Thursday

Inventions and costs of 1951. I wanted to see how time had taken these two things into year 2011.

Here are just a few that I found. First for inventions. Direct dialing from coast to coast was now available. Do you remember what your prefix was? Ours was Kellogg. I always wondered why we had to call a cereal to get to talk on the phone.

The first color t.v. transmission was from atop the Empire State Building. We didn't get our first color t.v. until I was in high school. We were in awe of the colors in the show Bonanza.

Super Glue was invented. While I am sure that it has many wonderful applications, the only thing I've ever been able to do is get my fingers stuck together.

Tupperware was brought in to the kitchen. I still use containers similar to tupperware. However, I can never seem to find the right lid, and have to devote an entire drawer in the kitchen to them. I am not sure that it is really a time saving device.

Swanson introduced pot pies. Ok, so here is a guilty pleasure. I love beef pot pies, but I prefer Marie Callanders. The veggies aren't so uniformly cut and they are really yummy.

Books of the year were "Catcher In The Rye". Salinger hit the decade on the head with that one.

Another book was Rachel Carson's "The Sea Around Us". If we had only paid attention and made it our mission not destroy the seas. I remember my brother-in-law, Denny Brown insisting that I read this book. Thanks, Denny. Thank you very much to the oil companies and big business that keeps relying on fossil fuels.

The cost of things have changed also. A house was around $9,ooo.oo. Today that wouldn't even make a decent down payment on these houses made out of ticky tacky that all look just the same. (Thanks to the Weavers for that reference). Gas was 19 cents ( ha, I just noticed that there is not a cents symbol on the computer. Guess it doesn't get a lot of use these days). Well, we all know where that has gone. It is currently over $3.00 here and nearly $4.00. Once spring kicks in it will probably kick up a good deal more. V.W.'s were first introduced to the U.S.. I still want one.

So, things have changed a great deal. We now have phones available to us 24/7 and those phones can do a myriad of other things. T.V. has gone from a small 12 inch screen to huge obscene objects. No more black and white, but HD and 3D. No more analog but know digital. We have gone from Playhouse 90, to Jersey Shore. What does that tell you about the state of our intelligence?