What inventions have had the biggest impact on your day-to-day life?

by Jim Stamp on January 10, 2022.

INVENTIONS and TECHNOLOGY – Well, I was born after the
horse and buggy era – which I may have enjoyed. Of course it
may seem more romantic in the stories than it was in time. My
Grandpa and Uncle Richard and Uncle Roland used to sit in
Grandpa and Grandma’s living room and talk about the “good
old days”. Going to the fair in a buggy. Sleeping on the way
home because the horse would always go home. The problem
was it might go to the wrong home! if it was a new horse.

AS hard as it might be to believe, I was born before credit cards,
designer jeans, cellular phones, color TV, flat screen TVs, micro
wave ovens, personal computers, I-Pads, CDs and DVDs, Prozac,
VCRs, Polio Vaccine, Jet Airliners, and DNA fingerprinting. I
guess I always had DNA but no one figured out how to use it to
identify a person until I was about 42.

So, even though it happened many years before I arrived, (maybe
a century before) I think the refinement and application of the
Internal Combustion Engine had a huge impact on my life.

When we first moved to the farm, the first spring, Dad borrowed
Mr. Hawthorne’s Belgian horses to plow. I was sitting on top
and holding on to the horse collar while Dad walked behind.

It was probably the next season that we got a Ford Tractor.

Since I was 5 or 6 years old, I never drove the Ford tractor but I
got to sit on the fender. We never had second thoughts about
sitting on the fender while Dad plowed, mowed, raked or what
ever needed to be done. No such thing as seat belts. No such
thing as helmets. And we all survived!

In 1952, Grandpa got an Allis Chalmers tractor and in 1953 we
got an Allis Chalmers. The great thing about the Allis Chalmers
is that I could go to the mill or Grandpa’s or wherever I needed
to go. I could not reach the clutch, but the Allis Chalmers had
a hand clutch…so off we go.

In any event, tractors played a very important part of my
growing up. Plowing, disking, baling, FFA scrap drives, etal.

The TV was an intriguing invention. On Saturdays we might
be out working in a field or in the barn. But, at noon, we
always took a break so we could eat lunch and watch the Big
Top circus show…Dad really liked that 3 ring circus. Of course
in the later 50s we never missed Gunsmoke. Once in a while,
if chores permitted we could catch Dick Clark’s American
Bandstand. Dick Clark had all of the current singing sensations.

When the weather didn’t permit working outside we watched all
the Saturday morning Westerns. Imagine if you will, tens of
thousands of kids watching Saturday morning Westerns
involving the good guys wearing White Hats and the bad guys
mostly wearing black hats, shooting at each other and
committing robberies of the stage coach or stopping the robbery
of a stage coach, and none of us grew up shooting people or becoming bank robbers!!!

Another after school show was Howdy Doody and the Peanut
Gallery. Buffalo Bob. Mr Bluster. Princess Summer, Fall, Winter,
Spring. Clarabell.

Imagine if you will, butter could be purchased in a grocery store.
However, every Saturday morning, we churned our own butter.
We skimmed the cream from the milk, put it in a churn and
cranked. After you took out the butter; rich, yellow, creamy
butter – you had buttermilk. Grandma Andre could drink the
buttermilk because it was so healthy. For me, buttermilk is best used for pancakes…

In the 50s and 60s, we were obsessed with cars. Cars meant
FREEDOM. We rode our ponies to Winona, or to Grandpa and
Grandma’s house, or to Guilford Lake, to Winona to meet the
Mobile Library or pick up something at the Winona General
Store, and, a few times to school. But, the car!

I bought my first car in 1961 in Aurora, Illinois. It was a 1958
Plymouth Belvedere. I loved that car. I drove it to work all
over Illinois, into Iowa and into Wisconsin. Sometimes I slept
in the backseat and I carried all my belongings in the trunk. I
drove my Plymouth almost 120,000 miles and sold it for more
than I paid for it. Should have kept that car!! Classic…

In the summer of 1963 I bought a convertible. A red Corvair
Monza convertible… That became my college car – I loved the
feeling of the air flowing around my head. I usually kept the top
down until snow was flying.

    In 1982 I had a Dodge 400, same body style as below except
silver on the bottom with a black cap on top…

I had a cell phone like this one mounted into the Dodge 400.

