Life today is not easier than it was years ago for everything. The stress level is so much higher today than then.
My first exposure to a telephone you picked up the phone and if no one else was using the line. Yes, in those days there were many people using the phone lines so if someone else was using it you had to wait and there were those that loved to listen to others conversations. When the line was clear the operator would ask you the number you wanted. My phone number in those days was 47 M. however if you didnโt know you just told the operator to call David Harmer and his phone would ring. When I first got married livingย in my own home and my first child wouldย knock the phone off the hookย the operator had a way of causing my phone to buzz very loud to let me know to put it back on the hook so other people could use the phone. After this happened many times, I told the operator to disconnect the stupid thing I could get by without it. She called my mother and told her, and mom told the operator if she disconnected me, she would not be able to call me, so they didnโt disconnect my phone. Theย next time that buzzer went off, I took care of that I jerked the line out of the wall and threw it behind the desk. Finally, good riddance. A repairman came to myย house a few days later to fix it.
In those days the phone cost was around 4 dollars a month. And they gave you the phone. Today a new phone cost $1,500 dollars and to download Uber it wants passcodes and phone numbers and when I put my phone number in it said it was the wrong phone number. Bull crap I checked it several times and it wanted a 77 number which I have no idea where are whose number that was, but I certainly was not mine. Oh, how I wish I could tell the operator where to put this phone.
Now letโs talk about the television that cost more than is reasonable. I cannot use it because I am not qualified to fill in all the banks and I have thousands of channels and am not able to remember the passwords to use it. It had three channelsโ years agoย andย if you could see the picture, you could watch t.v. The remote was two legs and ten steps to the t.v. ย When living at home my mother would pound on the floor and I would go across the house up the stairs and back to the front room and change the channel for her and go back down. My mother had a remote that was me.ย ย ย I got hell for tipping overย the outhouse one time, and funny as it is I have to tell those young readers that was the toilet in those days. Imagine getting up and going outside to set on a cold seat and stink, before you could go in you would have thrown in a skunk first just to cut the smell. The toilet paper was a sears catalog and those that do not understand thatโs shopping online. The line was on the seat next to you and if it was dark, you just made do. When you could see and didnโt want the family to read that page it was an easy way to get rid of that page.
I have to admit the outhouse I tipped over was in the backyard saved to go to the dump because we had just gotten a flush toilet inside the house. What would they think of next? History would tell you and those smart enough can check this out but back in about 1948 to 50 the man running the governments office for new inventions called the President of the United States and told him he just as well shut down the office of Patten Office because anything that could be invented was already done.
That was before microwaves, computers, x-ray in medical offices, teller machines, DNA not to mention robotic surgery. I will leave it there, but I tell the younger when was a kid they put license plates on the dinosaurs.
I would leave this, but I would like to point out that a few years before I was born to fix dinner which was supper in those days you had to cut down the tree, cut it in length, put on a chopping block and make it fit the stove. Then you built the fire while you went downstairs and got the potatoes, the meat had to be fresh, or it would spoil. Had a friend who I ask how he got the dishes so clean he told me he had a spot remover. A spot remover? yes, and turning he yelled โHere Spot, common boyโ
A Messenger,
Verl K.
Not all messages have been told but the few left in the bucket are what keeps me active and moving.