Paradoxically,
deterioration in civic and religious affairs (according to my perceptions) during
my lifetime has been paralleled by greater scientific and technological
development than during all previous human history. Those developments have resulted in improved health and quality
of living, expanded entertainment vistas, made items containing solid state
electronic components a part of daily life, and revolutionized our modes and
systems of transportation.
◊◊◊
Medical
discoveries have increased life expectancy by several years, providing for greater
health and productivity. Better dental
care enables more people to keep their original teeth for a lifetime. Dentures were a common sight when I was young; most older folks wore
them. In our modern world many seniors
have their original teeth. (My wisdom
teeth were removed while I was in college, but I still have twenty-seven of the
other twenty-eight, including one baby tooth.)
I’ve mentioned dentures at least twice in these writings; I don’t
think I knew that word until I was grown; people replaced their lost natural
masticating equipment with “false teeth.”
I noticed, as a child, that some false teeth (Papa
Grammer’s, for example) “clicked” as their wearers chewed their food; I suspect
their dentures didn’t fit as well as do today’s.
Tommy McClelland, a friend and co-worker in
Abilene, referred to his false teeth as “China Clippers.” I always think of his terminology when the
subject of dentures arises.
◊◊◊
Mechanical and
technological developments have eased mundane tasks of daily living, provided
ever expanding entertainment vistas, and made us more comfortable at work or
play:
·
Automatic
washers and dryers have freed Mondays for activities other than doing the
family laundry; Monday and washday were almost synonymous when I was a kid.
·
Permanent
press fabrics have eliminated the need for ironing many, if not most, garments.
·
Dishwashers
for the home make post-meal cleanup easier, just as the panoply of powered
kitchen appliances eases meal preparation.
·
Home freezers
keep meats, vegetables, pre-cooked foods, and ready-to-cook meals usable for
months. Freezer technology existed when
I was young, but I was grown before I saw home freezers on the market.
·
Power tools
for home lawn care were unknown when I was young. The only power mower I saw before I was grown was a machine used
to mow La Feria’s football field.
·
Comfort at
work, at home, and on the road has been greatly improved by widespread
availability of affordable refrigerated air conditioning:
-
Relatively few department stores were air-conditioned in the years before I was
grown. Many storefronts had an overhead
fan mounted in the entranceway, to keep flies from coming through doorways left
open for air circulation.
-
Very few homes had refrigerated air conditioning systems in my younger days.
- I
didn’t work in an air-conditioned office until 1954.
-
I’ve lived in a house with refrigerated air conditioning only since 1964, when
Arlette and I purchased our present home.
(Ducted evaporative air conditioning worked well in Abilene, so we had
lived comfortably without refrigerated air.)
-
Automotive air conditioning became available during the ‘50s. Our first air-conditioned vehicle was a 1975
Dodge Dart.
·
Automation of
many tedious, repetitive manufacuring operations has sped production, reduced
costs, and freed workers for more productive, less boring tasks.
·
Television
has revolutionized home entertainment; before television, externally supplied
home entertainment was limited to radio and records. One may argue about the quality of the change, but the extent is
undeniable.
I
first saw television in 1948, shortly after Fort Worth’s Channel 5, WBAP-TV (the first television station in Texas),
began operating. The Colemans,
neighbors on Avenue J, purchased a
television set soon after WBAP-TV went on the air, so I was privileged to see
the new phenomenon relatively early.
[Mrs.
Coleman’s elderly Uncle Lige visited from time to time. One day soon after they acquired their first
set, Uncle Lige wanted to watch TV while no one else was home, so he knocked at
our front door and asked if I could turn on the “visatella”
for him. The syllabic dyslexia baffled
me for a few seconds,
but, after catching on, I went with him, although I had never before touched TV
controls. I got picture and sound
going, but I might have had a problem if the picture had started rolling or
doing other oddball things (as early sets were wont to do), for I knew nothing
about horizontal and vertical controls.]
Arlette and I didn’t have television until
we bought a used Philco combo (radio/record player/black-and-white TV) with a
12-inch screen in 1953. We bought our
next set, a new 23-inch black and white Zenith product, in 1958; it was
replaced with our first color set (19-inch screen) in 1968.
