“Well…..you young people have it so easy today. Back when I was young……”

Have you ever dug way back into your memory and tried to come up with your very first recollections of your childhood…..indeed, of your existence? Probably not…..unless you are trying to prove a point to some young person. And, even then, it is probably exaggerated…..or somewhat embellished with a little bit of fantasy. You probably have more interesting things to do with your time. And, if you are young…..your life doesn’t go back that far anyways. A lot of your childhood seems like yesterday.

Maybe I just have too much time on my hands…..after all I am retired. Or perhaps the older one gets…..the more nostalgic one gets. That would make an interesting study for somebody to conduct….maybe a good PhD dissertation. Now that I think about it, maybe I should have done it. And, maybe it isn’t too late.

I have a book of questions that I often use when I am taking a long trip somewhere in my car with friends or acquaintances. They are supposedly thought-provoking questions that are designed to help time go faster. Well, actually, they can’t make time go any faster…..it only makes it seem like it does.

One of the questions that one will inevitably find among these pages is just that: What is your earliest childhood memory?

Yeah….the younger a person is, the easier it is to come up with an answer. Most of that sort of stuff is still rather fresh in memory……sort of in the index of their mind….or maybe the table of contents. For older people…..OK, I will say it: For Old people…..the answers are not always so easy to dredge up. Maybe it sort of like the difference between seeing an object in the shallow end….the kiddy end…..of a swimming pool, and seeing an object in the deep end of the pool…..and, in my case….the very deep end!

Looking back into those foggy reaches of my childhood, it is impossible not to marvel over all the changes that have taken place in the past seventy-five years. My world today has very little resemblance to the world I grew up in. Radical changes have taken place. ….some of them for the better and some of them for the worse. And, I can imagine that children who are living today will say the same thing when they are 75 years old.

But first…..to those first childhood recollections.

Two events stand out…..but it is impossible to assign an exact date to either one of them…..which one came first and which one followed. Or…..who knows? Maybe they happened on the same day! Although I doubt it.

When my mother did laundry, I am sure she didn’t want to be bothered. I can recall that she put kitchen chairs down on the floor…..laid them down, turned then length-wise…..to form a barrier so neither me or my younger brother could get into the kitchen where she was doing the laundry……and bother her. This may not sound like much a barrier….much of a challenge…..but for a little boy of my age and size, those chairs must have seemed like mountains. I am pretty sure they achieved their intended purpose…..keeping us out of the kitchen and out of her way so she could get some work done. In this case, the laundry.

The second memory…..which is even more vague….but something that I still clearly see…. is my play pen. I don’t remember being in this pen…..probably about 4 feet by 4 feet…..very often, though. The play pen was put up in our living room about nap time…..a time that I used to dislike very much! There were some toys, a blanket and a pillow. I could play with the toys until I got bored….and that is when I must have given up and fell asleep. And, that is where I stayed until I woke up from my nap. At least, that is the way I remember it.

Back in those days, I remember strenuously resisting taking a nap. It was one of my least favorite things to do……but I had no choice. Wow….how things have changed! Today, taking naps is one of my favorite things to do. Nobody has to ask me twice to take a nap. And, it is something that I have gotten very good at over the years.

This memory was triggered recently by one of my former German students. He and his wife are having their first child soon. He told me they had bought a “cage” for the kid. “Wow,” I thought, “that isn’t very nice. That can’t be true.” After asking some questions about the “cage”, I finally figured out that they had also bought a play pen for their forthcoming child. It looks like some things have not changed over the years….at least, in that respect. I wonder if their child will dislike the play pen as much as I did.

Many times, I have considered hiring a hypnotist to help me delve back into my early childhood to recall other such incidents……and I still might. But, contrary to what many people think….and how is it usually portrayed on TV and in the movies…..hypnotism is not a very exact science. It is very unreliable. Just like we have selective memories about our present lives……we also have selective memories stored in our sub-conscious minds. According to all that I have learned, we tend to arrange our thoughts and memories in a very self-selective…..and maybe even a self-serving…..way. I still may go ahead and do it, though.

