Almost six decades after they died, the 50s manage to exert this mystic hold on our imagination. Reality aside we like to remember it as a simpler time.
Buy into the myth and enjoy. The folks up in eastern Connecticut can take you back in time this summer. So, stow your iPhone, and get ready to rock ‘n roll.
You can:
- Strike up a conversation at Lucky Strike lanes in Mansfield and bowl the night away. They still use paper sheets to keep score here.
- Pull into the unapologetically retro Mansfield Drive-In Theater and take in a movie from your car or lawn chair.
- Get jazzed up, strap on a pair of skates and take to Groton’s Galaxy Roller Rink. Let the music play as you streak across polished hardwood floors. Don’t know how to skate? They’ll teach you.
- Head to New London’s Ocean Beach Park. Peruse the 1940s art-deco buildings, stroll the beach, ride the rides. Some of them are new. Many throw off a realistically retro vibe.
- Work up a real hunger and kill it with real food. Zip’s Diner in Dayville has been here since 1954, Hank’s Dairy Bar in Plainfield since 1957.
If you can’t live without your iPhone, even for an evening, just be sure to program it with a soundtrack that fits the 50s. Just for an evening.
The locals call this Mystic Country, and it’s easily accessible by car or train from New York City or Boston. The prime airports are Hartford’s Bradley International and Providence’s T.F. Green Airport.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Images: rutlo, Hank’s Dairy Bar)
