this thread is the result of a PM I recently got. It was suggested I should start a thread and discuss changes I have seen over the past 70 years. A little thinking and I realized how much the world has changed. Just looking around I notice that nearly 90% of the items I own, did not exist when I as born. Life was different. America was not yet considered a major world power, the UK had the largest Navy, Germany had the most powerful ground Army. The US was at peace with Russia. America was an Agrarian nation and the majority of Americans lived on farms. Like most Americans of the time I was born on a farm. The USA was essentially a bankrupt nation just coming out of the depression.
From 1940-1945 what I never saw:
Indoor plumbing
Electricity
Telephone
Television
Gas stoves
Gasoline Chain saw
Swimming pools
Jet planes
Some of our greatest fears were disease smallpox was still common, We all had friends or relatives that had either died from polio or were paralyzed by it. The US flag only had 48 stars, There was no Pakistan or Israel on the maps. India was a British commonwealth. There were no satellites, cars did not have power brakes, power steering, electric windows, air conditioning, electric windshield wipers, and burned leaded gas.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was president. Segregation was the law in most states, in most of the states it was illegal for a non-white person to go to a white school, eat in a white restaurant, use a white public bathroom or even drink from a white public water fountain. In many cities it was illegal for a non-white person to be in the city after sunset or before day break. This segregation extended beyond color in many areas and included Irish, Catholics, Jews, and Mormons. Human Rights laws were still 25 years in the future.
I'll pause here for any comments and come back later covering the WW2 years 1942-1945
if you are 70 akhi (may Allah swt grant you excellent health and a great life) you couldn't have been more than a few months old when WWII broke out.. how will you tell this story?
Text without context is pretext If your opponent is of choleric temperament, seek to irritate him
if you are 70 akhi (may Allah swt grant you excellent health and a great life) you couldn't have been more than a few months old when WWII broke out.. how will you tell this story?
I was 2 years 5 months and 2 days old when Pearl Harbor was Bombed. For some reason I can still remember the radio broadcast. But maybe because it was replayed frequently for the next 3 years.
what I remember most will be what I did not have. Nearly everybody I knew including my father were immediately drafted into the Army. almost every male between the ages of 18-35 was drafted, Most of us kids spent a child hood with out a father or uncles. also the rationing hit us hard, even living on a farm we had some difficulty as some of the items you could not buy or were limited to very small quantities were sugar, meats, butter. What affected me most is we did not have any candy except on extremely rare occasions. I was probably 5 years old before I had my first candy bar or store bought toy.
Most of us started grade school in June 1945 without a father, many of us had fathers that never returned after the end of the war in Nov. of 1945
So to continue what I and many others did not have during WW2
A father
Toys
Uncles
Candy
No more than one meal a day and some days less
Of course a lot of things were still a long way off from being invented or affordable for home use such as
Microwave ovens
pop-up toasters
Air conditioning
Central heating
Television
computers
almost everything made from plastic
Telephones were still scarce and anybody that had one was on a party line.
Our entertainment was Radio, on Sunday it was Sunday comics read to us on the radio by "Uncle Don" Perhaps once every other month Saturday morning at a movie theater. Cost for us under 12 years old was 12 cents and that included the movie, popcorn and a soft drink.
In the summer of 1945 I started my first job at a dairy farm owned by Edgar Seymour. I started at 5 am milked the cows, let them out to pasture and then shoveled out the barn and put feed and water in the stanchion feeders and water bucket. My day ended at 4 pm when the cows came in from pasture. Most kids my age had started farm work shortly after turning 5. Our pay was usually 5 cents per day I was getting 25 Cents a week for a 7 day week.