Even though I cannot remember a lot of specific incidents, there are many things that I do recall…..and recall very vividly. It was an exciting time for many rural people. We were beginning to move into the “modern” world, with the addition of conveniences that made our revolutionized our lives and made them easier.

For example, I remember when we first got electricity installed! Wow…..what a difference that made in our lives. I can still recall the days when we used kerosene lamps…..and battery powered radios…..had no refrigerator…… All of that changed with the advent of rural electricity. We had no refrigerator…..or Frigidaire as we called them. We had a wooden “ice box”. It was a refrigerator-like contraption. The top opened up to accommodate a 25 or 50 lbs. block of ice. In turn, the ice kept the contents of the ice box cool…..or semi-cool. I can remember making trips to the ice plant on a regular basis to pick up a block of ice. The ice was then wrapped in burlap bags…..gunny sacks, as we called them…..and taken back to the house to be put into the top-loading ice box. We had an ice-pick which we used when we wanted some ice for a drink…..something I learned to use at a very early age. And, believe it or not…..I was never taken to the emergency room with life-threatening injuries. But, there may have been a few Band-Aids along the way.

On a typical Saturday night, my uncle and aunt would come to our house, and we would all sit and listen to the “Grand Old Opry” on the battery powered radio……to the dim light of kerosene lamps. That is probably where I developed my life-long love of country music. Except that “country” music was different back then. It was real country music. Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Cowboy Copus, the Carter Family, Minnie Pearl, Little Jimmy Dickens, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb……just to mention a few.

They also listened to radio news programs….and this would have been at the very end of World War II and the years that followed, when Harry Truman was president. Although this was a time of great relief for the American people…..it was also the period that many problems began to surface with the threat of Joseph Stalin, the USSR and communism. It was also a time when the United States committed to rebuilding both Germany and Japan, while maintaining temporary control of the two nations. And, because of the vastly increased civilian production, it was also a time when labor unions were flexing their muscles.

Be that as it may…..but as a child I remember listening to such radio newscasters as Fulton Lewis, Jr., H V. Kaltenborn, Lowell Thomas, Edward R. Murrow, Gabriel Heatter, and Walter Winchell….among others. Some of these guys were probably legitimate newscasters…..such as Lowell Thomas and Edward R. Murrow. But most of them were cheerleaders for either the Right or the Left…..conservative or liberal. They were sort of the Fox News of the Golden Radio Age…..not so much news as there was very biased commentary. And, believe me…..unless my memory is really failing me….they were very much as self-absorbed as many so-called commentators are today.

Of course, back in those days, I really didn’t understand what was going on. Although, it was easy to assume from their conversations that my parents and my uncle and aunt were both very much opposed to Roosevelt…..and very much opposed to Truman…..and very much opposed to Democrats in general. And….need I add? Very much opposed to communism.

Like a lot of children, I adopted my parents’ political views. I was pretty much of a Republican through all of my youthful days. Fortunately, however, this political attitude only prevailed during the years when I was too young to vote…..the years when it really didn’t matter. That was back in the days when I didn’t know any better. I was satisfied to follow the family tradition of voting and supporting and thinking all things Republican.

For some reason…..and I really can’t put my finger on it….my political philosophy underwent a rather radical change when I reached adulthood and actually started to vote. Yes….and I am almost ashamed to even say this….I voted for Richard Nixon in my very first presidential election. This was in 1960 when he was running against John F. Kennedy. But, as I look back on those years, from a perspective of history, maybe this was not such a bad choice. True……Richard Nixon turned out to be a crook. But, on the other hand, John Kennedy turned out to be a philandering, adulterous, self-entitled, privileged, somewhat immoral person…..a person certainly not above using family money and family connections…and maybe even mob connections…..to advance his career. However, this was the last time I ever voted for a Republican for President. Oh yes…..I have voted for Republicans for other state and national offices…..but never for President.

