72 Years

I was born  August 31, 1938.

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are dancing in the photo on the cover of the Life magazine my father gives to my mother to read in the hospital.

FDR is halfway through his 3rd term as President of the United States, after several years of economic improvement, but a recession hit and unemployment is back to 19%.

Adolf Hitler is Chancellor of Germany and Time magazine, Man of the Year. Benito Mussolini is Prime Minister of Italy. Joseph Stalin is terrorizing Russia. Neville Chamberlain is Prime Minister of England achieving, Peace in our Time, while Winston Churchill is a has been. Ernest Hemingway is covering the Spanish Civil War in Spain. The Republic of China and the Empire of Japan are engaged in total war. The sun never set on the British Empire. Heber J. Grant is President of the LDS Church. Henry H. Blood is the democratic governor of Utah.

The minimum hourly wage is 25 cents per hour for a 44 hour working week. The average annual income is $1,730.00. The Average cost of a new home is $3,900.00 and rent is $27.00 per month. There are sidewalks that people walk on and front porches that people sit on.

A new car costs $763.00 and leaded gasoline is 10 cents a gallon. Bread is 9 cents a loaf, hamburger 13 cents a pound, candy bars cost a nickel, first class postage is 3 cents and the, Penny Postcard, which includes both the card and postage is 1 cent.

in 1938:
A giant hurricane slammed into the east coast with no warning, 40 foot waves hit Long Island killing 700 people and leaving sixty three thousand people homeless.
A 450 ton meteorite hit the earth in an empty field near Chicora, Pennsylvania.

Joe Louis knocked out Germany's Max Schmeling in the first round for the heavyweight championship. Seabiscuit beat War Admiral in the horse race of the century and the New York Yankees win the World Series defeating the Chicago Cubs, 4 games to 0.

Howard Hughes set a new Round The World Record of 3 days, 19 hours. The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth is launched in Clydebank, Scotland.

The March of Dimes Polio Foundation is created and seeing eye dogs introduced.

Action Comics issues the first Superman comic, Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town opens, and the first cartoon to feature Bugs Bunny is released.

Edward R. Murrow gives the first live radio report. Kate Smith sings a rendition of Irvin Berlin's, God Bless America, for the first time during an Armistice Day broadcast. Bob Hope's Pepsodent Show debuts on NBC in the slot following, Fibber McGee and Molly and Orson Wells dramatization of, War of The Worlds, radio program causes panic when it is broadcast more like a news breaking story than a play.

In Hollywood: Filming starts on, The Wizard of Oz. The Best Picture is, You Can't Take it With You. Disney releases, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to compete with, Boys Town, starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, Jezebel, starring Bette Davis, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, starring Shirley Temple. 


And, actress Natalie Wood is born.

But?

If I’m to reach adulthood, I must endure and survive: chickenpox, german measles, flu bugs, mumps, scarlet fever, whooping cough, bee stings, ant and dog bites (dogs roam free, live outside and chase cars) and that insidious killer and maimer—Polio. There are no antibiotics. Any wound or scratch can kill. Doctors make house calls. Dentist use slow grinding painful drills. Life expectancy 65 years old. There is no health insurance. My mother and father have carefully saved the $150 that pays my entire hospital and doctor bill. I go home paid for.

Soda is 5 cents a bottle, plus a 2 cent deposit on the bottle and must be opened with a bottle opener. Milk is not pasteurized and is delivered in the morning to the front door—unless there is a cow in the back. Banks are open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and stores are closed on Sunday. Sales tax is 1 cent on a dollar.

There is no automatic anything: washers, dryers, dishwashers, etc. Men shave with safety or straight razors. Woman brush their hair with 100 strokes to keep it healthy. Central heating is new, using coal, and outhouses are still in use. Icemen deliver blocks of ice for the iceboxes still in use. Modern refrigerators are small and have a motor on top.

There is no TV, everything is Black & White, movies, newspapers, snapshots, magazines, business cards and books. There are no wall to wall carpets, seat belts, frozen food, deep freezers or vacuum cleaners.

Telephone operators say “Number Please” and you can be listened to, and listen to your neighbors, on party lines. Long distant communication is by telegram. A three minute long-distant telephone call is a major family event.

Students in school still used quill pens and ink wells set in holes in the top of their desks and schools shut down for two weeks in October for a harvest recess to bring in the crops.

And!

My grandparents are AMAZED at the wonders of the Modern World I’m born into.

The world of coast-to-coast radio. They listened to The New York Symphony Orchestra, play-by-play baseball, up-to-date news and an myriad of programs unimaginable in their youth.

They traveled on two lane paved roads to nearby towns at speeds of 40 and even fifty miles an hour. Amazing! Letters can be sent by airmail. They travel by rail long distances in comfortable coaches, sleepers, dining and smoking cars.

Screen doors and windows keep most of the flies out of the house. Electrictisty did away with oil lamps, hand cranked rollers on washington machines and cast iron coal burning cooking stoves.

What modern innovation could be more marvelous then the Bicycle? The Airplane! Invented by bicycle makers.

Both my parents attended and graduated from the latest educational innovation—which was unavailable to their parents—the High School.

Yes, how lucky I am to be born into the Modern World.

In the seven years it takes me to learn to crawl, walk, talk and start to learn to read, over sixty-five-million people are killed in War—until it is finally ended by the Atomic  Bomb in August just before my seventh birthday.

Welcome! Carl, to the Modern World.

From my tub to yours,
Carl

THE JOY OF WORK

In a quite moment of reflection, years ago, I asked my Uncle Grant (Uncle John’s youngest brother).
“What’s your fondest memory of growing-up on the farm?”
“My father teaching me how to plow. He could plow the straightest and deepest furrows in the county. You have no idea how hard it is to hold the horse in line and keep the plow from bouncing or zagging. He taught me how. I’ve always been proud of that.”

Growing up on that farm Uncle Grant was taught many skills by HIS father. How to milk, plant, harvest, butcher, fence, ride, etc. and the personal integrity that comes from daily hard work.

And —

The satisfaction of a job done right. When the plowing was done. It was there for all the neighbors to see: the straight deep furrows cut close to the banks of the field.

My first memories of that farm are in 1943-5 when I was four to six years old— during the War when there was rationing, shortages, fear, and just making do. There was no complaining.  Today, it is amazing to me how much happiness bubbled on that farm from the joy of hard work.

From my tub to yours,

Carl