I’m a Breck Girl!

I’m a product of the 1950’s, a member of the “Baby Boomer” generation, babies born during the decade following World War II. As children of that generation we were more privileged than our parents before, having home encyclopedias and opportunities for education and higher learning. It was the beginning of the era of technology, leading to the great information highway we have today.

That period in time began before commercial jets, color television, cordless phones, computers, TV dinners, garbage disposers, air conditioning, or shopping malls. It was an era of innocence, unmarked by tales of terror and child kidnappings. We played all day in the sun, “digging to China” in the back yard, or “flying to the moon” on our swing sets. On our bicycles we explored unknown neighborhoods, carefree and unafraid. We ran through lawn sprinkled rainbows to beat the heat and jumped with joy in the rare, cool sweetness of a midsummer shower. The sound of the ice-cream truck’s music filling our neighborhood, sent kids scampering for coins to buy cherry, grape and banana Popsicles, crunchy Drumsticks, or Eskimo Pies.



Our lifestyles in the 50’s were full of the simplicity, so evident at that time. We spent time searching on hands and knees in the grass for cherished four-leaf clovers, hoping to carry good luck throughout the day. The television shows depicted the morals and values of our society. We watched, The Mickey Mouse Club with Annette and the Mouseketeers, The Lone Ranger, Zorro, The Andy Griffith Show, Leave it to Beaver, and Donna Reed. The westerns on the television series were about the “good guys” always winning! 



There were Sunday-best clothes and ice-cream Sunday’s, slip-on penny loafers adorned with shiny pennies and saddle shoes tied with laces. We wore bobbie socks and bobbie pins. Families spent Friday nights at the drive-in movie theater watching movies and eating snacks from the back of their station wagons, positioned to face the movie screen. Movies were in black and white or the newly advanced technicolor, with black and white newsreels, previews and cartoons before the featured presentation.



During my teenage years in the 60’s, much of today’s modern technology was non existent as well. There were no hand-held blow dryers for styling our hair. We rolled our wet hair in brush rollers, air drying overnight or sitting beneath slow hair dryers for hours. If we were in a hurry we used the end of the hair dryer hose.

I was a “Breck” cream rinse girl back then, carefully measuring out a couple of tablespoons of the milky white substance into a mason jar filled with warm water and lemon juice to rinse my freshly shampooed “Prell” hair. According to the television commercials, Prell (a green gel like shampoo) made my hair “clean and smelling pretty.” But it was the Breck cream rinse that made my hair “soft and silky, my comb simply floating through my hair!” I, too, could be the “girl with the hair,” as promised!

The lemon juice was my own idea, as I visualized the beautiful blond highlights that I hoped would streak through my ordinary light brown hair. Later I added in a product called “Sun In,” a conditioner-like product one put in her hair to accent the natural highlights and make it shine! I knew this because on my radio, Donny and Marie sound-a-likes sang, “Sun In and sunlight, and you'll be glowing tonight!” Much later, I resorted to cotton ball streaks of pure, drugstore peroxide, sure to increase my real “natural” highlights. Our hairstyling options were aerosol hairsprays, designed to give your “beehive hairdo” holding power and gel which was pretty much those jars of “Dippity-Do,” which you scooped out with your fingers and slopped onto your damp hair. My children think it odd that I still refer to my conditioner as cream rinse. However, you had to have been a true “Breck Girl” to know what that meant!

There has never been a decade quite like the 60’s with it’s diversity, conflicts, hope, anger, and of course, the music! I grew up when transistor radios were cool, as we twisted and rocked to the new era of “Rock and Roll” music. The Beetles, Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, Mama’s and the Papa’s, and The Kingston Trio were classics on the radio, instead of oldies. It was a time of fun and innocence that was reflected in the music and lyrics such as, “All you need is love . . . love is all you need,” sung by The Beetles in their 1967 hit song, “All You Need is Love.” The dance crazes characterized that decade. It was a time of individual self expression, as displayed during the largest outdoor rock concert ever performed, now known as “Woodstock,” an event I was unaware of at the time, living in my own little naive world.

The 60’s were also a generation devoted to changing the world. There were changes not only evident in music, but also in fashion, world events, automobiles, toys and technology. Our simple technology became the forerunner of today’s innovative modern computer world. During my senior year in high school, we had to turn in a ten-page research paper for English. I had to carefully type each page out on my trusty non-electric typewriter, shaking in fear of making a mistake and having to retype. There was no grammar or spell check and there couldn’t be any “Wite-Out” on the pages, covering up errors. If I mistyped, I had to start my page completely over!



Gas stations had full-service pumps and it came with a smile. When you pulled into one an attendant quickly ran out to find out how much of what kind of gas you wanted, and then while it was pumping, he checked your car’s oil and washed the windows!

There were four basic food groups back then: Meat and Beans, Milk and Cheese, Fruits and Vegetables, and Breads and Cereals. A healthy meal had one serving from each. We never used the words “protein, carbs, or fats.”

I remember Maybelline Dial-A-Lash mascara and the Cover Girl eye shadow kits with the four shades of blue. The diagram on the back showed you how to apply all four shades at once, which I did.



Everyone I knew kept a tall can of Aqua-Net hairspray in their school locker. You could smell it on the girls in my school like it was perfume, now awkwardly reminiscent of the iconic movie, “Hairspray,” which was exactly the way we looked!

We wore “Charlie” perfume and “Jean Nate” (Pronounced Nah-TAY) lemon body splash. That commercial showed a woman getting out of the bathtub, pouring Jean Nate into her hand, splashing it onto her bare leg! Then the commercial showed her dressed as a jockey, riding a horse off into the sunset. Because nothing enhances the horse-riding experience like smelling like lemons!

We wore “Bonne Bell Lip Smackers” until Maybelline came out with “Kissing Potion,” a liquid lip-gloss in a tube with a roller ball. Mine was Strawberry.

Dressed up in nylons and heals, we did our shopping in downtown department stores like Auerbachs and Sears, where attendants operated elevators to the upper floors, announcing each stop: “Second Floor: housewares, dry goods, notions,” and you said, “Out, please.”



It has been said that by the sheer force of its numbers, the baby boomers were a demographic bulge, which remodeled society as they passed through it. Me? I’m just a simple “Breck” girl, living life in a world full of modern technology!