In late summer about the 3 rd week in August of 1945 we moved to the "Big City" New Britain Connecticut. I as still waiting for my father to come home from the Army and was worried he would not find us. But there were many things I saw for the first time. We had an indoor toilet, Electric lights, a kerosene stove. Our own radio, I got to listen to "Uncle Don" reading the comics on Sunday mornings. But other changes came I started school. It was a long walk about a mile. The first few days my mother walked me to School, about the first 3 days I escaped from school during recess and ran home. After about the 3rd or 4th spanking I decided it was better to spend the day in school. But some changes came. I could not speak Lithuanian at school and was only permitted to speak English. My mother forbade me to speak Lithuanian at home. I had to speak English even at home, although my mother spoke very limited broken English.
The war in Japan had ended I recall hearing on the radio before we moved that Roosevelt had died and Truman was president. when I started school the talk we heard most often was Truman had dropped the Atomic Bomb on Japan and the war in the Pacific had ended and "Our Boys" in the Pacific would soon be coming home.
Us kids did a lot of guess work as to what the Atomic bomb looked like. One cereal brand had an atomic bomb ring in each box. It was a metal adjustable ring with a bomb where a stone would be you pulled the fins of the bomb and held it up to your eye and you saw flashes of light that were supposed to be atomic explosions. I doubt if many of those rings survived. Us kids would set them on the side walk and wallop them with a hammer to see if we could make the bomb explode.
Many changes came those first months of she 1945-1946 school year. I remember the celebrations of VE day when the war with Germany ended. The air raid sirens blew all day long the factories in New Britain had the factory whistles blowing all day, people were running all over the streets and strangers were grabbing and hugging strangers people were all over the streets laughing and crying at the same time.
At the same time new children were coming into the schools, they were called DP's and they did not speak English. The school classes were divided into 3 groups Group 1 the high group, Group 2 the low group and Group 3 the DPs I was placed with the DPs as my English was poor. Us DPs soon learned to walk to school in groups as the other kids would throw rocks at us if we were alone. I also learned the section of town I lived in was called the "Poor Neighborhood."
I met one friend from the "Rich Neighborhood" and one day he came home with me after school He took one look at my mother and ran out the door screaming "She's a Jap" My mother had very strong oriental Features she was 100% Lithuanian Tatar and the Mongol features were very visible.
New Britain was not a very nice experience for me. We were quite poor, I really do not remember what products were not available or invented yet as we had literally nothing. We only lived in New Britain for 3 years and then moved back to the country. But in those 3 years I had completely forgotten every bit of Lithuanian and Russian I Used to speak.
We moved to Tariffville, where I lived until I went into the seminary and then the USAF. It was a nice time and Tariffville became the home town I knew best.
The Years 1945-1950 were very hard years. Nearly every thing available today had not yet been invented. Try to picture a world without plastics, television, power lawn mowers, Pc's, Nitendos or any video games. No DVD's, no VHS tapes, no cell phones, no Digital Cameras. Most popular toys were kites, made out of paper and we had to string and assemble, 9 out of 10 times breaking the wooden spar as we tried to bend the "bow" to get the right curvature, Model Airplanes, that we carved from Balsa wood and from strips of balsa wood that we glued together to make the frame, fuselage and wings, then using rice paper to make the "fabric" which we painted. We had no Hula Hoops but we had barrel hoops, We had no frisbees but we had metal pie pans we sneaked out of the kitchen. Store bought ice cream came in 3 flavors Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry. soft drinks were Coca-cola, Root beer, Sarsaparilla, cream, Birch beer, Ginger Ale, Moxie, Orange Crush, Nehi Grape and the new comer Pepsi. No diet or no caffeine versions, we got the full poison and later in life made Dentists rich.
we had very few toys unless we made them ourselves. our leisure time activities, were fishing, hunting, hiking, camping, horseback riding, swimming(in the river, not a pool) skiing, hockey,part-time jobs etc.
I spent the summers working on a farm, plowing with horses and later a tractor that I almost killed myself on several times before I taught myself how to drive it. Live then was swim or sink. We learned on our own.
We also had advantages not available today. There was a small Airport 3 miles from Tariffville. I walked to it every Saturday and did any odd job available, sweeping floors, cleaning toilets, washing planes, in exchange for flying lessons. I soloed shortly after my 14th Birthday and got my legal license at 16.
