A Few Thoughts About the Past

When I was growing up, there were landline phones (which we shared with others, known as a party line, and anyone on our party line could listen to our conversation), two-way radios (we called them walkie-talkies) and CB radios but no cell phones. If we needed to make a call because our car broke down, we had to find a pay phone or knock on someone's door. Back then there wasn't much to worry about when letting a stranger into our home to make an emergency call. We never even locked our doors at night!

There were computers but only big companies with lots of room had them, since they took up the space equal to an average size living room. There were predictions these huge computers would someday be small enough to fit on a desk. That seemed unbelievable at the time.

My first job paid minimum wage--$1.25 an hour. A few years later I worked for $3.25 an hour which was enough to live on, but that was about it. When I got a job for $5.25 an hour, I was living large, but still had money to put in my savings account. In those days, we didn't walk into a job as a supervisor--we started at the bottom doing grunt work and worked our way up to a supervisor. Filling out an application was just a formality. If a friend recommended me, I had the job. On the spot hiring was common. I was hired on several jobs before I even filled out an application. Some jobs didn't even require an application.

Most cars had gas engines and could go between 90 and 110 miles-per-hour. But those cars were gas hogs, getting anywhere from seven to ten miles-per-gallon. Gas cost between twenty-seven and thirty cents a gallon. Back then, no one even thought about airbags. Seat belts were optional. Also, there were no computers regulating the engines. Delayed wipers did not exist and some vehicle's wipers worked off the vacuum from the engine.

People would swear if they had to remove a metric bolt. Very few people had metric tools.

Sex before marriage was a sin and if a man and woman lived together but were not married, they were going to Hell. If a woman became pregnant before she was married, she was a dirty, wicked woman with no morals.

If I said words like, "bitch," "bastard," or "son-of-a-bitch," I got my mouth washed out with soap. One day my brother put himself at the same level as John Hancock, and I said he was a cock, all right, and was grounded for a week.

If I didn't say, "please," when asking for something, I didn't get it. If I didn't say, "thank you," when I received something, I was scolded.

Most people had black-and-white televisions. When color televisions came out, black-and-white televisions became so inexpensive, we bought one for $20.

A man always held the door open for a woman. Men took their hats off when meeting ladies as a sign of respect. A girlfriend was never a man's "bitch."

A man could be drafted into the military at eighteen but couldn't vote until he was twenty-one. In high school we fought and got that changed. Almost every eighteen-year-old registered to vote once this became legal.

A clothes dryer was a luxury. Most clothes were dried on a clothes line outside or on a rack inside on rainy days and in the winter.

A few outhouses (tiny outdoor buildings used for a restroom) were still around, but were few and far between.

Baths were the norm and a shower was a luxury. Some people even thought you didn't get as clean in a shower as you did in a bath.

Hitchhiking was a safe activity. We could walk to our neighbor's house without fear of being abducted.

We did chores for our allowance. We didn't get an allowance "just because."