Over the span of a “few” years (decades), I have had many cars.
Margaret and I coveted the Chrysler Crossfires when they came
out but they were out of our price range, so we just looked. In
2015 I had the chance to buy a previously loved Crossfire and I
took it… Actually, I ended up with 2 for much less than half of the cost of a new one in 2005.

Then there were the trains. By 1961 trains had been in use in the
United States for about 130 years. There was a lot of track to be
laid before there was wide spread use. Before trains, people and
goods had to be moved by water and wagons, horses, mules,
and camels. Not too many camels were trekking around in the
US that I know of. After High School I went to Kansas City, MO
to a vocational school called Railroad Communications School.
After becoming a little proficient with the Morse Code, teletype,
ticketing and freight bills, I was ready for my first job on the
Railroad at 18 years old. There is another story along the way,
but, I was first hired by the CB&Q railroad – Chicago, Burlington
& Quincy. I was hired on the “extra-board” which meant I filled
in for guys that were going on vacation, sick leave, wanted a
weekend off, etc. So, I worked in Aurora, East Eola, Cicero,
Berwyn, Downers Grove, Lee, Shabonna, Princeton, Zearing,
Mendota, Savannah, Galena Junction, Kewannee, Rock Island,
Oswego, Naperville, Moline, Peoria, Lisle, Barstow and a few
other towns and crossroads. Sometimes I was on the Savannah
line and sometimes on the Galesburg line.

I have a “receiver” (pictured above) in my family room.

We sent train lists by telegraph and got instructions from the
dispatchers by telegraph. I switched trains from one track to
another from towers and handed up messages to the brakeman
and the conductor with a slingshot. If they missed the message,
the train had to stop. I had the misfortune of switching the
Denver Zephyr – the fastest train in the US – to the wrong track
which set up the red lights in the block and the train (the fastest)
was delayed for 45 minutes while the block was cleared. Our
“slingshots” were eventually replaced by two way radios…but, not
in my time.

When I had reached the top of the union scale I decided to go to
college. I loved the trains and had no concept that it wouldn’t be
too many years until passengers were trading long distance
travel by train to airplanes. I didn’t see it coming.

While in college, I learned to be a draftsman, drive a delivery
truck, rack steel, cut pieces for the fabricators, and wash
windows. Then I went to work for Sears in the paint
department. After 7 or 8 months, the Store Manager asked
me if I would like to move to the credit department which
was next to the cashiers office. The girls in the cashiers
department could use a ten key calculator without looking at
the keys and they were really fast. I didn’t have a reason to use
a calculator in the credit department – that would come later.

When I got my first job out of college, it was with the
international accounting firm of Ernst & Ernst. That was
in 1966. I mastered the TEN key calculator. A few years
later they hired a guy to ease us into computers. Myself, I
didn’t understand how they worked so I stayed away from
them. One more major mistake in my career. Eventually,
many years later, when I started my own accounting
business, it became apparent that computers were the
future and I purchased one. I thought I needed to know
how they worked so I used it as a glorified calculator. When
I bought my first computer, the salesman told me it would
be the last computer that I would ever need. He forgot to add
that his statement would be true if I died a week later. That
computer was a 64K and a monitor that was about 6 inches
wide. The hard drive hung underneath a table and used 8
inch floppy disks. It cost $22,000. 1978. Last one I would ever need. Bah…

I think about the inventions that were created in my Grandpa’s
99 years. The automobile. The airplane. The jet airplane. High
speed Diesel trains. Refrigerators instead of ice boxes. Radios
with more than 2 stations. Televisions. Color televisions.
Washers and Dryers. Freezers for the home. Dish washers
that didn’t stand on two legs. Electric milking machines.
Gasoline farm equipment. Supermarkets. Fast food. Water
in the house that didn’t require a hand pump (which they
had in their house into the 1960s.) Telephones that didn’t go
through a switchboard manned by an operator. Cell phones.
Computers. The US landed men on the moon!

    This is the kind of telephone we had in our kitchen when
    I was a kid. I have one in my living room today…

As long as the US is free from Socialism and Communism we will
continue to innovate and develop. Every invention comes from
the mind of an individual – not by the coercion of a government.
Every day we see amazing advancements in technology.