At the Hop

It was one of those places, the grease pits that breed nostalgia, swivel chairs dotting a bar, the booths covered with puffy red vinyl. The jukebox warbling Frankie Lymon, Danny and the Juniors inviting you to the hop. The walls had drawings from the customer's kids and the black and white checkerboard floor shone under the bright lights above. Milkshakes come with the metal cup they were mixed in and the flat grill sizzled beneath the mounds of beef and grilling onions. We sat across from each other sharing a basket of onion rings and taking in the restaurant as a whole. "I love places like these," she said her straight brown hair lurching forward as she leaned in for a drink from her cup. "Ehh they're alright nothing like some greasy diner food after a long night out right?" She nodded in agreement as the waiter scurried by with a platter of burgers and shakes.

"Man don't you wish you lived in times like these?" She asked pushing around some shards of the onion rings with her pointer finger, nudging it into the pool of ketchup. "Times like these? You mean the 50's or like I am glad I live in times like these meaning now?" "I mean the fifties, they seemed so innocent and simple," She said sending a big smile my way. "Oh the fifties you know I think I am glad I live in times like these meaning now." I shot her a smile back, naturally. "Why do you think the fifties were so innocent?" I asked not accusingly but in an inviting way. "I don't know it just seems like people had less to worry about, looking back it just seemed like an innocent relaxed time." I didn't want to argue with her but I did want to debate her a little. "You mean innocent like war and racial discrimination?" It came out a little more argumentative than I had meant. "Well, no I mean I guess there was stuff like that but the picture of the time in my head is different than all that stuff." I knew what the picture in her head was, sock hops and soda fountains. Green grass and home cooked meals, maybe a little sprinkling of high school spirit rallys and topped off with a leave it to beaver batch of fresh baked cookies. I know this is a common perception of the 50's, everyone knows your name, the streets were safe and kisses came after three months of going steady. But as far as I was concerned this picture was far from reality, it was a plaster mold slathered over all of the nuances of living, the little events that build a life, the frustrations and tribulations of existence in any time. People always wanted to escape to the good ol days, but to me there was no escape, no magical world where everything was good and simple.

"I don't know if the fifties you are thinking about existed." I half said half muttered. "What do you mean? What do the fifties make you think of?" The bell in the kitchen rang and a voice called out from the back for an order to be picked up, a waitress whisked by her scent trailing by a few seconds. "Well first off my fifties and your fifties would be dramatically different just based on one simple thing." I paused for a second wondering if I should go down the path I had started on, the issue that I was going to raise seemed too common of a subject, popping up in too many of my conversations and discussions. "Why because your a guy?" She asked her head resting on one palm. I didn't know if her not knowing what I was thinking about was good or bad, was it a sign of the times having changed that much, her naivete, or my oversensitivity to the topic that pervaded my days. "Well yeah actually that would make a big difference but probably in a good way, I was actually thinking because I was Asian." She still seemed confused like that would not have been a big deal but I am sure she was forgetting about those executive orders for the internment of all people of Japanese ancestry. "Did they not like Asians back then?" She asked seemingly innocent maybe a little ignorant. "You have never heard about the internment camps?"

I was getting a little tired of the subject, kind of wishing I had just said yes, the fifties were perfect, weren't those poodle skirts to die for? I had a way of taking seemingly jovial conversations and infusing them with political jargon and rants against racial discrimination. But doesn't someone have to open her eyes? Probably not and it's probably not my place to do so either, but come on, civil rights? internment camps? war? gas shortages and droughts? Loss of jobs and the closing of factories? Is that the good ol days? Did all of these things even happen? I don't know but the majority of them did and just the top three shatter any idealistic vision that once was, be it the 50's or the 60's. The golden years or the good old days. You see peace and simplicity I see racism and war. "Oh yeah i think i remember that, it was after Pearl Harbor right?" You could tell her mood had shifted, the clouds of reality raining down on her sunny paradise of the fifties. "Yeah it was after Pearl Harbor, but I mean these people were American citizens with no real ties to Japan, they had citizenship and the government just rounded them up and threw them into these horrible camps." "Wasn't that in the 40's though I mean that's when the war was right?" I was actually a little stunned that she knew the date of the war, I thought she would just accept the collage I was creating of the 40's,50's, and 60's. "Yeah well the last camp closed in 46 but that's only four years away from your golden era, I still would have been viewed as an enemy of the state I assume. I mean basically I would not have been your equal, so that is probably the reason that I don't look back to those days as a time that I would want to inhabit."

