1956 and all that.......

So what's so special about 1956?

Well for starters:

• That was the year Elvis recorded his first hit, Heartbreak Hotel, followed quickly by Don't Be Cruel and Hound Dog.
  
  
• It was the year Lennon and McCartney first met.
  
  
• The '56 and '57 Chevys would forever vie for America's top nostalgic car spot.
  
  
• In God We Trust became the US National motto.......so who did 'we' trust before 1956?
  

A lot of interesting things happened in 1956 that can be checked out at the link; however, none of this has anything to do with the story......but:

• George Miller, in the journal, Psychological Review, wrote of being persecuted by the number 7, of the limitations of processing information, and of the span of immediate memory.
  
  
• It was mid-career of the primary reader series, Dick and Jane (and don't forget Spot), which was used in schools from the '30s to mid-'70s. "See Dick Run", "Run Dick Run".......
  (I considered Jack and Jill, but that was too political, they didn't have a dog called Spot, and "Let them eat cake!" didn't seem to have any relevance whatsoever.)
  
  
• Ball-point pens were not permitted in primary school (That's funny because the much messier student's fountain pen was permitted). The ball-point pen became a status symbol: it meant you had moved on up to secondary school where the ball-point was to become the predominant writing tool to this day.
  
  
• Highlighters had not yet been invented.

1956, Dick and Jane are simply symbols, representing an era when teaching and learning styles did not change very much. I probably could have chosen any year within a decade or more of it.