The good old days. Kids listened to their elders. People had respect for one another. You could leave your doors unlocked. Those were the days.

          Or not. 100 years ago, the mortality rate for infants up to one year old in this country was one death out of every ten babies. Now it is one death out of every one hundred sixty eight babies. 85% of all males over the age of 14 were in the work force. That means 85% of all males worked from the age of 14 to death, whether death occurred at age 40 or age 95. There was no retirement, no Social Security, no Medicare; virtually no government benefits at all. We think of costs 100 years ago as being low, but that is only in comparison to our current costs. We don’t think of income being low. Unless you lived on a farm, the typical family spent 1/3 of their income on food. Compare that to 1/6 today. And the food was different. On the average, each American ate eleven and a half pounds of lard each year. Not straight up, but it was used in cooking. Now, the average American eats only one and a half pounds of lard. A century ago, our diets were less varied. Now, the average American eats 57 pounds of chicken. A hundred years ago it was 14 pounds. Most of that was consumed on farms. In the towns and cities, chicken was a rarity, something to be savored. In the so-called Steel Belt cities-Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee, Gary, Cincinnati, Toledo, Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and Pittsburgh-butchers would take scraps of meat of all kinds and tightly compress it in special molds into the shape of chicken legs, then stick tooth pick type skewers in it to hold it together and then sell it as ‘city chicken.’ You can still buy city chicken in those areas, but now it is usually three small chunks of pork held together with a long skewer. Back in the day, a city dweller could go their whole life and not eat any chicken. Back in the good old days, the country had one third the population it has now. Of that population, one half was under the age of 25. Retirement wasn’t much of an issue because most people didn’t reach what we think of as retirement age. If they did, they didn’t retire. They just did different kinds of work. Medical treatment at the finest hospitals of the day wouldn’t even be acceptable today at a little country clinic in our age.
          One hundred years ago radio was in its infancy, TV was a gleam in a scientist’s eye and computers were unheard of. Most people didn’t have phones. As for entertainment, well, you made your own at home with whatever instruments you had or whatever games you could devise. Community dances and gatherings were popular. A community would usually have a Spring dance, a 4th of July celebration, a county fair, a harvest dance and maybe a community Christmas celebration. At these gatherings, the latest in music would be played. One such piece of music a hundred years ago was Irving Berlin’s song “Keep Away From The Fellow Who Owns An Automobile”
[1st verse:] There's a certain flirtin' man with money in the bank
The man I mean owns a machine, the kind you have to crank
His great delight is to invite a girlie for a whirl
In his machine and I just mean to kind o' warn each girl
[chorus:]
Keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile
He'll take you far in his motor car
Too darn far from your Pa and Ma
If his forty horsepower goes sixty miles an hour say
Goodbye forever, goodbye forever
There's no chance to talk, squawk or balk
You must kiss him or get out and walk
Keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile
[2nd verse:]
Mary White went out one night in Harry's new machine
They rode quite far when Harry's car ran out of gasoline
The hour was late and sad to state no gas could Harry get
The latest word I overheard is that they're walking yet
Imagine, 40 horsepower was considered a lot and 60 mph was really, really fast! Churches were full back in the good old days, but that was largely because there was very little else you could do if you wanted to gather with folks and get the news (gossip) of the community.
          So, maybe the good old days weren’t quite so good. Maybe that respect people had for one another could be taught today as well as way back then. Maybe we should take what we have today and use it for good and Godliness rather than complaining about how depraved it all is.
          Times have changed greatly in the last 100 years. Just the fact you are reading this is testament to that truth. This being typed up on a laptop computer. It is being sent out on the internet. I can track the areas this blog is read. I have readers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and Taiwan. I find that amazing. It is even more amazing that this blog will be available at exactly the moment I push the PUBLISH button. It is even more amazing that some of you are reading this on your cell phones. One hundred years ago, if you had a phone, you had to crank it to make a connection, and then you went through a switchboard.
         The Bible covered a time of just over 4,000 years. The process of living life at the end of the writing of the Bible was pretty much the same as the process of living life was at the beginning of the writing of the Bible. It is a fast-paced world. But, the Lord hasn’t changed. He is still on His throne. He still offers salvation to all who believe. His Word is still true and unchangeable. The way we present the message may change, but the message is still the same. With the constant promise of change and ‘advancement’ in our daily lives, it is a blessing that we have one constant that will always rise above it all.