the number of jukeboxes increased by 200,000.  By 1939,  jukeboxes were consuming around 30 million records per year,  which greatly helped the record companies in more ways than one,  for these coin-operated phonographs served as a double-function of buyer and seller:  millions of records were purchased by music fans because they had been heard on the jukebox!
And during the war years,  with the country's social life turned upside down,  an atmosphere of uncertainty reigned;  young men were fighting overseas,  some never to return,  while those who remained here at home worked very unsociable hours in the arms factories right alongside  "Rosie the Riveter."  Spending time relaxing at home was,  for many,  sparse,  and so to escape their anxieties,  young adults with money to spend could afford to eat out in restaurants,  and the taverns were always full.  Add to this the servicemen home on leave and one can imagine just what a night out was like!  The jukebox was the focal point in nearly all of these places,  and there was a spirit that drew people together and one felt less inhibited about dancing with a stranger.  For many it was a carefree and romantic period,  and the desire for music was great.

I've had a copy of this photo in my collection for years and have 
always wondered what song was playing on the jukebox that got 
the young lady jittering.

Wurlitzer 1015 from 1946/47

When the war ended and the men returned home,  the jukebox industry became more popular than ever before,  and the demand increased beyond anyone's expectations.
The Wurlitzer Company was ready and,  in 1946,  released the epitome of jukeboxes,  the Model 1015  (pictured left) - the best known and best loved of them all,  with its unbroken arc of moving light,  bubbles rising from the base,  while two multi-colored fluorescent tubes revolved slowly within the two columns bathed the jukebox and its immediate surroundings in a soft warm glow of red,  now blue,  now green.  By this time,  so great was America's awareness of jukeboxes that the decision on where to eat,  drink,  and dance could actually be influenced by the type of jukebox that the location offered.
By the way,  the 1015 jukebox you see here has been often falsely featured in movies about WWII;  in actuality,  they were built a year after the war had ended. 

Besides the links for the V-Disc collection and Joe Jackson in the above post,  I also created here a list of CD's presently available  (as of this writing)  of original music from the 30's and 40's,  both swing and sweet.  It is only a basic list to serve as a beginner's guide:

Kiss the Boys Goodbye
Always In My Heart
White Cliffs of Dover
Greatest Songs of the 1930s
Songs That Got Us Through WWII
Songs That Got Us Through WWII Vol. 2
The Big Band Singers
Nippers Hits of the 30's Vol. 1
Nippers Hits of the 30's Vol. 2
Nippers Hits of the 40's Vol.1
Something For the Boys
Hollywood Stars Go To War
Your Hit Parade (This series is out of print.  However,  it can still be found on Amazon.com)
Glenn Miller
Benny Goodman - RCA Victor
Benny Goodman - Columbia (with Peggy Lee)
Harry James
Frank Sinatra & Tommy Dorsey
Andrews Sisters
Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters
Kay Kyser

And, as I stated at the beginning of this post, the music of the great band era was revitalized and  "updated"  in the 1980's with the Jumpin' Jive album by Joe Jackson.  That was followed over the next decade and a half by his contemporaries,  and it seemed that a new age of modern artists reviving the musical styles of the 1930's and '40's and even early '50's was at hand:
Squirrel Nut Zippers
Harry Connick Jr.
Brian Setzer Orchestra
Linda Ronstadt
The above are just a few of the more popular artists who have helped to bring back the sound and feel of another era.  At the time I believed it was really going to become much bigger than it did.  Unfortunately,  it died a slow death,  though it does have a fervent cult following, as does swing dancing.

I hope you enjoyed this excursion into the era of our parents  (and grandparents for you whippersnappers!).  As I've written a couple times before,  I got my fill of the 1940's,  and even the 1930's,  while I was growing up.  Due to our parent's,  aunt's,  and uncle's stories,  their music we grew up hearing and the classic movies we grew up watching,  those of us who are the children of WWII parents - baby boomers is what they call us,  right? - almost feel as if we,  too,  lived through that era as well,  don't we?  I mean,  it literally surrounded us as children,  didn't it?  And until the counter-culture revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970's went beyond the coast fringe,  we also held most of the same values and mores of our parents time as well.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the life I lived growing up in the 1960's and early 1970's was much closer to the 1940's style of life when compared to the 21st century way of life of today filled with smart phones,   home computers,  blu-ray,  CD's,  DVR,  ipads,  GPS's,  Sirius radio,  self-driving autos,  and satellite or cable on your hi-def plasma TV.  
And I learned to really like - no,  love -  the music and era of the late 30s/early 40s period.  Almost in a nostalgic way,  I suppose.
I've come to look for America...

Until next time, see you in time...

