Age of Wonder

 

link to song The Good Life

He was born in 1901, in Evanston, Illinois.  I was with him the night of July 20, 1969 – that’s when Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. And dad was over the moon about it.  As we drove home my daddy uttered the silly suggestion that he could actually see the men on the moon as he drove along.  I told him not to be such a silly person.

link to article about the moon landing

Years later it finally dawned on me just how exciting that was for my dad, who was born before the Wright Brothers flew for the first time. My dad who remembered Halley’s Comet from 1910.  A man who never in his 70 years flew in any type of aircraft.

The advances that man made in those 70 years a nothing less than mind-boggling.  When he was born in 1901 my dad’s life expectancy was about 48 years.  They didn’t have what we would consider healthy lifestyles in those times… daddy was a smoker, and the whole family were drinkers.  They ate fatty foods, and didn’t know what cholesterol was.  Daddy liked bacon, dessert, sugar on his fruit, and a lot of butter on his bread -especially if that bread was fresh-baked.

Nearly everything we take for granted today came up in the Twentieth Century. The prevalence of the automobile: my dad drove a Ford Model T automobile when he was 15 years old – his father’s car. By the time I was thought of dad got a new car every couple of years; Pontiac’s until 1965, then Oldsmobile’s.  

The telephone, without a party line, was a marvel.. My dad did not use the telephone. I remember that one time dad answered the phone, found out what the call was about, and then turned the device over to my mother.  His mind would be blown to think that everyone now days carries a phone in their pocket. –never mind the internet…

My dad listened to programs on the radio every evening, The Edge Of Night, The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly,…. And countless others… When the radio programs switched over that new-fangled device: the television, my dad went right out and got himself a television set so he wouldn’t miss an episode.  What a marvel television was,.. and the tv was on all day long in our home.  Dad watched tv in the evenings – a part-time couch potato before the term was coined… dad was often in front of the tv until the end of the broadcast day – sometime in the wee hours of the day.  Many the time I heard the National Anthem played signaling end of broadcast, and then the dull hum of the test pattern.

From the other side- here in the Twenty First Century, it is equally mind boggling to think that they had no television, cars were only for those with means, many homes did not have telephones, there was no television…  and entire generations survived just fine.

We Didn't Start The Fire

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