100 Years of Modern Life: What’s Changed Since 1925?

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The woman who lives right above me will be 100 in just four months. Can you believe that? 100 years! Back in December 1925, things like television, telephones, radio, planes, trains, cars, electricity, and indoor plumbing all existed—but not like we know them today. Did you know TV wasn’t really a thing in people’s homes yet? It was just a fuzzy little image in a lab somewhere. Phones? They were corded, had rotary dials, and often worked through party lines—meaning multiple households shared the same number! Planes were noisy and rare. Cars still had hand cranks. Electricity and indoor plumbing? Not guaranteed, especially outside cities. Here’s something that surprised me: I was born in 1968, and well into the 1970s, there was still a house in Fallsington—a tiny village just outside Philly—that didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. That wasn’t some remote cabin in the woods. It was just miles from Oxford Valley Mall, which back then was basically the Mall of America before the Mall of America even existed. And while that house lacked the basics, I lived right across the street from the head DEA agent in Bucks County—and he had cable TV. Most of the rest of us didn’t get it until about 1984. And the woman above me? She’s a wiz—not only with her desktop computer but rocking her tablet, too! So what do you think? Can you imagine living through all that change? Being born before the modern world really arrived, and watching it get invented piece by piece? By the way, I checked out this website/app called Death Clock. It told me I’d live to be 92 years, 7 months, and 29 days—and would die on Tuesday, January 11, 2061. But it also said my death would be suicide, so yeah… I’m not buying that date. Still, I hope to live as long as Aileen above me.