(All items pictured in this post are from my personal collection)

Here is another post on the era of my parents

~   ~   ~

Is Nostalgia "Portable"?

~I came upon the idea for this posting while reading an older post.~
...updated August 2024...

I seem to go through sort of melancholy phases quite often due to so many changes going on all around me,  whether personal changes in my growing family or the societal changes I'm living in.  And,  as a living historian,  and a historian in general,  I find myself oftentimes nostalgic for an era I vaguely remember from long ago,  and sometimes even  for a time no longer here - of a time I was not actually a part of...

But how can that be?

Is that true nostalgia?

I suppose you will just have to read this post to understand what I mean.

(Now,  please do not send me nasty comments telling me to  "get over it,"   "accept the here and now,"  "live for today,"  "you need to get out of the past,"  "I suppose you want slavery back,"  and all the other bile I sometimes receive when I write in such a manner as this.  And there's also no need to politicize something that isn't political). 

Thank you~~(you can tell I've been down this road before lol)

...................................

I've been a bit melancholy,  and when I get this way my thoughts tend to wander in many different directions,  especially down the nostalgic trail.

An autumn scene right out of 1760.  Yeah,  I was there...

Nostalgia,  as defined by Mr.  Webster's dictionary,  is described as a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life,  to one's home or homeland,  or to one's family and friends;  a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.
That would mean nostalgia is a very personal experience then,  does it not?  And according to the above definition,  only those who actually experienced the time period first-hand actually have the right to feel an attachment to it.
However,  I once read that  "Nostalgia is portable,"  meaning,  as I see it,  that perhaps it can  be possible to feel a sentimental attachment to a time period one did not personally live through.
Hmmm...but that's not according to definition - - how can that be?
If nostalgia truly is portable,  is it possible,  then,  that those of us who reenact the past,  frequently visit historical living history museums,  or maybe even read extensively about a time from before  we were born to experience these same nostalgic emotions?   I mean,  it's pretty obvious that I was not around during the horse-and-carriage days,  and yet I still have a sort of nostalgic feeling for those times.

...and I was also in 1882.

~Maybe it's because I've spent so much of my youth in a rural setting in the company of my Victorian-born grandparents,  whose ways,  morals and values,  and even style of furniture was of the pre-electric,  pre-modern era.
~Maybe it's because I have been witnessing daily life of the 18th and 19th centuries while visiting the historical open-air museums of Greenfield Village and Crossroads Village quite frequently - sometimes multiple times a week - for over 40 years,  intently watching and sometimes even taking part in the everyday activities of long ago.

Here I am taking part in the oh-so-important farming activity of plowing.
Yeah...that's me holding the plow behind the horses...

~Maybe it's because I have been actively participating for two decades-plus in the world of living history:  reenacting the world of the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries while utilizing a strong attempt to accurately and authentically bring that era back to life,  if only for a weekend at a time.

I mean,  when one thinks about it,  if I added up each day I spend reenacting and include the times I visit open-air museums,  I am immersed in the past an awful lot,  aren't I?
So,  with taking everything into account,  does this mean that I can actually feel a sort of Webster definition of nostalgia for times long past - real memories of a time before  my time,  though it occurred in  my time?

Does that make sense?
How about my children,  each of whom,  since birth,  have attended colonial and Civil War reenactments  (before participation and after),  visited v-e-r-y often the above mentioned museums and witnessed almost weekly people in period clothing performing the historical activities of horse-drawn plowing,  milking cows,  caring for chickens,  winnowing,  spinning wool into yarn,  riding in carriages,  on steamboats,  and on trains,  picnicking near a covered bridge...

...cooking on wood and coal-burning stoves...or even seeing their father warming over an open hearth on a cold winter's eve inside ancient American homes,  as you see me doing here in sub-zero temps in the Daggett house.  Yes,  the warmth from the flames did thaw my toes and nose as it would have back then.

And,  as you know,  they have also been a part of the living history/reenacting community for most of their lives.
Then there are the many,  many summertime weekends in the small 19th century-built American town of Lexington  (Michigan),  where such things as visiting a general store that has a mix of old and new items  (including penny candy),  an old stagecoach stop turned into a restaurant that still keeps its period appearance,  catching pollywogs at the creek,  bonfires at night,  and extremely little TV watching,  were all commonplace.
Wouldn't you say this is pretty old-timey stuff?
Just ask a typical pre-teen today how much of what I just mentioned they themselves experienced;  I can practically guarantee most have not...ever  (unless their your child,  right?  Because chances are,  if you're reading this,  you and I have a very similar mindset).
With all of this,  can they be nostalgic for eras beyond their own time?