·
The quality
of recorded music has progressed from the often scratchy, distorted sound of 78
RPM records to today’s CDs. Lovers of
recorded music appreciate improvements in that medium, as 78 RPM records were
succeeded by 45s, then 33s, followed by reel-to-reel/eight-track/cassette
tapes, and, lastly, CDs. Needle scratch
is gone; new technology provides clear stereophonic high-fidelity sound. I’m sure further audio wonders are yet to
come, but I can’t imagine what they might be.
Perhaps we will have implanted electronic circuitry in our ears, through
which we can listen to radio or recordings without disturbing persons nearby.
Arlette and I have had music in our places of abode for all
the years of our marriage, beginning with an old Watterson table radio. Her mother and dad gave us a turntable our first
Christmas, so I had a radio shop wire its output into the plate circuit of the
Watterson’s amplifier tube, thereby enabling us to play the few 78 RPM records
we owned; we’ve been able to play recordings ever since that time, although
amplification quality hasn’t always been good.
We stepped up our capabilities when I bought a Silvertone
radio/record/tape player early in our years at Abilene, then significantly
upgraded our caliber of equipment a couple of years later when Bill English sold us his Stromberg-Carlson tuner and
amplifier, a Gerard record changer, and two sixteen-inch GE coaxial
speakers. We still use the Gerard
changer and the two big speakers in a rather complex stereo setup with which we
can play everything from old 78s through today’s CDs.
Most of us
routinely use products that weren’t available when I was young (e.g., cell
phones/digital clocks and watches/transistor radios/televisions/remote
controls/electronic calculators/tape cassettes/CD recordings/computers/CB
radios). Such products have been made
possible by solid state electronic technology, which began in the ‘50s with the
development of semi-conductors enabling creation of smaller, cheaper,
cooler-operating products. The word
“transistors” joined the electronics lexicon, and “chips” came to mean
something more than junk food.
Microchip production has resulted in descriptive new names being given
to geographical areas (e.g., the “Silicon Valleys” of California and Texas).
Microchips are
found not only in products that didn’t exist when I was young, but have been
used to improve and control functions of products that have been around longer,
such as our automobiles.
Space
exploration programs couldn’t have occurred without development of solid-state
technology and resultant miniaturization of components. Developments in rocketry, which began during
World War II, made adequate thrust possible for space vehicles; solid-state
electronic technology provided the controls.
(U.S. rocketry and space vehicle development were helped greatly by
German scientists, e.g. Wehrner von Braun, who came to our country after WW
II.)
Commercial
spin-offs from engineering marvels developed for space exploration have more
than justified that exploration.
Satellite communication and global positioning systems are prime
examples of space program spin-offs, but there are many others.
◊◊◊
Prices of
electronic devices have decreased during the last half of the twentieth
century, while prices of most other products have increased dramatically. Color television sets, with remote controls,
are less expensive than were black and white sets in the early years of
television. Audio equipment gets better
– yet cheaper. Each new generation of
computers is more powerful than the last, generally at less cost. And the quality of all electronic products
has continually improved. Competition
is a great thing; I wish we had it for our public school systems – imagine
costs going down and quality improving there!
Mention of technological developments in
audio/video equipment reminds me of a recent incident in our Sunday morning
Bible study group, when we were studying the creation account recorded in the
first chapter of Genesis. As we discussed
the appearance of land masses from beneath the waters (as I envision the
creation scenario), I said I hoped the Lord made VCR tapes of the operation,
for some day I’d like to see the mountains rising out of the seas (presumably
from subterranean activity). Gary
Pitts, our teacher/discussion leader, said the Lord probably used DVDs, not VCRs. I acknowledged that he was probably correct, but I was so far
behind the times that when I heard “DVDs” I thought about underwear, not
digital video disks. The place erupted
in laughter as others sound-associated “DVDs” and “BVDs.”
(B.V.D. was a major manufacturer of mens underwear in our younger days,
and some folks referred to all mens’ undergarments as “BVDs,” as if that were a
generic term, much as many of them used “Frigidaire” as a generic term for all
refrigerators.)