Times were different. No minimum age laws for working but also no minimum wage. I was happy if I made 50 cents a day on the days I worked for money. Often I only made anywhere from 25 cents to a dollar for a week.
Interesting side note. I still have my original Social Security Card I got in 1954
when I started a job that was under Social Security Coverage. On the card in big bold letters it says "NOT TO BE USED FOR IDENTIFICATION" and under that in small letters "for social security purposes only"
Brilliant description uncle woodrow. You narrate very well . Have you ever thought about writing a book ? . Very similiar to the way how my dad lived ( well almost) except for the fact that there was less of racism and more or poor-rich seperation. And he didn't have the luck to take free flying lessons :P
Brilliant description uncle woodrow. You narrate very well . Have you ever thought about writing a book ? . Very similiar to the way how my dad lived ( well almost) except for the fact that there was less of racism and more or poor-rich seperation. And he didn't have the luck to take free flying lessons :P
Wow so that free lessons earned you a USAF seat ?
It helped. The Air Force still had the Aviation cadet program for High School Graduates who Scored above the 90 percentile on the aptitude test. The basic flying gave me sufficient math skills for navigation. without that my math level probably would have been too low to have gotten accepted as an Aviation Cadet.
This is interesting. There must have been some thrilling moments you witnessed (indirectly). Stalin's death must have been thrilling. The Civil Rights movement must have been thrilling. The transformation of America must have been thrilling. The assassination of Kennedy must have been thrilling. Thrilling but not necessarily good.
Probably the most dramatic decade I lived through, some highlights. No particular order. Just listing the highlights I remember and will come back in another post and discuss my life during this interesting decade
Population explosion in the USA
Large scale moving from the Rural farms to Urban cities
Minimum wage laws enacted
Rapid jumps in technology
Development of the H-Bomb
Cold war
Iron curtain closes Eastern Europe to the Western world
Death of Stalin
Guerillas on the plain of Jars in French Indochina overrun the French
DeGaul disbands the French foreign legion and all the French nations in North Africa are granted independence.
Civil war in Morocco between Spanish Morocco and the Former French Morocco
Unification of Morocco under Muhammad V
Death of Muhammad V
Border wars between Morocco and Algeria over the Dra Valley
Development of oil Fields in the Mideast, Oil Sheiks in Saudi become World's richest people
Cold war escalates and nuclear destruction between Russia and USA appears to be eminent. Rapid build up of ICBMs by both countries with each country having an estimated 30,000 Nuclear warheads aimed at targets in the other. Every point in USA and Russia being within 15 minutes of a strike if the missiles are launched.
USA begins training Saudi, Iranian, Iraqi, Vietnamese, Laotian and Turkish combat pilots.
Dew line radar proves to be too sensitive and the mountains on the moon are detected by radar as being a massive missle launch. Order is given to launch 20,000 nuclear armed missiles to Russian targets and is aborted less than 5 minutes before launch, when the technicians realize the radar blips were mountains on the moon.
North Korea with Chinese aid invades South Korea. UN orders US into Korea as a peace keeping force, Line of demarcation is set as the 38th parallel North Korea refuse to move back, Korean war starts.
Rapid development of space rockets, space age begins with Russia launching Sputnik into orbit.
Communication satellites develop and Echo one is launched opening the possibilities of world wide instant telecommunications
Strategic Air Command formed and put under control of Gen LeMay
B-47 bomber built
B-52 bomber built equipped with more fire power than all of the weapons used in WW2, by all sides combined including the 2 nukes used against Japan
Viet Cong invade Vietnam, North Vietnam falls to Vietcong and South Vietnam requests equipment, ground advisers and instructor pilots from USA. South Vietnam is equipped with USA F-86 fighters. (by the end of 1960 non escalation pact is signed and USA agrees to limit weapons sent to Vietnam to be no more advanced than WW2 vintage, F-86s pulled out and replaced with propeller driven fighters)
For me this was a fascinating decade, so much as happening at the same time. The dawn of the space age. It seems suddenly all of us kids instantly became rocket scientists and were launching home made rockets from our back yards. The materials for making solid fuel rockets was readily available in any hardware store. But we liked to experiment sometimes with impressive results and sometimes humorous and sadly sometimes disastrous. I had a few friends killed when their homemade rockets exploded.