But…..getting back to the point. From the my earliest memories the radio has played an important role….both in entertainment and information. Radio was the “TV of the mind….of the imagination” for my generation. Of course, there was no television….that didn’t come until much later…..but that didn’t hinder us. We were very adept at forming mental pictures in our mind and imagination of the stories and programs we heard on the radio…..whether they were comedy shows and murder mysteries. And, believe me when I tell you…..some of the mystery and detective programs had me terrified and scared half out of my wits when I was a kid……but I still turned them on the next week to hear them again. And, from my earliest days, my dream was always to be a cowboy like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers and ride the range in the Old West fighting outlaws and delivering justice to the oppressed.

Let’s go on to another of those great changes in my world. Running water! Water that was piped into our house…..but even then only to the kitchen sink. It wasn’t until we moved off our rural residence and into town that we had “indoor plumbing”……a euphemism for an indoor bathroom. Before we had water piped into our house, we had a well outside our back door…..and that was our only source of water. We pumped it….using an old-fashioned (by today’s standards, at least) hand pump. Spring, summer, fall and winter…..that is how we got our water: water for cooking, water for laundry, water for bathing, water for drinking. If we wanted or needed water…..there was one way to get it: pump it. I really have no idea whether the water was tested. I seriously doubt it. Back in those days all rural people had a well…..and I don’t think anybody ever thought about subjecting it to any sort of test…..although I could be wrong about this.

At first, as I said, we had water only in the kitchen. And that became our source of water for cooking, for laundry, for…..well, you get the idea. So…..when Mother needed to wash our clothing…..which was often…..she filled large pans with water, heated it on the stove and poured it into the washing machine. (And laid down the chairs to keep me and my younger brother out!) When we wanted to take a bath…..which may not have been as often…..we filled large pans, heated the water on the stove, and poured it into a large….or semi-large…..metal bath tub. But…..at least, we didn’t have to go outside into the freezing winter cold to get the water. However, in the summer time, I suppose we could have gone outside and stood in the rain! And, when we wanted a drink of water…..presto! We turned on the faucet and filled a glass with water…..instead of dipping it out of a bucket….which we had to pump, by hand, out of the ground. It may not seem like much……until your water supply is shut off for a few hours…..or a few days…..and then you begin to understand just how important it is to have a ready source of running water.

Today we take water for granted. We turn on the faucet….and there it is. We can take a shower any time of day or night…..to get clean, to relax. And we can stand there with water streaming down upon us….singing…..until the hot water tank is empty. No problem. We wash our clothes whenever we want….or whenever we let them stack up to the point that we run out of stuff to wear. We brush our teeth…..and usually let the water run while we are doing it…..and think nothing of it. It is too much of an inconvenience to turn it off…..and turn it back on again.

Go back to the days when you used water sparingly…..because the only water you had was what you pumped out of the ground……by hand…..and you may realize what a revolution this made in our lives.

The last last of the major developments that revolutionized our lives was the telephone. Yes….maybe this device wasn’t as basic as electricity or running water……but it sure was a lot more fun! Especially when a person lives in a rural area, away from all his friends. Stop and think about how many times you have said, “I don’t know how I can live without e-mail……or Twitter…..or text messages.” And, most of us have said it, whether we want to admit it or not. It keeps us within constant and easy touch with everybody around us. Well, this was how we felt about the telephone when it was first introduced. How did we ever get along without it? I no longer had to walk….or ride my bike…. into town to talk to my friends and relatives….I didn’t have to write a letter and wait a week for a reply. All I had to do was to pick up the receiver and make a simple call. But, I also recall that long distance calls were expensive back then……costing more than $1.00 per minute. As a child I didn’t dare make a long distance telephone call without permission of my parents……which, by the way, was never granted!