◊◊◊
I
haven’t mentioned (1) the impact of magnetically-encoded plastic cards on modern
society (e.g., in operating automated teller machines (ATMs), self-service fuel
pumps, and obtaining credit authorization at many retail establishments) or (2)
the effects of technological improvements in handling most retail transactions,
particularly at large department stores.
Consider changes in the latter category:
·
Generally
speaking, in the old days one “checked out” his purchases at department stores
within the department in which he found them, usually with the assistance of a
clerk at his elbow; clerks wrote up sales tickets in triplicate, extracted the
original and the customer copy, then sent them and the customer’s money (via an
overhead “trolley” or a vacuum transport system) to a central cashier, who
returned change and the customer’s copy of the transaction to the clerk, where
the duplicate sales slip was placed with the wrapped (or bagged) purchase and
the customer was given his change.
·
Many modern
stores ask customers to transport selections to centralized checkout areas
where bar code readers enable (1) automated pricing of purchases and (2) maintenance of
perpetual inventory records. In
addition to providing greater efficiency and internal control within a store,
the modern procedures also enable customers to use their debit/credit cards
only once (or write one check) for all purchases – a convenience of some
consequence unless one pays cash for everything.
Space travel and
exploration, comic book fantasies as I grew up, are the most dramatic
transportational innovations of my lifetime, but other systems have undergone
radical changes; global commerce and travel have expanded exponentially. My generation has moved from a childhood
wherein a fifty-mile automobile trip was a big deal to routine intercontinental
flight. I suspect hardly anyone could
have predicted the rapid changes that would occur in both air and surface
transportation systems during the last three-quarters of the 20th century:
·
Few
multi-engine aircraft were manufactured before the ‘30s. Ford’s tri-motor “tin goose” first flew on
June 11, 1926; 199 were produced between 1928 and 1933. Douglas Aircraft’s twin-engine DC-3,
developed in the early ‘30s, was the first widely used commercial aircraft
(many are still in service).
Four-engine passenger aircraft were developed later in the ‘30s (our
family went to the Brownsville airport to see one being introduced on Latin
American routes).
·
The earliest overseas
commercial air service of which I’m aware began with the China Clipper (flying boat) between the United States and Pearl Harbor on
November 23, 1935; service between the U.S. and Manila started the next year.
·
Jet-powered
aircraft were developed during World War II, but weren’t widely operational
until after the war ended. Most
fighters and bombers built during the ‘50s were equipped with jet engines, but
pure jet commercial planes weren’t manufactured until about 1960. (Lockheed’s prop-jet Electras were
introduced in 1959; I rode one that year on the Houston to Dallas leg of a trip
from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Abilene.
Viscount propjets were introduced in Great Britain at about the same
time as the Electra.)
·
Buses have
replaced electric trolleys in most public transportation systems. [An interurban rail commuter system, using electric trolley-type cars,
operated between Hillsboro and Dallas until the late ‘30s, when competition
from highway bus systems and private auto ownership reduced ridership. I never rode the Interurban, but I was sorry
to see it go.]
·
Diesel
engines have replaced gasoline engines for most heavy trucking.
·
Diesel/electric
power has replaced steam locomotion on railroad systems.
·
Airlines have
replaced railways as primary carriers of passengers traveling long distances (a
large percentage of railway passenger traffic occurs in intercity corridors of
the northeast).
·
The
Interstate Highway System, construction of which began in the ‘50s,
has been the most important transportational development for me, because I’ve
spent far more time in automobiles than in traveling via other modes of
transportation.
Although
the interstate highways can’t be beaten when auto travel time is a factor, I
really prefer secondary roads to the superslabs, because they are
usually smoother and one sees a more representative picture of our country.
Nearly all roads and road surfaces are superior
to those I remember from my younger days.
Many narrow (and often rough) two-lane highways have been widened, some
to four lanes. However, in spite of the
improved roadways, I miss the Burma Shave signs that spiced up travel in my growing-up years, e.g.:
In this world/Of toil and sin/Your head grows bald/But not
your chin
- or -
She topped the hill/Doing ninety per/They picked up in a
box/What had Ben Hur
- or -
At our schools/Heed instructions/Protect our little/Tax
deductions
Another
Burma Shave sign whose first three lines I can’t remember was about a chicken,
and ended with “…the egg that marmalade.”