We had our family image put on a tintype by famed tintype 
photographer Rob Gibson  (Gods & Generals,  Gettysburg,  
Cold Mountain)  when we were in Gettysburg a few years ago.  
We have the memory of dressing up in our Sunday best,  walking 
to his gallery  (located in a mid-19th century building right in the 
midst of Gettysburg!),  and posing for our portrait - the same 
exact experience as people had from 150 years earlier.

We have also visited a restored colonial village,  Colonial Williamsburg,  where we were virtually surrounded and immersed in a time 250 years ago due to every building in the area being of the period.

My wife and I walking down an 18th century street in Williamsburg.
Yes,  we had the same experience as one may have had 
240 years ago,  did we not?

And those who work for the foundation,  no matter what part or role they may  portray  (from store-keep to gardener),  all are dressed in the fashions of the 1770s,  and many pretty much keep period in their conversations.

Our discussion in this photograph actually did center on the 
activity - the news - of the excitement up north in Boston.  The 
young lady and I agreed on some of what we heard and disagreed 
on others.  But it was a conversation that most definitely was had 
on the same street back in the 1700s,  for it was also in the local 
broadsheets of the era.
I greatly miss being there in Colonial Williamsburg.  You might 
say I am nostalgic to go back.  But which  "back"  am I nostalgic 
for?  Back in Colonial Williamsburg,  or back in the 1700s?
Methinks a little of both because the experience was not 
much different.

Though we are contemporary people,  my family and I probably includes the past beyond most.  You see,  my wife,  Patty,  has very much the same sort of desire as I in that she prefers the more traditional and rural ways of life over the modern cut throat,  hustle and bustle of the 21st century.
One of her passions,  for instance,  is spinning wool into yarn using her spinning wheel.
In fact,  she sometimes spends weeks picking through and cleaning multiple 30-gallon garbage bags of raw wool she receives from sheep-owning friends.  I mean raw wool,  for it has sheep poop,  hay,  grass,  sticks,  and dirt,  imbedded in it.

As you can see,  the raw sheep wool my wife was cleaning was 
spread out all over.  Most of the dirtiest work/cleaning was done 
outside in the yard,  but some was done inside,  which definitely 
gave our home that barnyard-fresh smell!

She spends hours and hours carding the wool with her carding paddles,  though we will take most of it to a carding mill - - a real honest-to-goodness period carding mill,  located in Frankenmuth,  Michigan.
Again,  just as folks did 150-plus years ago.
And this mill  (Zeilingers)  uses carding machines of the 19th century:

Carding machines at the Carding Mill in Frankenmuth

Patty also loves to sit on our front porch or in our backyard and spin on her spinning wheel,  not only because it relaxes her,  but because she loves to crochet as well,  and the idea of  "sheep to shawl"   is very appealing to her.  She has crochet mittens,  scarves,  shawls,  sontags,  hats,  afghans,  and just about anything else you can think of.
She really gets a kick out of having total strangers out for a walk come up to our porch to watch her do this traditional craft.  One just doesn't see spinning on a spinning wheel very often in the suburbs these days...or anywhere else aside from museums!

So here is my wife living the 19th century life of luxury in the 
middle of modern suburbia:  chick-sitting my son's chickens,  
dog-sitting my son's dog,  and enjoying the relaxing craft of 
spinning wool into yarn,  all the while wearing her period 
clothing----wait----scratch that last part!

And Patty always enjoys going to Greenfield and Crossroads Villages,  taking long rural rides in the country to visit small-town America  (besides Lexington),  antiquing,  quilting,  knitting,  and looking at old houses.
Are we a match made in heaven or what?

And our kids?
Well,  our oldest,  though very contemporary,  still embodies the spirit of the past in his life;  besides reenacting as a teen and young adult,  Tom plays guitar and sings in various period vocal music groups as well as a more contemporary band.  He raises chickens and grows his own vegetables while preferring a traditional style of planting his heirloom seeds as shown in this book he received for Christmas,  Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way - 18th Century Methods for Today's Organic Gardners,  over the more modern methods.  He's also spent time caring for another friend's farm while said friend was out of town for a few weeks.

Here is Tom dressed in his Dickensian costume - it's what he 
wears when singing old world Christmas carols with the period 
vocal group Simply Dickens.  It's pretty obvious that period vocal 
groups have a large following,  especially among cheerleaders!

My next eldest son,  Robert,  has taken to historical reenacting in the same fervent manner as I have;  he is constantly researching and reading to help bring the past to life.  He does Civil War and Revolutionary War and is mentored by the best of the best.

