As I reflect back on this century I see many things that are different from earlier times. Here are some of my observations.

Clothing

We boys all wore long underwear when the weather got cold. It was not our idea and I greatly resisted putting them on. As the day wore on, the seat of the underwear started sagging, which gave a lumpy appearance on our rear ends. As I slouched in my seat at school the bottoms of the long underwear legs would show beneath my pantlegs. It always made my face flush when I observed some girl in the next seat looking at them. In the summer it was wonderful to give up on the winter underwear and switch to BVD's, which were one-piece cotton underwear with short legs. When we went to the bathroom for serious business, we had to remove our shirts and trousers to get the BVD's down to our knees.

My sisters wore dresses to school. In the winter they had to put on garter belts and wear long cotton stockings. As the weather warmed they would slip the stockings off and carry them to school. As they returned home, they would stop and put them on again. I could not do that with my one-piece long underwear. In our house, we called this type of underwear union suits.

To keep our hands warm we wore woven wool mittens. Since I was always losing mine my mother sewed a long string on each of them and passed the string through the arms of my coat. When I slipped a mitten off, it would dangle beneath the arm hole. We kids called them "idiot mittens" because we felt like idiots wearing dangling mittens.

Telephones

During my early years, we had no telephone. If an emergency arose, my mother would run next door to Mrs. Scott's house and borrow her phone. During the Depression years my family could not afford such luxuries as phones.

We got our first telephone when I was 9 years old. It was mounted on a wall in the dining room. A black box had a receiver attached which hung on a hook. To reach the phone, I had to run to the living room, pick up a footstool, and place it beneath the wall phone. Then, if I stood on tip-toe, I could reach the mouthpiece.

Later the wall phone was replaced by what was called a "Candlestick" phone. The mouthpiece was attached to the top of a tall black cylinder. The receiver was cradled on the left hand side. When placing a call, one picked up the receiver and asked ."Central" for the number desired. When my mother was absent I tried a few crank calls to grocery stores to ask "Do you have Prince Albert in a can?" Prince Albert was a popular pipe tobacco. When the clerk replied with a "yes" I yelled back, "Well, let him out!" I thought this was very funny. Another call made in the evening would ask the person answering "This is the street department. Is your streetlight on?" When the person confirmed that it was on, then I would reply with, "Well, go blow it out." One evening after several such calls my mother got a call from Central reporting that I was calling grocery stores with stupid questions. That ended the nuisance calls.

Next came the "Cradle" phone that had the mouthpiece and receiver on opposite ends of the handset. The phone was placed in a cradle when one hung up.

Eventually, the cradle phone was replaced with a similar phone with a dial attached to the base. A typical phone number had a two letter followed by a single digit. Then that was followed by a four digit number. An example might be CE2-6103, or Cedar 2 - 6103.

Soon we had cordless phones so it was possible to carry the phone about the house as we spoke into it. It was very convenient when one worked in the basement and did not want to run upstairs to answer the phone. One drawback was that sometimes when the phone rang, we did not know for sure where it was located.

Even later, the dial was replaced with digital buttons. This speeded up the call time. The next event was the development of the cell phone. This enables us to talk with people when we are shopping, driving, and even attending movies and concerts. I listened to one lady talking all the time she was shopping for books at a book sale. It bothers me to meet someone on the road when they are talking on their cell phones while they switch lanes in heavy traffic.

The phones are getting smaller and smaller. They will soon make the wristwatch phone from the Dick Tracy comic book a reality.

Soda Pop

As a kid we hardly ever had pop to drink. During the Depression years there was not any extra money of such. The pop that was available at a nearby oil station was kept on ice in a tank. A six ounce of Coca Cola was my first experience with pop. A man gave me a bottle of warm pop to try out when I asked him what it tasted like. It fizzed up my nose and was sticky and did not taste very good.

Later I bought my pop from coolers at filling staions. They all came in glass bottles that were redeemed for 2 cents. My preference for Coca Cola switched to Pepsi Cola when they came out with 10 ounce bottles for the same price - one nickel. My first Dr. Pepper came from a filling station in Ontario, Iowa. I had ridden my bike there from my home in Ames. I thought it tasted like prune juice.

Today I see people driving and drinking pop, walking down the street with a plastic cup in hand or attending class with a plastic bottle in hand. Cans have replaced the glass bottles and have a pop top tab which eliminated a bottle opener. My parents required that I drink milk instead of pop when I was small. This practice seems to be coming obsolete as I hardly ever see milk served at fast foods franchises.

Radio

I am sure that Everett Ludley can describe early day radios much better than I, but I do recall some sets that we had in our home. In 1933 we had a large Atwater-Kent radio that required two different sized batteries and an outside antenna. A round speaker sat on top of the rectangular box. The dials were located on the face of the box. My father was the only person allowed to dial the radio. We kept our listening to a minimum because of the fear that the batteries would go dead.

Later, we acquired a used Montgomery Ward cabinet radio. It had a lighted dial at the top of cabinet. The speaker was mounted inside the cabinet behind cloth. The radio was turned on by one switch, another controlled the volume, and still another tuned the station. No batteries were required by this set so we kids could operate it. It was on this set that I listened to "Jack Armstrong, The All American Boy", the "Green Hornet", "Dr. I. Q.", The Lone Ranger", and "Fibber Mcgee and Molly."

Crystal sets were made by kids with more talent that I had. A friend made a crystal set in a small box that he sneaked into study hall. We took turns listening until the teacher confiscated the set. Now we have portable radios called "Boom Boxes" which assault the ear drums of passing people. Small sets are carried by hand that have earphones for listening as people walk and jog. Radios and CD players are now found in most cars. We never had a radio in our cars when I was a little kid.

