When my friend turned 80, I realized I’ve lived through nine decades – from the 40s to the 2020s, I’ve been musing in the changes over those decades that have changed our lives.
Born in 1946, I was young in the 1940’s but I still remember playing Gene Autry’s Buttons and Beaus on my little record player. I’m sure my mother wished that record would break.
Our main entertainment was radio. My dad listened to Hank Williams - Hey Good Lookin, Your Cheat’n Heart, and Jambalaya. By mid-50s rock and roll was budding and I was listening to Buddy Holly and Elvis.
As a child in 1950 I lived in Chicago. My parents had a 1 foot square TV sitting on a wire stand. We kept that TV for 10 more years and 2 moves – one from Chicago to Evansville, Indiana. I watched Captain Video and his Video Rangers. I Love Lucy came out in 1951. My parents put me to bed before it came on and I felt sorry for myself as I heard them laughing in the living room. I eventually got old enough to stay up and watch it.
In 1953, I loved Winky-Dink, billed as the first Interactive TV show. (1) Winky DInky, a cartoon hero, escaped from danger when I drew a bridge over the river with a special crayon on the "magic drawing screen" a sheet of vinyl that stuck to the television screen. The kit cost 50 cents. Winky Dink didn’t last long. Parents were concerned about x-rays from TV picture tubes and even more concerned that children who did not have the “magic drawing screen” drew directly on the TV screen.
Hubby and I got our first color TV in 1968. In the 80s we got a portable TV that we sat on our kitchen table. I’d carried it to the laundry room while I did laundry. It had a swivel antenna on the top a vast improvement over the rabbit ears of the 50s. I finally had to give it up when TV transmission switched to digital. So through the decades TV went from small black and white TVs to color giant flat screens.
One standard item in 50s and 60s households klutzy aluminum ice cube trays with the lever you pulled to release the ice. You had to fill it precisely or it didn’t work. Too little water and the release mechanism wouldn’t work and the cube wouldn't come out. Too much water and the cubes expanded over the bars when they froze. You had to use them because there wasn't freezer space to store them. Fast forward to the 2000s and now when I want ice I press a flap on the refrigerator door; no filling the tray and putzing to release the cubes.
Refrigerators have changed, too. Our first refrigerator was a single door with a box inside the top of the fridge for freezing. The box didn’t hold much more than the ice cube trays. By the mid 60s we had two-door fridge with the freezer on the top. In the 70s we suffered through ugly colors from avocado green to harvest gold to copper. Ugh. Thank heavens our appliances were mostly white – but in one apartment hubby and I had Coppertone brown appliances.
My parents always had a car, My first memory was a 49 Green Ford Coupe. By the mid-50s car manufactures saw a market in personal two-seater sports cars. I the swooned over my neighbor’s shiny red t-bird convertible. I’ve driven stick shifts most of my life. I learned to drive in a 60s ford with a stick on the column. Then in the mid- 60s to mid-70s cars grew and muscle cards became popular. The Beach Boys sang She's Real Fine My 409 and Little Deuce Coup – ‘She’s got a competition clutch with four on the floor and she purrs like a kitten til the lake pipes roar.” And don’t forget Ronnie and the Daytoa’s Little GTO.
The first car I paid for with my wages was a 1967 Ash Gold Camero Rally Sport with a competition clutch. During my mid-life crisis I got a Mazda RX7 stick shift. I’d coveted a red Triumph convertible, but hubby nixed it - “it’s a rust bucket and is always broken.” I finally gave up my RX7 when we couldn’t find a mechanic to work on the Wankle rotary engine. Our main car during the 2000s was a 2009 Honda Accord. We still had a stick shift Ford Escape that we towed behind our RV until 2018.
Speaking of advances over the years, I got my first Brownie Hawkeye camera in the mid-50s. I thought I was Annie Leibovitz taking pictures of all my friends. In the old days, you had to advance the film or you’d take double exposures. I tooks lots of them.
In the 70s we advanced to Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras with multiple lenses and a separate flash. But we still used film. I remember taking what I thought was going to be the shot of the century of a squirrel danging upside down from his back legs from a swaying tree branch. But when I went to advance the film, I realized there was no film in the camera. In the late 90s there was the Canon Sure Shot, a digital camera (no film) that would fit in your pocket. Leap forward to the 2010s and most of us have ditched the camera and use our phones. There is a downsize to such easy technology. I have 6,700 pictures on my phone, and that's just from the past few years. And I thought it took me a long time to sort thought a box of photos my mom had saved. By the way, I rarely take pictures of my food.
When we were in Chicago, our phone was a party line – multiple people shared the same line. You could tell it was your call by the number of rings. If you picked the phone up when it wasn’t your ring, you could listen to the other party’s conversation. A scene in Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation shows how troublesome party lines can be. Every time Mr. Hobbs picks up the telephone, he hears two women discussing disgusting medical problems. Since then we’ve progressed through single lines and princess phones with long cords to mobile devices that we carry in our pocket. I got my first cell phone in the 90s. back then they called them bricks. The size and weight of a brick, you needed a bigger purse to store it. Hubby would get annoyed when I didn’t have it with me, but it was a chore to lug it and charge it.
Somewhere in the 2000s I graduated to a flip phone, but they weren't smart – meaning they were just phones. Now I have an iPhone 13 – and part of my life revolves around it. I use it less as a phone and more as a camera, a game station, and a music device. Oh, and I can’t forget my encyclopedia. Within seconds Google answers any question I have. Now that’s progress!
References
Matt Novak, America's First Interactive TV Show Encouraged Kids to Draw on the Screen, gizmodo.com, July 20, 2018
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