Monday, October 31, 2011

Then and now

I was thinking today of how many changes I have seen in my life. It is unbelievable how many things are different, and how far technology has come in the last 50 years. I’m not yet an old man, though not young either, but I have lived through a lot of groundbreaking, memorable events; such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King; I have witnessed the first man on the moon; I remember when all of the now revered  old muscle cars were new. I recall when computers could take up the space of a large room, and still not have nearly the computing ability of small computers now. I remember Nixon and Watergate, the Vietnam war, Woodstock and the hippie generation. I even remember when a lot of work was done with horses instead of tractors. Makes me sound old doesn’t it? But I am not yet an old man. I remember when the last country schools, often just one room for several grades, were still in operation; in fact I attended one for a couple of years. I remember when you could easily identify every car on the road as a Chevy, Ford, Dodge, etc. There was only a few of each instead of the bewildering menagerie that we have today. Foreign cars were practically nonexistent, except for an occasional Volkswagen Beetle. It was ok though because owning a car made in a foreign nation would have been considered unpatriotic anyway.

I remember the Iranian hostage crisis, the Gulf war, Pop for 10 cents, and gasoline as low as 21 cents per gallon. I remember when kids of any age could buy cigarettes, and they cost next to nothing. It’s weird, but today we have thousands of time and labor saving devices to make our lives easier; and other devices to keep us amused and entertained, but it seems that we have less time, less fun, and are more unhappy than we have ever been. I love a lot of the new technology and I am as guilty as the rest in wanting every better mousetrap that comes along, but sometimes I long for a time past, when things were simpler and people went around with smiles on their faces and a friendly word for others. I guess we were just ignorant in those days and didn’t have enough technology to tell us that we couldn’t be happy with so little.

Friday, October 7, 2011

My House

Thanks for the post from Lynn Guy

Next Sunday the boys are going to be coming over to watch all the NFL games at my house. I have been asking my wife for the last several weeks if she would mind cooking something for me and the guys because every time we go over to each others houses there is always great food and the beer is always ice cold so I cannot let my friends down. The good news is my wife is a really great cook so I am guessing that my house will probably be the house that all the guys want to come visit every time a game is on. The fact that my wife is such a good cook might be the main reason that she doesn’t want to cook because I can tell she doesn’t want the guys coming over every single Sunday, she likes the system that we have now of switching it up every week. Ultimately, I know that my wife won't let me down she will make her amazing finger foods and everyone is going to love it. Plus she will be extra excited when I tell her about Dish Satellite Tv because I know she's been talking about it for a long time. I guess a marriage is a constant give and take.