Well, it's time for John and Jo again. Hello, everyone. Episode 18. Yes. So here we are. Um, it's nighttime or we just finished playing some games. We, we play a couple games every night. Uh, we play Rummikub, which we play with friends and up at the clubhouse, and we play Italian game called Scopa and Briscola. And, uh, we played a new game tonight. New game called... Which we learned the other night with some friends called Trash. It's kind of a fun game. It is fun. So we're gonna, we're gonna try that with some friends tomorrow night. But I... With all these patriotic holidays coming up on us, we of course, had Flag Day, we had Memorial Day, we got 4th of July coming. And Labor Day. Labor Day. But that's, that's not- That's not a national holiday, no That's until September. Right. 4th of July, 250th anniversary, and we were thinking about some of the things that, um, make our country great, and what I'm afraid of is it's not as great as it used to be. Thinking back, uh, to World War II days when Jo and I were younger. Jo, you were young then too, weren't you? Yes, I was. You were a little girl, about, uh, what, 12, 13, 10, 11, 1941? Mm, same. My brother went, went into the service. Uh, I was about 12. Yeah, so, you know, we were old enough to know what was going on. I lived in Birmingham, Alabama, at the time, and we had blackout curtains that we had to pull down at night. We had food, food stamps. Food stamp. We had an air raid warden. Yes, we did. And if your lights were showing, he'd knock on your door and tell you to pull your, uh, curtains down. And you had black cur- black curtains also Yeah, black, black curtains to do it. We had got We were thinking about families that might have been in World War II. My dad was not in it. He was young, young, but just he had, uh, seven brothers, and I know two of them were in World War II. One of them told a story that he was so afraid, he was in Italy fighting, that he hid in a ditch all night long. Another one was a gunner on a B-17, and the B-17 flew back to England, crash landed, and just about demolished the plane. But there were pictures of that plane on the cover of Life magazine. Did he survive? He did. The whole crew did. Oh, wow. And I looked for years when I was younger, every time I'd go by a used bookstore that had old magazines, I'd go through looking to find that Life magazine cover. Never found it, so. Hmm. So if any of your listeners, uh, know about it or have seen it and know where we can get it, let us know. Let us know is right. Uh, we, uh, we like history and, uh, the older we get, the, uh, more we get, I think about- The more we, we're part of it part of it. Another thing that, uh, I want to kind of discuss is, as you know, I was in the Air Force and, and part of that, um, was with Strategic Air Command, which I'm very proud to have been in. And our leader, we used to have a, a- a, a meeting every year. We had a newsletter. Still get the newsletter. But one of his uncles was in Saipan. Saipan battle started a week after Normandy invasion, so it was, like, 13th of June, something in that area, and he sent out a little bit of a newsletter- What year, what year was that, Joe? 1944, I believe. Okay. And the newsletter talked about the number of people killed. Unbelievably, 30,000 Japanese were killed. Hmm. 16,500 American troops killed, 16,000 more wounded. 40% of the native pa- population was killed. War is a terrible thing, and, uh- It certainly is we, we don't want to think about it. But the other thing is, we need patriotism, and we need to be for our country. So we're looking for that. We're wondering about our grandchildren, and you know, we have great-grandchildren now. Jo's had great-grandchildren for a long time. Yes, I have. How many, how many kids have we got? I don't even know. We have, uh, great-grandchildren? Yeah. How many? Uh, we have, uh, six. Six. