One Hundred Years Ago

THE YEAR 1909

The year is 1909.

One hundred years ago.

What a difference a century makes!

Here are some statistics for the Year 1909 :

The average life expectancy was 47 years.

Fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only.

Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles
Of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.

The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME .

Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!

Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which
Were condemned in the press AND the government as 'substandard. '

Sugar cost four cents a pound.

Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used
Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from
Entering into their country for any reason.

Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza

2. Tuberculosis

3. Diarrhea

4. Heart disease

5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.

There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school..

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, 'Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health'

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help..

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE ! U.S.A.!

Plus one more sad thought; 95 percent of the taxes we have now did not exist in 1909

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

IT STAGGERS THE MIND

The Goal

"We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."
- Chuck Palahniuk

To Thine Own Heart Be True

"

"Never forget what it took me a lifetime to learn;

you only have one heart,

be true to it."

-beyond borders

A True Renaissance Man

Fredric Arnold

Fredric Arnold is among many things an artist, author, pilot, inventor, poet and dedicated family man. (He happens also to be the father of one of my dearest college friends Dana.) I met Fred and his lovely wife Natalie during my years in Graduate school at UCLA when Dana and I were housemates.

Fred is a true Renaissance man with a wide range of interests and talents. His charm and his good looks from youth are as evident today as they were when I first met him. When you talk with Fred he fills the room with his presence, not in a big and boastful way but in a charismatic magnetic way. People are drawn to his conversations. He has so many interesting stories and he tells them with great humour, intelligence and a sense of compassion.

Because I am very aware of Fred's war experiences as a Pilot I thought of him this past Veteran's day when my friend Sandi posted the poem on her blog about flight. I sent it to Fred with a thank you for his service to our country. He then sent me a poem that he too had written about flight. I wanted to share that here and have asked his permission to do so. He kindly agreed and also sent some photos which I had asked for.

So "Thank You Fred " for allowing me to share these great photos of a Renaissance man that I am very proud to call my friend.

Fred on the left, his father in the middle, and his brother, Bob.
Fred shipped out two days later. His dad had advanced Parkinson disease. Fred supported his fathers back, while his dad held on to Bob for the photo.

Of this photo Fred writes: "Next to me is Sgt. Chad Jessup. He and his mechanics kept the engines and armament of my plane in perfect condition. I owe them my life.
I wore those coveralls during combat. Note their condition and how skinny I was. Not knowing why I survived during a time of heavy losses I thought maybe they were lucky coveralls, you know, like a rabbit's foot. During 50 missions they never got laundered; didn't want to lose their magic, so they got pretty raunchy, stained with oil, coolant, grease, and for a lot of other reasons also! Ha, ha."

Fred describes this photo, " I named my plane after my father. Although he was a pacifist, he believed in self-defense and our responsibility to defend ourselves if our country was under attack, unlike these immoral "wars" we are shamelessly engaged in. He never knew I was in combat until the day I returned."

In this last photo he says, "Here I am back in the States wearing a summer uniform. Notice how loose it was. I was down to 120 pounds."

*Note: Of his original group of 14 fighter pilots, only Fred and another survived. The story of how he memorialized his 12 lost comrades is detailed in a DVD documentary, "Between Two Worlds."

Here is the poem by John Gillespie McGee, Jr.

"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirthOf sun-split clouds,

— and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence.

Hov'ring there,I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .Up, up the long, delirious burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —And, while with silent, lifting mind

I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

*Thank you to my friend Sandi at http://whistlestopcooking.blogspot.com/

for posting the lovely poem by J.G. Magee, as a tribute to her father and all other Veterans this past Veteran's Day. Reading it prompted me to share it with Fred. He then sent me the following:

"Thanks for your kind letter and the poem, High Flight, by John Gillespie MaGee, treasured by aviators the world over. It speaks so well to the emotions experienced by those who fly, capturing the awe of flight, and why his words touch the hearts of us all. I felt a kinship with that young man, born the same year (1922), both fighter pilots, he a poet, I an artist, and both having faced death. Sadly he was killed in a midair collision while I barely escaped.

No claim to being a poet, this is what I wrote after my first solo flight at night:

A blast of fury and off in the night,
Enveloped in darkness, suspended in flight
Out of a world governed by might
Into a world of exciting delight.

It may explain the kinship I felt for MaGee.

A bit of trivia, not generally known, the last line of his poem was borrowed, first written a few years earlier by, Cuthbert Hicks, another poet. I can understand how Magee, coming from a religious family, his father a minister, it may have seemed to be the perfect ending to his masterpiece. And for the world it was. But his words and mine weren't about the horror of war, where surely no God resides. It was about the beauty of flight.

Remember this

"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together...

there is something you must always remember.

You are braver than you believe,

stronger than you seem

and smarter than you think.

But the most important thing

is,

even if we're apart...

I'll always

be with you."
-Winnie the Pooh quotes

A. A. Milne

Realizations

"one of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. one knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun- which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. one knows it then for a moment or so... "

-the secret garden, frances hodgson burnett

I Have Dreamed

"Right in the middle of an ordinary life,
Love gives us a fairy tale."

"Only those who truly love and who are truly strong can sustain their lives as a dream. You

dwell in your own enchatment. Life throws stones at you, but your love and your dream change those stones into the flowers of discovery. Even if you lose, or are defeated by things, your

triumph will always be exemplary. And if no one knows it, then there are places that do. People like you enrich the dreams of the worlds, and it is dreams that create history. People like you are unknowing transformers of things, protected by your own fairy-tale, by love."

-Ben Okri (Nigerian author who uses magic realism to convey the social and political chaos in his country, 1959)