[PRCo] Re: Pgh.___1985

[Fred Schneider]

Honestly, I'm totally amazed by several things ....

1.  How advanced the Romans were 1600 to 2200 years ago ... running water in
lead pipes (I can only imagine the lead poisoning).  Knowing how to build
massive buildings as large as the Colloseum and the Pantheon in Rome, and
similar arenas all over the "known world."   The Romans' ability to survey a
project was spectacular ... I'm thinking of just how little drop there was in
the aqueduct into Niemes France ... we're talking only a few feet in many miles.

2.  How much the world advanced technologically in the last 150 years and
particularly in the last 100 years.   We traveled in the same way in 1850 AD as
we did in 2000 BC, and then everything changed "overnight" (in a geologic
sense).  Early in the 18th century the industrial revolution began and by 1900
we produced more of the world's manufactured goods than any other country.  Can
you imagine a matrix that shows everything you take for granted in your house
... electricity, light bulbs, refrigerators, freezers, air-conditioners, washing
machines, television, radio, moving pictures, telephone, automobiles, powered
lawn mowers, snow blowers, weed wackers, computers, laser printers, xerox
machines, indoor plumbing, the microfilm reader next to me, video cameras,
digital cameras, film cameras, mass produced glass and china ware, radial arm
saws, tables saws, portable sanders,  photographic enlargers, color film,
thermopane windows, post-it notes, TV dinners,  ... and then takes that back to
the start of the trolley era. Think too of our vacations ... air planes, cruise
ships, paved roads, vacation resorts.   How many of those items did we have
then?  The rudimentary box camera was the only thing on the list.  (And we
wonder why Americans are so fat ... cannot blame it all on McDonalds.  I once
read that a secretary pounding away all day on a manual typewriter, in contrast
to an electric typewriter, burnt up enough extra calories to allow a piece of
pie for dinner each day.  I also never saw a secretary that wanted a manual
typewriter once IBM cornered the market for electric typewriters.

Then think about, for example, how we prepared foods ... we went out daily for
fresh foods because there was no refrigeration ... just ice boxes.  We cooked on
coal stoves.  We had gas lights and they were very modern conveniences in 1880.
The wealthiest had plumbing at the end of the 19th century.  (I think 1960 was
the last year in which the census counted out houses; and then they decided that
it was no longer a problem.)

I have this great postcard sometime before 1923 showing a group of farmers
leaving their homes for a weekend outing.  They were all in buggies.  The card
was exposed along the road from Reading to Allentown ... we know that from a
sign.  The road and the crossroad were dirt.  Today that road is gradually
approaching four-lane expressway status.   If I had one picture that explains
graphically why the trolleys were built, that is the picture.

Ken & Tracie wrote:

> Fred Schneider wrote:
>
> > My sixteen year old granddaughter got this "you're kidding me" look on her
> > face when I mentioned that we
> > didn't have TV or frozen food when I was born, and that my dad was born
> > into an era without telephones,
> > radio, automobiles.
>
> Tell us about the dinosaurs, Fred. :-)
>
> K.