trapped in the fifties?

Last week, our town had its annual holiday parade. For some reason, the theme of the Bee's school's float was the Fabulous Fifties. Here she is in what we cobbled together for a costume--I was really happy that I had bought her that crinolined skirt months ago.

But it made me wonder why the fifties have such a stranglehold on our imagination, at least in the U.S. When I was in middle school, there was always a fifties dance every year, but I guess I attributed that to the fact that most of us were children of people who were in high school in the fifties. I thought (in my clueless, pubescent way) that it was just the moms trying to relieve their own glory days, or something stupid like that. I thought, "my kids won't have to suffer through 80s dances!" (Perish the thought! Where on earth would I find one of those fluorescent sweatshirts, for example?)

But this is at least the third thing that's happened at the Bee's school where parents who are my age or younger have opted to dress their kids in fifties attire. What's the deal with that? Is this something you Canadian moms have had to put up with?

Because if this is some yearning for the "Duck and Cover" era, I could live without it. And if not? Let's move on to some other eras. After last month's election, I could really get behind a 1960s Peace Parade, for example.