My mother turns 95 this weekend, and I find it mindboggling to think of all that has transpired in her lifetime.
My best to you grandmother. I understand that completely.
My grandfather remarked to me as we were watching the moon landing that as a kid in the early 1900s to see a car was big deal. Radios did not make it big till the late 1920s and here he was not even 70 years later watching men walk on the moon on the TV!
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Both of my grandfathers were born in 1885. One died in 1932 but the other lived until 1967 and got to see everything from horse drawn buggies, invention of the radio, cars, airplanes, computers, nuclear warfare, color TV, and the race to space and the beginnings of the Apollo space program.
“My mother turns 95 this weekend, and I find it mindboggling to think of all that has transpired in her lifetime.”
Good for her. May she have many more birthdays. Those 95 years and the obscure things that happened in the early part are why really old color photographs fascinate me. They bring those days back better than anything else can.
My Dad was born in 1897 and died in 1976. He couldn’t believe what he had lived through in his life.
Horses and horse drawn devices were how people traveled when he a young lad to even his early adulthood.
He was was one of the first to buy a motorcycle and then a Model A.
He was injured in WWI and saw WWII, the Korean War,Cuban Missile crisis and Viet Nam. He said he had seen enough wars to last several lifetimes. He hated wars that had cost him friends, relatives and his good health.
He felt that personal cars/trucks were the real break thru for Americans. Before Henry Ford, if part of your family or friends lived 50 miles away, it was a several day trip to visit if there was no trains available. He didn’t fly until we had kids, his grand kids. He loved to fly after his first flight in his late 60’s.
He loved the radio and then tv. I had the flu one fall and stayed at home from school during a world series that was broadcast live on tv. He and I watched the world series. He loved baseball and listened to the White Sox and Cardinal games on the radio.
He couldn’t believe that he could stay at home and watch a world series game live. He loved Western tv shows like Gunsmoke. He didn’t care for Hollywood movie shows on tv or at movie theaters.
He didn’t care for the phone, and he seldom talked when he was on the phone, and let our mother talk to us. Later we felt that, he probably got criticized by Mom after the phone calls were over for his hearing problems basically on the phones.
He thought that our space program was awesome.
He had amazing eyes like our sons. They have 20/20 and 20/10 eyesight in their 50’s and only used reading glasses like him.
He developed cataracts in his 70’s and then, cataract surgery was a major surgery and had a long recovery. He decided instead, to buy the Readers Digest in big print, go to the library for big print books and we bought a bigger screen tv for him. He listened to local radio news and Paul Harvey and watched the evening news on his new tv. Of course any major league baseball game on tv was prime time for him.
He sold or gave away his 1954 Plymouth 4 door, it was mainly used for his one man fishing trips. My mother was younger and she drove to and from work in her own vehicle.
So, when he quit driving, there were no more fishing trips. His friends were in the same age group, and they gave up driving before he did. So even meeting them in the local park and a brown bag lunch was tough.
My mother and he moved to a bigger city 50 miles away for a better paying teach job and better retirement for her. He was a lost soul, until a younger relative figured out that my mother could drop him off at a bus station on her way to work and pick him at the station on her way home after school was over. In good weather, he might make that round trip 3 times a week. He got a senior discount and a veterans discount. I think that he could buy 3 round trip tickets for $5.
He would pack a brown bag, lunch some water, and catch the bus, to meet his friends in his/their home town. The park was two blocks from the bus station. Then,that afternoon he would catch a return bus to where he/Mom lived then. She would pick up at the bus station. He was happy and so was she. That went on few years until he had no more friends left alive. He went over a couple of times to visit their graves when their sons or daughters would take him to and from the cemeteries and back to the park.
He told me that giving up driving and his car was one of the hardest and toughest decisions he had ever made. He knew that his vision was making him a possible hazard for others. He would never hurt anyone on purpose, so he had to stop driving.
Later, he told me that giving up his car and driving meant giving up a lot of his personal freedom/choices. He had to depend on friends/relatives and to make a minor trip.
Now I’m in my 80’s, my vision is 20/20 after easy cataract surgeries. We still have two vehicles in case we need to go to different places at the same time or ??
We have friends in their late 70’s to late 80’s, who have given up driving. They depend on Uber, friends, relatives to help them to get where they need to go. However, the joy and freedom of getting into your own vehicle and going where and when you want to, is gone for these folks.
We haven’t given up having our licenses and own vehicles.
We are not looking forward to that.