Doctors

As a child I recall doctors coming to our house when someone was ill. Our sick bed was generally the living room couch, which was really a day-bed. The doctor was called and the patient waited with a thermometer, handkerchiefs, and a barf pan on a chair next to the couch. The doctor would remove his coat and set his bag on the foot of the couch. He examined the patient with the rest of the family watching from the doorway. He made a determination of the problem and, usually, gave some remedy from his black doctor bag. If he did not have the correct medicine, he gave my mother a prescription for the medicine. He then put on his coat, returned to his car, and went on to the next call.

Later, the doctors required all patients to come to their offices which were frequently located on Main Street above some bank or store building. If the patient was really sick, the climb up the wooden stairs to the second floor was a real challenge. Then we would have to wait in a crowed room full of other sick people. I feared that when I came in with something minor, I could leave with some new disease.

Cars

As a child we had only two different cars. The first was a Model T coupe which we used when there were only four people in our family. As our family grew to six, we purchased a 1929 Model A sedan. This car was used for everything. My father was offered a big pile of scrap lumber left over from a new house construction. We needed kindling so my dad and I filled the car with the wood, took it home, where he chopped it up. It was used in the kitchen range to start the fire and in the pot-bellied stove in the living room.

In the winter my father put the car up on "blocks." This kept the tires off the ground. He drained the radiator and let the car sit outside. We had no garage. If we wanted to go to my grandparents home in the next town, he pumped up the tires, and removed the blocks. Then he carried a tea kettle of boiling water to pour into the radiator. He immediately started the car, usually by cranking it, and let it run to warm up the engine. We kids were all bundled up and stuffed into the back seat. Off we went to Grandpa's house only nine miles away. When we arrived, Dad drained the radiator right away. When it was time to go back home, he carried the tea kettle of hot water to pour into the radiator and we headed back home. One again, the radiator was drained and the car put back up on blocks. Needless to say, we did not make many winter trips.

When this car caught fire and burned all of the wiring, Dad pushed the car into a barn behind our house and blocked it up. He removed the sparkplugs and poured oil down the holes. We did not have money to have the car repaired so it sat in the barn until after World War II when he sold it. We walked or took the bus everywhere we wanted to go.

Gambling

To us, gambling was a sin. At that time Iowa had a similar feeling. I recall going to a filling station and seeing a punch oard. A key was produced when a person bought a punch for a nickel. The key pushed a rolled up piece of paper out the backside of the board. The slip indicated the prize the purchaser won. Soon the state outlawed the use of the punch boards.

At the closest filling station to my home, a pinball machine appeared. I never had enough money to play but stood beside the machine watching others play. The machine gave "free" games, which showed up on an indicator in the machine panel. These let the player get a free game, but some stations would pay out nickels and cancel the free games. These payoffs were also ruled out.

When a man named Countryman was the Attorney General for Iowa he raided some Catholic churches bingo games in his determination to eliminate gambling from the state. Lotteries, games of chance, and slot machines were all ruled illegal. I do recall seeing a few slot machines in the Ames American Legion building when I went there once with my father.

Today, we are wide open with gambling everywhere. Scratch tickets in grocery stores and gas stations, lottery tickets are advertised on TV. River boats and casinos are everywhere. The racetracks blossomed and are viewed as "cash cows" by many. What a drastic change of attitude from the days of my youth.

Delivery Men

We had many men come to our house regularly to make deliveries. The milkman came each morning and put bottles of milk on our front step. Mother would leave a note in an empty return bottle telling her order for the day. In the winter, the milk would freeze before she could get it inside. Then the cream would push the pasteboard top from the bottle and a column of frozen milk would rise.

On occasion, the coal man would come to our house asking if we needed coal. There were many itinerant men with trucks who would drive to Centerville and load up coal. This would then be offered to my mother at $2.00 a ton. This coal was usually poor quality with a strong sulfur smell, but it was cheap. The best quality coal we used was Illinois coal which sold for $8.00 a ton. This coal was obtained from a local coal dealer, usually Gilcrest Coal Company at Grand Avenue and Lincoln Way in Ames.

In the summer I watched patiently for the ice man to come. His horse pulled a wagon that had a solid front, solid sides and canvas top and back. He carried the ice in 100 pound blocks. Mother would let him know what we needed each day by putting a large card in the front window if she needed ice. The large numbers, 25, 50, 75, and 100 were on different edges of the card. We usually ordered 50 pounds every other day, except when it was cooler. We kids would run to the back of the wagon to be on hand when the man chipped the ice into the desired weight. Our reward was a chip of ice to suck on as we watched the man hoist his block of ice over his shoulder with ice tongs and trudge to the house.

Today we do not have coal, ice, or milk delivered to our door.

Clerks

Today as I am handed my change from a purchase, I think back to my days as a clerk in Spriggs Pharmacy in Ames. I was trained to start counting the change back to the customer with the amount of purchase, then add pennies, then nickels, then dimes followed by quarters and finish up with half-dollars to complete the amount that was tendered. I was told to count it back to myself as I got change from the cash register and then count it out to the customer. Now, the bored clerk punches a few buttons, counts out the amount of change indicated on the digital display, and then hands all of the money to me in a wad.

Front Porches

 In my youth most houses had a front porch. In the evenings, my parents would sit on the porch to enjoy the cool evening breezes. As neighbors walked by on the sidewalks they would greet them and frequently invite them to come sit on the porch for a "spell." If the neighbor could not stop, they would call out a greeting and wave.

Today we all sit in our air-conditioned houses, watch our television sets. No one walks by any more except for the few that are trying to get some exercise. Not much neighboring is done anymore.