I wish I could remember the whole thing; I’m sure it was something like:
Said
Chicken Little/With pride displayed/Look at the egg/That marmalade
Twila
noted, while reading an early draft of these writings, that I had included this
discussion of road signs, then located an Internet compilation of Burma Shave
gems from over the years, printed it, and gave it to me. Unfortunately, that compilation wasn’t
all-inclusive, so I still don’t know the original text of the jewel which ended
with “the egg that marmalade,” even though I’ve also searched several Internet
websites
Even city street construction has changed,
if Fort Worth is a fair example. All
its downtown streets, as well as most main thoroughfares, had brick surfaces until the ‘40s; they have been topped with asphalt,
because brick, while serviceable, produced a rumbling sound in most vehicles;
asphalt provides for a much quieter ride.
U.S. automobile
production progressed from almost nothing to millions per year during the
quarter-century before I was born; the history of that development is rich and
colorful, but my knowledge of details is limited, so my comments will be
sketchy.
Numerous
automobile companies had come and gone, but some of their vehicles were still
around when I was a boy (e.g., Cousin Anna Blasingame’s Essex); others, such as
Duesenberg, Maxwell, Pierce-Arrow, Reo Speed Wagon and Hupmobile, were only
names I remember hearing adults talk about.
(The “Reo” in Reo Speed Wagon was an acronym formed from the name of its
founder, R.E. Olds, whose name lived on in General Motors’ Oldsmobile
products. Robert and Louis Hupp founded
the Hupp Motor Company, and produced Hupmobiles from 1909-1940, but I don’t
recall having seen one.) Product lines
that had run their course by, or during, my boyhood included the sporty Stutz
Bearcat, the Auburn, and the
Graham-Paige; all were expensive, so I imagine their demise was related to the
Great Depression.
Even Fort Worth had an automobile factory for a
time (located on Old Granbury Road). It
failed, leaving investors (including my dad and his dad) with nothing; my dad
owned only two shares, but Papa Miller had invested $1,200, a sizable amount in
the early 20th century.
Most brands of vehicles
with which I was familiar as I grew up were of U.S. origin. I heard about upscale British Rolls-Royces,
but never saw any. At the lower end, I
remember a Fort Worth neighbor’s tiny British-made Austin – the only car of
foreign origin I remember from my childhood.
Small British-made
sports cars, such as the MG, appeared on U.S. streets in the late ‘40s, but I
don’t recall having seen German Mercedes or Volkswagen products before the
‘50s, or Japanese cars before the ‘60s.
Nowadays, foreign-made autos seem to outnumber domestic products.
◊◊◊
The variety of
sizes and product lines offered under a single brand name was much smaller
before World War II than with today’s brands (e.g., today one can buy the
Contour/Crown Victoria/Escape/Explorer/Expedition/Excursion/Focus/
Mustang/Taurus lines within the Ford brand, all with differing body sizes and
styles). The pre-WWII offerings I
recall included:
·
Chevrolet’s
“vanilla” Standard, a somewhat nicer
Deluxe, and a Master Deluxe. Within each
style one could get a coupe, two-door sedan, and four-door sedan; convertibles
were available only in top-of-the-line styles.
·
Ford’s lineup
paralleling Chevrolet, with Standard and
Deluxe as “fanciness” indicators.
·
Studebaker’s Champion, a small car, plus two larger ones
named President and Commander, each progressively more
plush.
·
Nash’s small Rambler and its larger Ambassador.
·
Buick’s Special, Century, and a larger Limited model (a Roadmaster was added to the line after WW II).
·
Lincoln’s Zephyr and Continental. [Acton schoolboys were excited about
the Lincoln “Zipper” when it came out in 1936, envisioning it “zipping” around powered
by its V-12 engine.]
·
Chrysler’s New Yorkers and Imperials.