One of the funniest was a borderline genius kid in our high school designed and built a radio controlled rocket. He got permission to launch it on the school grounds and had quite a large audience to watch his launch. According to him the rocket would reach an altitude of 50,000 feet at which point a parachute would open and the rocket would fall gently back to earth. He had set up a real fancy looking launch gantry made out of WOOD. He fiddled with his remote controls the rocket ignited and and was building up power to launch, the WOOD gantry caught on fire and fell over at the moment of launch, the rocket sailed across the school yard and hit our young genius in the stomach knocking him over at which time the parachute popped up. Fortunatly he did not suffer any injuries except for wounded pride.
this was also a time when the Iron curtan fell across Europe and much of Eastern Europe was swallowed up by the Soviet Union. A time of sadness for those of us who had relatives in Eastern Europe countries.
Television finaly became affordable and everybody glued to the screen watching fuzzy balck and white movies of the Lone Ranger.
Univac was built a massive computer that filled an entire building and was equal in functioning to today's pocket calculator. But an amazing thing then.
The Amana Range a microwave oven began showing up in filling stations and people could get hot sandwiches on the go. Fast food became a trend, the first I remeger was Griff's Hamburgers. Plain hamburgers were 10 cents each.
Polio vaccine became a reality and polio stopped being the crippler of young people every summer. Einstein died. I felt that as a personal loss. I had met him not long before and saw him as a gentle old man who was a friend of my 6th grade teacher. I did not even know he was famous until seeing his picture on the front page of the paper when he died.
Jet aircraft became common sights.
Prosperity was in the air and houses were being built at record rates. Cities seemed to mushroom all over as people moved from the farms for factory jobs in the cities.
It was a time of expansion and a good feeling of Prosperity. Elvis Presly made his appearance on the Ed Sullivan show and "Hound Dog" it was the time of Beatniks we thought we were the cool guys. Our vocabulary consisted of "Like Man" our activites were playing bongo drums an listening to poetry from obscure authers such as Louie the Louse who was known for his famous poem
"Roses are Red. Violets are Blue. I like hambugers, can you swim?" In 1958 I thought that made sense.
The stores were filled with items we had no idea of just months before. It was a time of product explosions and new products were developed almost daily.
We lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation, but developed an attitude of who cares.
This was problem the turning point in American attitudes and beliefs. The attitude was changing to "Live for today, the heck with tomorrow"
After the end of the 40s when we had nothing we were plunged into an age of having everything but wanting nothing.
Just going over some of the things that had the greatest impact on me.
Events:
The death of Kennedy. This is one of those events a person remembers where they where and what they were doing when they heard the news. I was still in the USAF and in Building 505 at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. I had only stopped in to say hello to a friend when it came over the loudspeaker that the President had been shot and believed to be dead.
Everybody immediately became silent. It was like we were all stunned. There was no unusual activity taking place in Russia so it did not appear it was a prelude to war with the USSR.
Oddly many people had suspected that Kennedy would be assassinated before he finished his Term. Every President after Lincoln who was elected in 20 year increments after Lincolns election had died in office. Kennedy was elected 100 years after Lincoln was elected.
the explosion of the Space shuttle Columbia. This I remember very well, The shuttle passed directly over my house as it was exploding. I thought it was either a tornado or an oil well blew up. The day before I had gotten a post card in the mail that a crew expected a well about a mile from me was going to blow as the well casing had split. When I saw the sky was clear I assumed it was the oil well. I turned on the TV and there was a news flash that the Columbia had disappeared from radar over Texas. Shortly later I heard sirens and found out the first piece of debris had hit the ground about 2 miles from me. I will never forget the sound of the explosion, it lasted several minutes and sounded like a tornado passing over. Later I found out the Explosion started when it was over Dallas about 100 miles North of me but it was traveling over 30,000 MPH it was only a second or 2 after it was over Dallas it was over me.
