By NATALIE SACKET
Feature Editor
1962: a year when John F. Kennedy served as president and Elvis ruled as The King.
It was a year of change, sorrow, progress and enthusiasm. Although 1962 came and went over 50 decades ago, a snapshot of this time remains in Alva, Oklahoma.
25-year-old Mickey Jordan has a nostalgia and a love for a time that existed long before his birth. His home, decorated with the style of 1962, is a time machine back to the era of Marilyn Monroe and Jackie O.
Visiting his home is abundantly cozy, from his welcoming southern drawl asking “do y’all want anything to drink?” to his friendly farewell. His manners reflect a cordiality from long ago.
Jordan’s love affair with the past begin at a young age. Rather than spending time playing videogames like other children, he would occupy hours by poring over his dad’s old 45s.
“It all started with the music,” Jordan said.
After the records, he became captivated by film. Then Jordan began to develop an interest in the houses, style and clothing. Many family trips were to flea markets, introducing Jordan to his love of replicating the past.
Jordan said, “People ask why I choose to live like this, and my thoughts on the subject are simply ‘why not?’ It’s kind of fun after a hard day to come back to my apartment and walk out of 2016 and into 1962.
He was not alone in his endearment with the 1950s and ‘60s. Jordan and a group of friends prone to nostalgia began to congregate at the Jordans’ nearby lakehouse, fondly renamed “Casablanca.”
In 2010, the club decided to begin in the summer of 1956. The group would meet periodically, sometimes weekly, for themed dinner parties and an evening in the past. Since that time, Jordan has recreated each concurrent year, leading him to this year, 1962.
Of all the years Jordan has relived, so far his favorite has been 1960: a year, as he said, “the music got better.”
Last summer, Jordan chose to move to Alva, OK to complete his degree at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. What he found is that small-town Oklahoma encapsulated his nostalgia of the past. Because of this, he began affectionately referring to Alva as “Mayberry.”
“My daily use of the term ‘Mayberry’ comes from the idyllic town in which the “Andy Griffith Show” was set,” Jordan said. “Alva, in a lot of ways, is like that quaint hamlet, and I’m so lucky to live in a town that could pass for a movie set.”
The atmosphere of Alva proved to match Jordan’s recreation of the past. “Small town life tends to move at a slower pace, and Alva seems wonderful in its early 1960’s time capsule… I love having time to hand wash the dishes,” Jordan exclaimed. “It’s like living in the twilight zone, and I mean that in the best way possible.”
Despite the quaint environment of Alva, the move has been an adjustment. “At first I was kind of homesick because our club would do things every weekend,” Jordan said.
However, Jordan did bring a Casablanca tradition with him to Alva.
Thanksmass predates Casablanca. “In high school, we had a very tight knit club. We were going to have a Thanksgiving dinner. I wanted all of us to dress up nice, and I wanted to get one picture of all of us as nice white kids. That’s a quote from Hairspray, by the way. That’s not a racist comment,” Jordan emphasized. “I bought all of the food and got the house ready, and out of twelve people that were invited, it ended up just being me and one other person.”
Because so few guests were able to attend Thanksgiving, it was decided that the group would celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas in the same evening, therefore establishing their Thanksmass tradition.
“The vintage decoration part of Thanksmass comes from my love of the 1950’s and my own Grandmother’s holiday handicraft. I have a lot of things she made in the ‘50s, and Christmas was our favorite holiday. Each year I love hosting Thanksmass Dinner and inviting friends to come, because it ends up being like a real life Christmas Special.”
So how does Jordan recreate the past?
“It’s a lot of research and history.”
He frequents flea markets and thrift shops, and he said, “The quickest way to my heart is an antique store.”
Jordan’s extensive background in theater, particularly his work as a set dresser, has supplemented his love of the past. “A lot of décor I could buy and justify that it was for work,” Jordan said.
Jordan has just begun to adjust to 1962. “Every year it’s easy to transfer into the next year, because it pretty much stays the same, just as it does now. It’s just a different day,” Jordan said.
“What I’m super excited for this year, and I cannot wait for October, is the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Jordan said. “That was a huge moment in American history, and the world almost came to an end in October of ‘62. This year, I’m looking forward to the fallout shelter adventures.”
When asked his views on Kennedy, he responded, “personally I liked Eisenhower better. There’s lots of changes with Kennedy. Like I say all the time, the world honest to goodness changed when Kennedy died.”
“I am crazy, because last year, on the 20 of January, I actually listened to the entirety of his inauguration speech,” Jordan said. “He was a wonderful public speaker, and he had a lot of ideas that were great. One of the quotes that really stuck with me from that speech was that ‘let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.’ And last year that just really resonated with me.”
Though Jordan thinks fondly of the past, he prefers modern life. “I honestly think that I would prefer the present,” Jordan said. “I think I would like to go back one day just to observe everything.”
Jordan believes that although the past can be fun and romanticized, it is important to learn from history. “Even now, people tend to paint the past as something perfect and something great, but the past is just like today,” Jordan said. “They had the same problems we do; things were not better by any means. Being able to live now and pull from the past is more fun, I think, than to go and live there.”
After graduating from Northwestern with his degree in theater with an emphasis in visual art, Jordan hopes to work in a prop house or get a position with one of the larger motion picture companies as a dresser.
As Carson McCullers once aptly articulated, “We are homesick most for the places we have never known,” describing Jordan’s love of the past.
“To me, its classy, fun, and life just seems to be a little simpler with a vintage mind set,” Jordan said. “Someday my taste may change, or I’ll do something different, but until then, Mayberry circa 1962 and Northwestern are my home.”