Eight Decades ... and then Some
My grandmother will be 87 years old this month. 87. Wow!
Can you imagine what all she has seen and lived through in those 87 years?
The Great Depression. World War II. The United States going from 48 to 50. First man on the moon. The JFK assassination. Disco. 9/11. Today.
If you include Woodrow Wilson being in office at the time she was born, she has lived through 16 American presidents. Seven of them served as president twice. FDR served three times! I'm only on my fourth president, three of them serving twice.
Everyday things to us she grew up witnessing their invention . . . microwave ovens, Velcro, ballpoint pens, nylon, the transistor radio, portable calculators, the helicopter and jet engines. Can you imagine not having a ballpoint pen or a microwave? And Velcro is on everything nowadays.
When she met and married my grandfather back in 1937, he had an old Ford Model-T pick-up truck. There was one of those crank handles on the front sticking out from the grill. Today we have "loaded" cars, trucks and SUVs with *gasp* air-conditioning, stereos and power windows.
Their rent was $6 a month. Just $6. It's about the cost of a gallon of milk today, but it was a lot of money back then.
During World War II, my grandfather was in the Army and my grandmother worked in a munitions plant making bombs. How cool is that? My grandmother made bombs! And she earned 25 cents an hour doing it.
Fast forward to today. In a couple of weeks she will be 87 years old. My grandfather has been gone for years now, and she desperately misses the 59 years they spent married. She is a victim of all this social security and Medicare crap nobody in their right mind will ever figure out. She once paid 11 cents a gallon for gas back in 1940, now a whopping $3.
I wonder what she must think of our world today . . . Would she go back, if she could, to live in the 30s or 40s or 50s? Was life simpler then?
Oh, what her eyes have seen! The joy, the heartache. The miles her feet have walked. The hard times, the good times. The 87 years' worth of life!
If I make it to 87 years old I wonder what I will have lived through, what I will remember and what I will think about . . . I've got 61 years to go.
Can you imagine what all she has seen and lived through in those 87 years?
The Great Depression. World War II. The United States going from 48 to 50. First man on the moon. The JFK assassination. Disco. 9/11. Today.
If you include Woodrow Wilson being in office at the time she was born, she has lived through 16 American presidents. Seven of them served as president twice. FDR served three times! I'm only on my fourth president, three of them serving twice.
Everyday things to us she grew up witnessing their invention . . . microwave ovens, Velcro, ballpoint pens, nylon, the transistor radio, portable calculators, the helicopter and jet engines. Can you imagine not having a ballpoint pen or a microwave? And Velcro is on everything nowadays.
When she met and married my grandfather back in 1937, he had an old Ford Model-T pick-up truck. There was one of those crank handles on the front sticking out from the grill. Today we have "loaded" cars, trucks and SUVs with *gasp* air-conditioning, stereos and power windows.
Their rent was $6 a month. Just $6. It's about the cost of a gallon of milk today, but it was a lot of money back then.
During World War II, my grandfather was in the Army and my grandmother worked in a munitions plant making bombs. How cool is that? My grandmother made bombs! And she earned 25 cents an hour doing it.
Fast forward to today. In a couple of weeks she will be 87 years old. My grandfather has been gone for years now, and she desperately misses the 59 years they spent married. She is a victim of all this social security and Medicare crap nobody in their right mind will ever figure out. She once paid 11 cents a gallon for gas back in 1940, now a whopping $3.
I wonder what she must think of our world today . . . Would she go back, if she could, to live in the 30s or 40s or 50s? Was life simpler then?
Oh, what her eyes have seen! The joy, the heartache. The miles her feet have walked. The hard times, the good times. The 87 years' worth of life!
If I make it to 87 years old I wonder what I will have lived through, what I will remember and what I will think about . . . I've got 61 years to go.
Labels: Family
brought to you by Leslie, a delicious part of your complete breakfast, at 10:14 AM
2 Comments:
I am totally amazed Grandma survived disco. Heh.
Wow, that's quite a long time. My grandma turned 80 a few weeks ago. She sewed uniforms at a factory during WWII.
I hope they make flying cars before I die. That would rock.
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