The Past in Review

I now wonder if there was ever the good old day's, probably for the young, but grown ups had to face the reality of the day. Hard times come in every era, they are faced and the country moves on with life. We have had our share of wars, famines, floods, earth quakes, financial failures and let us not forget the great depression. This was an awful time, people out of work and on welfare, we made it through and then headed into a war. I was born during this time and my mom told us many times of the hardships they went through, how sometimes they had to steal their meals and did get caught a few times and my Dad had to serve jail time.

The population was not as large then, we had more breathing room. The roads and the automobiles that traveled them were being improved upon. Us that were born in the 1920s -30s-40s know how the cars were being made better each year. My first car a 1949 Ford had real chrome for the front bumpers and the rear bumpers and there was a lot more room inside. Not like the cars of today, small compact and the shift is in between the driver and passenger, I have to admit I did like it when they went to automatic shifting, there is so many styles to choose from now days. People did enjoy buying cars, and they found out that going places was fun and as cars improved so did the speed of the car. In the beginning people bought more Ford cars because they were cheaper.

Movie prices were a lot cheaper, you could go sometimes for a nickel and most often it was a dime. I fell in love with the movies when I was a kid and still like them (most times I rent movies now days). In those early days you could stay and see the movie over and over, you could stay all afternoon if you liked. I did this on Saturdays and to my mothers woe ended up with a bad headache, but this did not stop me, foolish girl. To me movie stars in those days were stars, not like today when they demand millions for making a movie. Movies then made you laugh and cry forgetting your troubles for awhile, the last silent film was made in 1931, the end of an era, but not forgotten, who could forget Clara Bow the "It Girl". Technology that would lead to technicolor pictures was being explored.

Radio in the beginning was called "wireless telegraphy", improvement was on its way and I think it is still going on. It has always disputed who was the one to invent it because many men staked claim they did. When I was a kid we had many favorite programs and when our favorite one was on, if we were outside we headed in. Some of the old ones were I Love A Mystery, Amos and Andy and Fibber Mgee & Molly, for kids there was The Shadow, Green Hornet and a few more, I can't remember them. I can see that old radio set today, I think it was between 3 feet and 4 feet tall, brown color the front had some kind of cloth over the speaker and knobs in front just below where you tuned in you station.

Actually the telephone was being used in the later part of the 1880s, then they were one style. When phones became popular they there were many styles. I remember our phone stood up and the receiver hung on the side of the phone. As the telephone was to become more used, people saw it as a quick way of communication, more people started to use them in office buildings and the rush was on to have a phone in your home. People liked the new styles that were being manufactured, our phone number was just three numbers and we had to go through an telephone operator. We used ours too much when we first got it, so my mother laid down the rules for its use, I have to say when she was not home we called every one of our friends, this did not last long, we had a younger sister that told on us, maybe we should of shared with her. Who could of looked into the future and saw cell phones, the rage of today.

Some of the things that happened along the way to 2008, seems like a life time ago to the "Roaring Twenties" that we grew up in. 1930--saw nylons made, in those days women would kill for them, just a phrase, but the war years saw them not being made 1940s saw the appearance of microwaves and nuclear weapons, which we could of done with out, the proof of this during the second world war when we dropped the atom on Japans two cities, this was an inhuman act. 1950s saw video cassette recorders, pacemakers, digital clocks and computers. 1960s saw laser, computer mouse and video game consoles. 1970s-there was email, mobile phones, personal computers, pocket calculators and DNA thank goodness they can catch more criminals. 1980s-was compact disk, the artificial heart, the internet and DNA finger printing. 1990s-the world wide web, Harry Potter books, the tragedy oh the Oklahoma City bombing, Beanie Babies and fashions were changing. 2000s-mobile phones, cell phones, flat screen TVs and credit cards which have put millions of people in debt up to their eyebrows.

We have come a long way baby and we haven't got there yet. Just think from model A cars to SUVs and vans, different from phones to cell phones, from early vacuum cleaners to robot vacuum cleaners, from Orville Wrights glider to jets breaking the sound barrier, from phonographs to CDs, from Radio to Flat Screen TVs, from horse drawn fire carriers to highly sophisticated fire trucks. I have lived to see all this and I am still amazed at it all, and to think there is more to come, look at us flying all over space and building space labs and satellites that bring in all kinds of communications back to earth. I only touched on the inventions of all the years there is so much invented it wouldfill several books and then some.