I was a boy growing up in the same era. My fetish at the time was the utterly hypnotic Tide box. (Probably would have preferred Cheer if my mother had used it.) Like you, I've often wondered why. I think it is simply the case that Procter & Gamble utilized the then-new medium of television, as well as brilliant graphic design to carpet bomb our young brains with their product mind-memes. To this day, I can't walk down the laundry aisle in a supermarket without stopping to stare for a moment at both the Tide and Cheer packaging.

That white radio, I remember listening to as a child. Sometime in the early 1960s it was in my bedroom and I remember hearing "Poor Little Fool", Rick Nelson, on WBBM, Chicago. This was in the days that WBBM was a music station.

I see "Giant" by Edna Ferber. Wish I could make out the other titles. I'm betting there's some A.J. Cronin and Taylor Caldwell in there too. Maybe even Frank Yerby.

I wonder how many families still sit around the living room in the evening reading together?

Some people actually collect 1940s and '50s soap and detergent boxes. Your truly, for example. Check eBay. Somehow they have survived in storerooms and cupboards all these years, unopened and full of soap!

The table lamp. The coffee table. The radio. Words fail me. Well, except two: I want. Plus Our Favorite Wallpaper again. Zowie.