The Decade Of Change: 1950's

The 1950's marked the beginning of the most dramatic social and economic changes our country has ever experienced. Everything we ate,wore,talked about and even prayed about became "fair game" by first,second and third generation sons and daughters. Nothing escaped their scrutiny! Better then a century of well-founded traditional and cultural values were literally "thrown out the door" in favor of new ideas, new freedoms and a new way to buy goods and services-it was called credit! Instant gratification was promoted and marketed like never before across this nation. Have now,pay later became the public´s hue and cry. The old world standards of thrift,hardwork,ethics and saving took a backseat to spend,spend spend! Credit became the new king of our growing economy.This credit or "plastic money" as it was called,took our economy and our country down a new road in a direction few thought possible. Soon we found ourselves drowning in a"sea of red ink."Such debt affected our state and national bankruptcy laws, so much so, that they were changed or rewritten to lessen the stigma of failure through out the land.Oh how history has repeated itself! Millions of Americans are now embroiled in "credit crunch."

American industry underwent unparalleled change too! One by one, our nation's established giants of trade and business were toppled by waves of foreign investors, foreign capital, and foreign competition. These icons were besieged at every turn of the day! Soon a new breed of businessman appeared on the scene, " The Corporate Raider."They sold-off long-standing stocks,inventory, and even goodwill. Company pension funds including health and vacation accounts disappeared overnight thru theft, embezzlement, and/or "creative bookkeeping." Once these raiders had leveraged everything of value they could lay their hands on, they disappeared into the "woodwork" as easily as they first appeared! Gone were the hopes and dreams of thousands of loyal company employees who had faithfully served their employers. Finally to save face and appease public outrage, a few of these raiders were eventually hauled into court and given light sentences that hardly fit the nature of their crimes.Thus the slow moving and inept "white-collar justice system" was also exposed along with those few who became " the public scapegoats." The so-called golden years had been reduced to mockery status for these victims!

The railroads were especially hard hit. Mergers, takeovers and downsizing became everyday events. Those who were left to collect a paycheck were treated to or they heard about a whole new experience:The Rubber Room Treatment. Many were bounced around from job to job and location to location by a very select, all-powerful few who played God with every aspect of their lives.Those who would not bend or break had their lives turned into a living hell. Often they found themselves sitting all alone in a railroad caboose parked out on some abandoned siding with nothing to do.They would be spied upon by a "railroad snitch," a hired detective,usually hidden some distance away.If they dared step outside, they were fired on the spot for leaving their job. Incidents of "mysterious disappearance" and even suicide made the news media headlines despite railroad management´s vehement denial of any wrongdoing in their haste to cover up their "dirty little secret." Once the story broke,management quickly invented a "catch-all" phrase,saying that their employee had been moved to this location while his job was being re-evaluated. The term "alternative work site or location" served to quiet the public outrage over such incidents. And so from such shoddy, shaddy tactics came my story,TheRubberRoom,soon to be published by American Book Publishing.

Ivan R. Bosanko