The assassination of Martin Luther King What makes that most memorable is because it was the same day our Doctor confirmed my wife was pregnant with our second child.
Inventions that had the most impact on me
Transistors- Almost over night portable radios became a reality. Prior the portable radios were the size of a suitcase.
Pocket Calculators-- completly replaced every math tool I used. No more carrying a slide rule because I might have to multiply something.
MIR eliminated the need for exploratory surgery I would have required.
Polaroid Cameras-- Final got to see if I needed to take additional picture instead of waiting to weeks for pictures to come back from developing.
Microwave Oven- Saved me from dieing of starvation after my first wife died. I was finally able to fix bachelor style meals.
PC fast became my window to the world and still let me live out in the woods.
Cell phones-- I can finally call my wife when I forget what she sent me to the store for. Here that is a long trip and very inconvenient if you forget anything.
Digital Camera-- One of my pleasures in life. Love taking pictures of scenery
Satellite navigation--sure made my flying easier when I was still doing personal flying. Beats doing the math for instrument triangulation or even visible steller/solar navigation
Social Changes that affected my life the most:
Integration--Prior to that it would have been illegal for me to have married my last 2 wives.
Growth of Islam in the USA--Until I was about 40 there were virtually 0 Muslims in the USA. The few that were here were either students or tourists. I believe that until the mid 1900s there was only one Masjid in the entire USA
Fall of the USSR-- No longer live under the threat of Mutual nuclear annihilation.
shift in USA economic from being producers to becoming distributors. Offside is loss of jobs in USA good side decrease in pollution from industry
Increased apathy regarding the Federal Government--as the US citizens loose interest in the political antics of Washington, DC the more State and Local rights get removed. Soon the USA will be fully controlled by the Federal Government rather than the people controlling the government. The Central government has gained unbelievable power since the 1960s. It is becoming the people are obeying the government and the government is ceasing to obey the people.
indeed, all this is very interesting. The beginning of your life really touched me. Growing up without a father, toys, ONE MEAL OR LESS a day...
It was pretty much the norm for all of us born between 1935-1945. People tend to forget that from 1929-1940 the USA had become one of the most poverty stricken nations in the world. The Depression and the Great Dust Bowl in the midwest states had stopped nearly all food production and shutting down of factories and mines caused widespread unemployment. Then came the war and nearly every male between the ages of 18-35 was drafted for military service. times were rough, but everybody was facing rough times and we never realized how bad off we were until it was over.
akheee............ you should scan your old picturesss....
a pictures can say thousands thingss....
25:36 And the true servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk the earth with humility and when the ignorant address them, they respond with words of peace.
akheee............ you should scan your old picturesss....
a pictures can say thousands thingss....
Pictures are all long gone, several times in my life I have lost all things I thought I owned. Once to a flood, once to a fire, once to a tornado and three or 4 times to mismanagement. Most recently in Sept of last year when Aabidah and I moved from Minnesota. We trusted somebody to put all our belongings in storage and instead they dumped them in a land fill. But material goods can always be replaced with something better Inshallah
Fortunatly most of the picture I took last year are stored on photbucket.
Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.
When you create an account, we remember exactly what you've read, so you always come right back where you left off. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and share your thoughts. Sign Up
.. ill wait for the rest
if you are 70 akhi (may Allah swt grant you excellent health and a great life) you couldn't have been more than a few months old when WWII broke out.. how will you tell this story?
. Have you ever thought about writing a book ? . Very similiar to the way how my dad lived ( well almost) except for the fact that there was less of racism and more or poor-rich seperation. And he didn't have the luck to take free flying lessons :P
Hide
Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks