Life was much less complicated when I was in high school (graduated in 1956) than it is today. There were no hard drugs. The worst things kids did was drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Girls wore skirts and boys wore jeans. Parents expected their children to learn what they were taught. If we got into trouble at school, you can bet we got into worse trouble at home. Corporal punishment was used (on the boys). Punishment in elementary school was staying in at recess or washing the blackboard after school. In high school, we had to write a research paper on a subject the teacher chose, which meant we had to spend time after school in the library. There was a social pecking order, just like there is today, but it didn't involve gangs. There was the usual cheerleader/social group of girls and the football player/athlete group of boys vs. the nerds/studious people. My parents demanded that I study and make good grades, so naturally I was a nerd. I did end up being valedictorian, so I guess it paid off in a way. I missed a lot of social things, however. I would never think of defying my parents, so I didn't complain. We took four years of English, three years of math, four years of history, two years of science, two years of electives (choices were Spanish, Latin, home economics) and either a sport or music. The classes were demanding but not unreasonable. I was never much good in math, because the same teacher taught it year after year, and she couldn't even work problems from the textbook on the board. Algebra was like a foreign language and never made much sense. Teachers didn't get fired for incompetence, however. The math teacher was a widow who needed to support her children, so the school just let her keep teaching. No one complained, because back then it didn't matter whether girls knew anything about math and science. The only kids who worked were those from large families who needed to help out their parents or ones whose parent had died and they helped support the remaining family. Everybody else was expected to be studious. All of the boys knew that when they reached 18, they had to enlist in the armed forces and serve two years, unless they got a deferment to go to medical school or something like that. Then after they got their degree, they were still expected to serve their country. People who refused to serve as "conscientious objectors" were ridiculed. The father of one of my friends was an objector during WWII, and he was sent to Leavenworth Prison for the duration of the war. He was never able to get a job after that because he had a federal prison record, and his wife had to work and support the family. Oddly, they were proud of what he had done while everyone else looked at him as a traitor. My parents let me be friends with his daughter, because no one else would associate with her and I felt bad for her. You asked about role models--I was a pen pal with a female dr. (very rare in those days) in Africa, and I wanted to be a medical missionary like she was. However, my father wouldn't hear of it. He said, "Nice girls don't look at naked bodies". Besides, my math scores wouldn't have gotten me into medical school. That was the end of that. I became a teacher ( a respectable occupation), even though I didn't especially like it. I worked my way up being a school psychologist and later went into private practice as a licensed psychologist. That was the closest I could come to being a dr. You asked about how we spent our free time--well, it was sort of like what was portrayed in the t.v. show, "Happy Days" if you eve watched that. We went to the pharmacy across from the school, where there was a soda fountain. Everyone got a coke and a brownie, and we sat and talked and listened to the juke box. We knew we had to be home before dinnertime, so everyone left around 5 p.m. Very few kids had cars. We walked a lot. The boys who did have cars had usually inherited their parents' old cars when a new family car was purchased (at a cost of about $2,500). It was a chore to keep the older cars running, but they were polished and loved as prize possessions. Gasoline was .25 a gallon, and if someone needed a ride, they would chip in and pay to be driven to wherever they needed to go. Television sets were a new thing, and not every family had one. I used to go to a friend's house and watch "I Love Lucy" and "The Liberace Show". I guess the most nagging problem I had was not being able to go to do things with the other kids, and being expected to study all of the time. I really didn't have any terrible things go on in my life at that time. The world was recovering from WWII, and America was considered the greatest nation in the world. Everyone felt safe and secure. Of course, it was a form of insulation. I'm sure there was a lot of racism and mistreatment of people, but it didn't occur where I lived (in west TX). We were oblivious to what was really going on. Holidays were spent doing family things. My grandparents all lived pretty far away, and we didn't travel much. I had pen pals I wrote to and friends I talked to on the telephone. Kids were a lot more secure than the ones today, because families were more intact. There weren't many single parents, nobody was rich, but there wasn't abject poverty like we have today. Everybody had a job. The people who couldn't work (like returning injured veterans) were taken care of by their families, as were the elderly. Churches did the charity work instead of organizations. Gangs didn't exist except in California and New York, and there wasn't any racial mixing. Everyone stayed in their own groups and environments. I know this is a long post, but I hope it gives you an idea of what teenagers were like 60 years ago.