How Things Changed since My First 20 Years

Japan surrendered in 1945 just ten days after I was born, ending World War Two.

The first computer was invented and completed in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania. It occupied 1,800 square feet and utilized about 18,000 vacuum tubes. It weighed almost 50 tons.

TV’s came into average homes about 1949 and were housed in old style radio consoles and had about a nine inch diagonal screen. Most of the day they had nothing but a test pattern showing on them. Radios were all AM stations.

Electric toasters had doors on the sides that held the bread and one had to guess when the toast was done. One sure clue was when the black smoke came billowing out the top, telling you the toast was burned.

Our Maytag washing machine washed and rinsed in the 1950 time frame, but it had a hand wringer attached on top so one had to line up each piece of clothing and then crank the handle to wring out the clothes. The wringer was two hard rubber rollers tightly pressed together and I found out how tight they were when I put my finger in and cranked the handle. I was always curious, but not always smart.

Rock and Roll was coming into vogue in the early fifties. Prior to that, music was swing-themed and vocals could actually be understood. Music recordings were played on 78 RPM players in the late forties and and early fifties and we had one.

Into the mid fifties we still had an actual ice box and the iceman delivered block ice to the house. He would pull up to the house and chip off a 20 pound block and while he would take that into the house, we kids would raid the back of the truck for slivers that were broken off when the iceman was cutting the block for the house.

We still had a chicken house in the back yard as many people did into the fifties.

1958 I got my first transistor radio. It was as big as a cigar box and played AM radio only. It had a huge six-volt battery that took up ⅓ of the box and did not last long when I fell asleep listening to the Saint Louis Cardinals night games.

In the early sixties people started adding aftermarket air conditioners into cars and the air conditioners were nearly the size of today’s window units and they took up a huge chunk of the front seat area in a full-sized car.

1960 brought out the first Ford Falcon, the first practical compact car, which would now be considered a midsize or full-size vehicle. Nash motors made the Metropolitan from 1953 to 1961, a tiny two seat car with a 1200 cubic centimeter engine (like a motorcycle size).

The first Metropolitans sold for $1445, convertibles were $1469. They only came with a 3-speed column-shifting standard transmission. Today those same cars are selling for as much as $20,000.

1961 I saw the most beautiful car that I ever saw. It was a new Chrysler 300 red convertible model with white interior, bucket seats and a 383 cubic inch engine and dual 4-barrel carburetors. Meanwhile I bought my first car off the very back of the same lot, a 1955 Studebaker Commander with a huge number of miles on it. 1964 brought the first Ford Mustang to market and the muscle-car race was on!

1965 I saw my first slot machine at the Navy Exchange store in Sangley Point, Philippines. It took one nickel at a time and had a one arm pull that hopefully dropped one or more nickels into a tray below, which it hardly ever did.

Finally, in 1965, my 20th year on earth, RCA was making color TV sets in Tennessee that had a round picture tube and were built into all wooden cabinets.