◊◊◊
Many common domestic
product names from the ‘30s and ‘40s are no longer around. Consider the following brands that could be
seen on the streets of any town when I was a kid, but can only be seen at
antique shows today:
De
Soto/Hudson/La Salle/Nash/Packard/Plymouth/Studebaker/Terraplane/Willys
Discontinuance of
some of those brand names was related, at least in part, to the fact that
production of automobiles for domestic use was suspended during WW II, when
auto factories were converted to military production; no 1943/44/45 civilian
models were produced. Production for
the domestic market resumed after the war ended in August, 1945, but some
brands weren’t reinstated; others were reinstated, but were discontinued as
years passed and competition intensified:
·
Production of
the La Salle, a General Motors car almost identical with Cadillac, wasn’t
resumed.
·
Hudson Motor
Company didn’t resume production of its Terraplane after the war, but Hudsons
were produced through 1957.
·
Nash vehicles
were produced through 1957.
·
Packard
discontinued auto production after 1958.
·
The last
Studebakers were produced in 1966.
·
Willys did
well throughout WW II, producing Jeeps for the military, then continued
manufacturing Jeeps and economy vehicles for the domestic market through the
‘50s, but finally lost out in the competitive wars. The Jeep name survived, but is now the property of Chrysler.
·
The De Soto,
a Chrysler product, was produced in the U.S. through 1961, and Chryler’s
Plymouth brand lasted about two more decades.
Three
new brands – Kaiser, Frazier, and Tucker – were introduced soon after the end
of World War II, but had only short runs.
Kaisers and Fraziers were built in facilities that had produced Liberty
ships during the war; they were good looking, but didn’t significantly dent the
market, so production was stopped after about five years. The Tucker, distinguished by a movable
center headlight that pointed in the direction the wheels turned, was produced
in Chicago in 1948-49, but never took hold (only 51 were built); my exposure to
Tucker automobiless was limited to magazine ads.
◊◊◊
I’ve observed
numerous developments in automotive design and equipment as the nation has
become more prosperous and technology has provided for added comfort and
accessories:
·
Automobiles
didn’t have integrated trunks until about the mid-‘30s; some larger cars were
built with the frame extended to the rear, across which extension was mounted
(between body and bumper) a “trunk” painted to match the body.
·
I knew of no
autos with either radios or heaters before the mid-‘30s. (My first car, a 1940 Chevrolet, had neither
when I acquired it.)
·
Auto
air-conditioning wasn’t even dreamed of when I was a child.
·
Most cars of
the ‘20s had four-cylinder engines; some had in-line sixes by the late ‘20s or
early ‘30s, and Ford converted to V-8s in the early ‘30s (its prewar Lincolns
had V-12s), and by the late ‘50s
“muscle cars” powered by big V-8s abounded.
·
A combination
of petroleum shortages, ecological concerns, and foreign competition led to
development in the ‘70s of small and efficient, yet relatively comfortable
vehicles, powered by smooth-running, durable four-cylinder engines. Small V-6 engines were developed to power
mid-size (and some full-size) autos; big V-8 engines, which once predominated
in automotive propulsion, appear mostly in pickups, trucks, motorhomes, and
SUVs in the 21st century.
·
Manufacturers
nowadays market SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) built on pickup chassis to
families needing space, instead of large station wagons of earlier years, for
SUVs aren’t subject to the same federally-mandated fuel efficiency standards
applied to sedans and station wagons.
I knew of only two
brands of motorcycles before World War II – Harley-Davidson and Indian. Harleys were rugged, but good-looking;
Indians were more streamlined.
Motor scooters were introduced shortly before the beginning
of World War II. They weren’t as large,
as fancy, or as fast as Harleys and Indians, but were a step up from bicycles,
and I would have enjoyed owning one.
They used little fuel; an older acquaintance (Donald Bailey, as I
recall) rode his Cushman motor scooter from San Antonio to La Feria, reportedly
using less than three gallons of fuel in traversing about 250 miles.
I
first saw foreign-made motorcycles in the late ‘40s; a teenage friend of Don
Coleman, my Fort Worth neighbor, owned a Japanese model. Those early foreign machines were small, but
with sales success came larger models – and a multiplicity of brands. They were so successful they almost drove
Harley-Davidson out of business – and the Indian brand lives only in
memorabilia.