The changes in the last 75 years have been so many and so astounding, it’s impossible to acknowledge them all.
I mention cell phones first because they have made such an enormous impact on all our lives.
Practically every person in view has a cell phone either to their ear or staring at one.
Even children have cells, for goodness sake.
Cell phones were inconceivable in my childhood.
We didn’t even have TVs for most of my childhood.
I first heard television mentioned by my friend, Laura Carol.
She described it as “radio that you could look inside and see movies”.
When the first house on the block got a TV set, all the neighbors were invited to take a look.
The picture was terrible!
Helicopter parents today would be horrified at the freedom my friends and I had. We had practically no restrictions.
In the summer it was common to leave the house after doing our chores, meet up with friends and come home only at mealtimes.
If we went out after supper, the rule was “be home when the street lights come on.”
No computers, computer games or social media.
No watching sports from around the world.
No World Wide Web, Internet or Google.
Water sold in a bottle? Water??
That would have gotten you laughed out of town!
When we were out roaming the neighborhood and got thirsty, we would just get a drink out of someone’s garden hose.
I think later on, drinking from a garden hose was declared unsafe.
Not sure why.
Same thing with Mercurochrome.
For years it was the standard topical treatment for all scrapes, scratches and various wounds.
Mercurochrome burned like crazy when it was applied.
We knew it would and tried ‘blowing it cool.’
It was a bright red color and stayed on your skin for days.
I believe it was the Mercury in Mercurochrome that got it banned.
When I was a child, cigarettes and smoking were not considered bad for your health.
Smoking was common.
Second hand smoke was everywhere.
Parents could even send children to the store to ‘buy a pack’.
No questions asked.
Organ transplants? Craziness!
If anyone had even suggested taking an organ from a body and putting it in another body, they would have been declared certifiably nuts!
There were no seat belts or car seats in autos.
A toddler usually stood on the front seat beside Mom or Dad while they were driving.
The only protection a toddler had was when Mom or Dad would fling an arm out in front of them when braking too quickly.
This kept them from going through the windshield. Maybe.
We rode bikes a lot; a favorite pastime.
We never had to wear helmets.
Never even heard of such a thing!
If folks needed cash, they went to a bank.
To think that someday a machine on the street would ‘spit out’ cash was unimaginable!
There was no such thing as a Space Program; wasn’t even in our vocabulary.
If there had been even a suggestion of ‘space travel’, it would have been dismissed as just more craziness.
Move over ‘organ transplants’.
The advances made in the past 75 years have been wondrous; sensational; mind-blowing.
Look out, World, for the next 75 years!