Maybe one of the good things about the early telephone was that we didn’t…..and couldn’t…..carry it around with us everywhere we go. We couldn’t whip it out at the most inconvenient and inappropriate times to check for calls…..or to send a text message….or whatever people do when they seem to be staring incessantly at their smart phones. Telephones were large….very large, by today’s standards…..and they were mounted on the wall. Each house usually had only ONE of them. Ours was located in the dining room. You could not make calls directly. You always had to go through a “telephone operator”, who would ask you, “Number, please?” Our first telephone number was something like 57OM (and that is the letter O….not the number Zero). And…..a person almost never had a private line…..a telephone line dedicated only to your own house. Usually, there were as many as four….or more….people on each “line”. You shared one telephone line…..and you took your turn in using it, if someone else happened to be talking on it at the time you wanted to talk on it.

I remember the first telephone call that I ever made. It was with a “neighbor” girl who lived across a field from us. I could have just as easily gone over to her house….it was only a five minute run, at the most. But, why do that when I could simply pick up the telephone and call her? Not much has changed in that respect….has it? In fact, today somebody could be sitting across the room, and we still prefer to send a text message rather than talk to them in person. At least, this is true for some people. Not me, though. I don’t remember what we talked about on that first phone call. I am sure we both struggled to think of something to say. But, who cares? We were talking on the telephone.

Back in those days, the telephone operator could be….and was…..a most valuable source of information. She knew EVERYTHING! And, why wouldn’t she? I am sure she listened to practically every conversation that was made. But….on the useful side: If I wanted to know where my mother was, she probably knew. All I had to do was ask her. When I called somebody, she would often say, “Oh, that person isn’t at home now. They are over at (somebody’s) house.” …..or they are uptown now. She served as sort of the town’s coordinator…..our locator service. She was also our clock! If we wanted the correct time, she would tell us. At least, what she thought the correct time was. And, I had an extra added bonus…..our telephone operator was one of our “neighbors”…..who lived down the road a half mile from us.

Our very first telephone was actually more modern that our next phone….the one we had when we moved into town. On the first one, all we had to do was pick up the receiver, and immediately the operator would ask what number we wanted to call. After we moved into Sterling, our telephone has a little handle that we had to crank in order to get the attention of the operator. And, then, eventually, we moved on to the rotary dial telephone…..and then the push button phone…..another giant step forward. It wasn’t until well after I moved to Valley Falls that I finally got my own private line, though……and after I retired that I got my first cell phone…..and well….I haven’t gotten a smart phone yet.

Well…..those seem to be the “biggies”…..about as far back in my memory that I can go without the help of some hypnotism or other sort of black magic that can help me see far back into my childhood. There are other memories, of course…..idyllic memories of carefree fun and childhood pleasures. Of freely roaming the territory that fanned out from our house. The woods, the streams, the railroad that ran just back of our property. Summer games such as hide and seek, baseball, cowboys and Indians with my brother and the neighbor kids. Climbing trees…..of climbing almost anything that could be climbed. Endless hours of riding my bicycle up and down the dirt roads. In the winter time: snowball fights, snow angels, snow forts, trapping hapless rabbits (but always letting them go), roaming the nearby woods with my brother and neighbor kids.

And, later on, as time went by there came other indispensable luxuries…..TV being the most notable. But, that wouldn’t come until I was in high school.

Most of the later luxuries were things we could live without, if it were absolutely necessary. Today, I wonder what young people are going to look back and marvel about…..and say, “Wow, when I was young we had to live without ——-!” What will they consider to be the inventions that greatly enriched their lives….things which have literally brought them into the modern world of the future….their future.

I don’t know. Maybe today all of the absolute basic necessities of life are already being taken for granted…. But, who knows what is to come: Complete independence from fossil fuels? Eradication of dreaded diseases? Easy and convenient duplication of vital body organs? Completely new forms of transportation? A revolution in diet and the foods that we eat? Or maybe it will be TV without the Kardashians or Justin Beber or Mylie Cyrus…..

Whatever it is, I can well imagine that kids of today will eventually being saying to their offspring, “Young people today have it so easy. Back when I was young……”