She mulled some thoughts around in her head, as her lips closed down on the straw and the shake shimmied up towards her. "Well you don't really know that, maybe we would be able to sit just like this, and then you would give me your letterman jacket or your class ring and you could call me your sweetheart." That's cute I thought as she fluttered her eyelashes playfully, over doing it purposely. The image of her on my arms clashed with an image of her 50's dad and his shot gun, calling me a kamikaze or yelling remember Pearl Harbor as he chased me out of their yard. Even today I don't like going out on Pearl Harbor day, when the movie with Ben Affleck came out I thought to myself oh shit this will be good for Japanese Americans. I guess nobody watched it though or people don't really think like that, more likely people just think things instead of say them. Politcal correctness being the rage and all, racial discrimination kind of fading on the what's hot to do right now list. "I dunno I just think that we have come a far way since then and the progress in society, technology, quality of life these are all real things, as opposed to an idealistic vision that never really existed." "Do you think we have come that far?" I didn't really know if we had progressed or just gotten better at hiding our problems. "I don't know, i mean granted everything isn't perfect right now..." "Yeah let's see we have war, racial discrimination, and a gigantic defiecit, that's much better." She laughed as she said this. "Yeah well that's just it, people look at the problems of today and they think there was a time when they didn't exist and that time seems to be the 50's or around there. Do you really think life in the fifties would be more simple? What about the dress, the music, the restrictions of society back then?" I pictured tongue rings and tattoos, bikinis and spring break, the widespraed presence of sex and porongraphy that saturated the media landscape of today. The crap called music, gas guzzling suv's, reality tv and gossip magazines. "No I know that it would seem just as complicated but it just seems like fun." My head still swimming with everything that had happened and gone wrong since the fifties I could see her point more clearly. "No I kinda get it now, I mean it was more innocent in the sense that there weren't people gyrating on tv in thongs or piercing their ass cheeks while doing lines of coke and eating cat feces for entertainment." "Yeah that would probably be looked down upon back then."

I took one of the last onion rings and leaned back in the booth. "Ok if you wore a tube top back then you would probably be hanged or lynched for being a harlequin right? Now would you rather have that restriction or the freedom to do what people do now and just walk down the street in a g-string." She laughed as she began to answer, "What streets have you been walking down? a g-string?" "Haha alright maybe not a g-string but you know what I am saying these club ho's wearing like see through spandex and two strings as a bra." "Yeah yeah I know what you're saying, I think I would rather have the freedom to shake my ass on the dance floor wearing whatever I want, we have them beat on that, I don't think I could get down mashing potatoes or whatever that was." I pictured the kids from American bandstand walking into a club, the people dropping it like it was hot, freaking the shit out of each other, booties in faces, hands all over, tangled masses of flesh writhing to some crunk or usher. They would probably run out screaming scared for their lives, and I wouldn't blame them the moral meter has been turned waaaay down since then, did girls show their boobs for beads back then? "I did like the cars back then better though, give me a 55 belair and I am set." She looked surprised as our feet touched under the table. "Really you like those old things, you would take that over a new car?" I leaned across the table and grabbed her hand. "We would have more room at the lookout point." She licked her lips, it was either really hot, or she was trying to clean up some milk shake residue, I'll just assume she was being hot. "So more room? Why don't you just get an escalade then?" "No no and no, you can not tell me that an escaladae even compares to a Belair, Belairs are just classic, clean, powerful, beautiful, everything that is right with american automotives." I kind of ruined the mood going into my rant about Chevys. "So they are from the good old days of automotives huh?" She looked at me slyly. "I see what your saying but this is real, this isn't an imaginary world where everything was all lovey dovey and perfect, this is a perfect car that you can still see in all of it's perfection." "Okay I am saying that there must have been improvements to cars since then right? just like society has progressed technology as well, and most definitley automotive technology right?" "Yeah but an advancement in technology does not necessarily mean that you are creating a better product it could be more efficient more cost effective, lower labor expenses but it isn't a 55 belair." "So it is nostalgia a piece of the past?" "No well yes but it isn't because it's old it's the body design the look, the specs it isn't just because it's a 55 shit if they made new cars that looked like the 55 I would get those, it isn't the time it's from it's the car." I massaged her hand in mine not wanting her to think i was angry or trying to have aserious fight with her. "I see well we'll have to get one and I'll have to judge the backseat for myself." "Yep check everything out before you have an opinion, plus It's a bench seat," I said as I paid for the check.