1958 - Old times

I’d like to tell you a bit about the very old days, about my earliest childhood, then a bit later on, and about traffic, Nazis, and sex education. And finally, I’ll share some thoughts on the future.

I can hardly remember the years up until I was five. Just that, when I was about four, I had a little kick scooter. I’d often ride off on it toward Hanover’s Maschsee.

People looked for me, but couldn’t find me; yet I always managed to scooter back home on my own.

When I was five, we moved right into the city center—Hannover’s Oststadt, on Heinrichstraße. That street led onto the wide Boedeckerstraße, which already had a streetcar running down it back then. Every now and then, I had to cross over there to the milk shop with an aluminum can. Milk was, after all, the Americans’ “secret drink.”

They thought you could fatten anyone up with it. My mother then explained to me how to cross that big street: “You go to the edge of the road and look to the left. If no car is coming, you walk to the middle and stop. Then you look to the right. If no car is coming then, you cross over.”

Just imagine that! Today, all parents, in their panic-stricken fear for their children, would be horrified by such advice! And if you cross on a red pedestrian light today, you’re immediately scolded: “If a child sees that!”

Of course, there were plenty of neighborhood kids on our Heinrichstraße with whom I played and soon went to elementary school. In the same building lived a Peter Lühr, who tried to fraudulently “trade” a “Liberty Bell” stamp—which was very expensive even back then—with Frank, who lived right next door.

But I exposed the scheme, and Peter was punished. Frank was the son of that optician who, 14 years later, lent me a pair of thick glasses he had in for repair, so that I could go to the physical exam pretending to be nearsighted—far more so than I actually was—and get rejected—Reserve Alternate II, goodbye military service!

Across the street lived other children whom my mother wanted to forbid me from associating with. One of them was a certain Norbert Requard, who built my first tube amplifier for me ten years later.

One more thing about my parents: a horrible marriage with constant quarrels, especially around Christmas time and before vacations. That’s how I started stuttering at the age of eleven, for example.

At our elementary school, there was a teacher whom I once tried to explain to that I hadn’t heard something correctly. Looking at me blankly, his comment: “You hear poorly, see poorly, and speak poorly!” So off to the gas chamber with me! People like that still existed back then! Well, luckily, the “speaking poorly” thing eventually went away.

A few houses down lived an H-W (name shortened by the editors), a guy who was always somehow strange, and with whom I actually had almost nothing in common. He was boring, had a precocious mother, and always spoke very slowly and in a convoluted way, as if he had to think before every word whether it was worth saying.

But something very strange—indeed, downright infamy—happened to him in his youth. He only recently found out exactly what it was, thanks to artificial intelligence “AI”, and ever since, he’s hated his long-deceased mother.

From the age of about eleven until he was about nineteen, he had to take a pill, a coated tablet, every morning and never asked what the pill was for. He probably figured it was good for him—vitamins or something. “My mother takes care of me.” At least he had remembered the name of that stuff: phenobarbital.

It was only recently revealed via AI that this medication was given to many children back then to curb their tendency toward masturbation. Just imagine that—or rather, for the younger ones among you, it’s hardly imaginable today.

Here is his AI query and the, at the very least, astonishing answer:

What did mothers do in the 1950s to keep their sons away from sexuality?

AI: In the 1950s, sexuality was a major taboo. Many mothers therefore tried to “keep their sons away from sexuality” through a mix of parenting, social pressure, and limited knowledge.

This was achieved less through open sex education and more indirectly. Typical strategies included:

Instilling strict moral values
Sex before marriage was often portrayed as morally wrong. Concepts like “decency” and “purity” played a major role. Boys were taught that “decent men” control their urges.
Little or no sex education
Instead of talking about sexuality, the topic was often avoided entirely. The hope was that ignorance would lead to abstinence—which often didn’t work in practice.
Control of social contacts
Parents paid close attention to who their children spent time with. Close contact with girls, in particular, was sometimes restricted or closely monitored.
Promotion of Discipline and Distraction
Sports, school, work, or religious activities were deliberately encouraged to leave “no time for such thoughts.”
Religious Influence
Religion played a central role in many families. Sex outside of marriage was portrayed as a sin, which could create intense psychological pressure.
Shame and Deterrence
Sexuality was often portrayed as associated with shame, fear, or negative consequences (e.g., disease or social exclusion).
Emphasizing Gender Roles
Boys were expected to be “strong” and self-controlled. Openly displaying emotions and sexual desires was frequently interpreted as a sign of weakness.

Well, poor H-W lost more than just a part of his youth—including his lustful libido. He did “jerk off” anyway, but certainly with far less pleasure than most of us. And all of that stuck with him so deeply that, to this day, he has never had a truly satisfying sex life.

AI: The libido is a person’s natural sexual desire or sex drive.

And I’ve already mentioned before that my mother’s “sex education” consisted of explaining “that a woman has a hollow there between her legs”! No morning pill, but nothing else beyond that either!

And / but the bottom line: As mentioned above, artificial intelligence can indeed be quite helpful. But it sets us on a path in life that will be surrounded by fakes and fabricated information. Any idiot can use it to generate clever texts and fake photos and videos, even compose music, without ever having played the guitar or any other instrument. And AI will soon, at the very least, make us face our own inadequacies. And besides: Contact with other people becomes unnecessary. You just talk to the AI. Preferably through a headset, shouting it out loud on the street so everyone can hear!