Here Rob stands with his Lorenz musket.  Why a Lorenz and not 
the more common Springfield?  Because once he learned the the 
original members of the 21st Michigan Civil War group used a 
Lorenz for the first couple of years after mustering in,  he felt the 
need to have one so he could be as accurate and authentic as 
possible.  He's his father's son,  that's for sure.

I have two younger children:  son #3 has Aspergers Syndrome,  which is in the autism family,  and his interests lie in different directions,  but yet often still historical.  For instance,  he loves visiting the old lighthouses that dot Michigan's shorelines,  and,  with Michigan being the state with the most lighthouses in the U.S.,  we make it a point to try and visit at least a different one every year if we can.
He is a major WWII movie fan as well.

Here is my third son very happily getting his photo taken near the 
Port Sanilac Lighthouse,  which was built in 1886.  He hates 
having his picture taken but willingly does at each lighthouse we 
visit.

My youngest child - my daughter - enjoys the life of a young adult with her latest technology  and the giddiness that a 21st century girl usually has.  But she can also knit,  crochet,  spin on a spinning wheel,  sew,  and tell you of  life during the 19th century.  She can also sing along with such well-known period tunes as Shady Grove,  Wayfaring Stranger,  Johnny Has Gone For a Soldier,  and Some Folks Do.
Ha!  When she was 16 she had a beeswax candle dipping party with her friends - all around the same age as her - and taught them the colonial way of creating 18th century lighting.  In fact,  I also hold candle dipping parties and she rarely misses them.

My sometimes unlady-like daughter,  back when she was a young, 
teen,  could sometimes be found up a tree.  I do 
believe she and Laura Ingalls would have been fast friends had 
they ever had the chance to meet!
Of course now she is in her twenties,  so her tree-climbing
days seem to be over.  lol

All four of my children consider Greenfield Village the  'place they grew up'  - kind of like their  'old neighborhood,'  for aside from the rural Lexington visits,  Greenfield Village is the place they've been to most that has given them the most past experiences.
And each has a respect for and an understanding of the past.
The best of two very different worlds.
Oh,  you bet I am proud!

My three sons at the now defunct Colonial Days event in 
Greenfield Village 1997.  No, we were not reenactors at the time;  
the village had a collection of clothing for kids to try on to see 
how they would look if they lived in colonial times.  It was great fun!

When my wife used to read the original Tom Sawyer to our kids back when they were young,  they understood and easily identified with the story and the characters.  Because they participate in many progressive reenacting/living history events with us growing up,  they can identify.

My daughter at age two on the upper deck of the 19th century steamboat Suwanee.  We began seriously reenacting the year this photo was taken but hadn't had a proper dress for her yet  (or shoes or pretty much anything else!)  because we really hadn't done our first reenactment,  but we made the best of what we had.

(By the way,  if you are interested in reading more about this steamboat,  please click HERE)

So guess what?
We now have grandkids.

Guess what else?
Yep---we do traditional activities with them,  including...

...apple picking...

...working on a shaving horse...

...processing flax...

...and dipping candles...

Methinks they,  too,  will have old-time traditional memories...not only similar to their father and grandparents,  but the same as those from the distant past.

Nostalgia?

So...after reading what I wrote here,  and knowing that my family and I have many of the same memories that the people of the 18th and 19th centuries had,  can we be nostalgic for that period in time?
Is nostalgia really portable?
To add to this thought,  maybe there is also a sense of longing as well...
Longing is defined as a strong,  persistent desire or craving,  especially for something unattainable or distant.
"Unattainable or distant?"
Because of  what I wrote in this post,  experiencing a time long past has not necessarily been unattainable or distant,  has it?
And maybe...just maybe...I do  have a nostalgic longing for times before my own time,  even if it's only through experience,  because many memories would still be the same.
Maybe nostalgia really is  portable.

This is,  believe it or not,  our first posed family photo with our 
six week old son,  taken in Port Huron in August 1988.  It was at 
a fair and they had one of those  "old time picture booths."  
Naturally,  we just had to get our image taken.  In all honesty,  I 
don't think it turned out bad at all,  considering where and how it 
took place.  We used to tell Tommy that we were really from the 
1800's and had transported ourselves into the future after he was born.

What are your thoughts?

 P.S.  I realize this posting goes off the beaten path for me.  Nostalgia and longing both are a yearning,  though for the good times,  not the bad.  Please note that I do understand this.
Thoughts enter my head and,  well,  sometimes these thoughts form into something much bigger,  such as this post - - - nothing earth shattering,  mind you,  just something a bit out-of-the-ordinary such as what you've just read.
If nothing else I hope I was able to take you away on a different road for a few minutes.
And I hope you enjoyed some of the older photos of my family. Looking at them also made me nostalgic!

~   ~   ~