February 26, 2010

If one lives long enough he'll see a lot of changes in the world. If one adds his parents' lifespan to his own the changes are phenomenal.

Here is one. My Mother was born in 1904, in Hungary. I do know that at that time there were no airplanes there and I'm sure there were no airplanes in the US either.

In my Mother's lifespan the airplane was invented, developed and eventually air travel became very popular in the world. My Mother, who never flew in her life, came to visit me in 1968 and flew from Budapest to New York alone in a huge jet plane. And, was never scared of the flying experience.

Actually, she flew about three more times and loved every trip.

Just looking back at the tremendous changes in technology in our time is mind boggling. Since I am familiar of the times my parents lived in I also count those years.

When I was growing up we already had telephones. Even in Hungary. We gave up smoke signals years before that.

Our telephones were rotary but so were all the phones when I came out to this county. Now, if one sees a phone with a rotary dial he will ask the question "what is this?"

In the late 1960s I saw mobile telephones but there were almost as big as a shipping trunk. Large and uncomfortably heavy. Now, the mobile phones are about 1/8th of an inch thick and weigh only a few ounces.

I remember automobiles, trucks that had to be cranked in the front in order to get their engines started. This was back before World War II and before the invention of the automatic starter, at least in Hungary.

My parents grew up in the silent movie era. In my Mother's time they already had color, wide screen and 3D movies with stereophonic sound.

There is a ski shop not far from where I live. In their window they exhibit some ancient wooden skis with real old bindings, bamboo poles as well as leather ski boots with lacing. They do this to show how much the sport advanced in years.

I am looking at these and saying it to myself that "hey, I used to ski with this type of equipment." Does that make me ancient, too?

My Mother used to have an iron made from cast iron. This iron used charcoal to heat it. She never liked to use it because it was heavy and generally a nuisance.

I think we threw it out. Now they are selling this as an antique item for a lot of money.

When I was growing up we never had an electric refrigerator. What we had was an ice box. The ice man came (cometh) and we bought ice from him, put it in the ice box and kept it there until it melted. She bought her first electric refrigerator in the 1960s.

Direct dialing long distance calls was unheard of. There were the good old switchboards with their corresponding operators.

A very good friend of mine lived in an Upstate New York community and in the mid 1960s when I visited them I noticed that their telephone had no rotary dial. When I inquired I was told that they couldn't dial out. They had to ask the local operator to make the connection. Can you imagine living like that today?

We get upset if in the middle of the Sahara Desert we can get four bars on our cell phone.

Just to note, I grew up in Hungary, lived in Budapest. Budapest was a cosmopolitan city equipped with all comforts money could buy. So it was not out in the boondocks where the fruits of civilization were slow to grow.

They liked the comforts the West could offer.

But to think back how much the world changed in our lifetime is staggering. It is almost like going from walking on all fours to walk upright.

The only thing really never finding a fertile soil in Hungary was the sport of golf. But don't worry about Hungarian men. They don't go around in circles looking for a little extracurricular activities.









I'll write about old things that we had, like wood skis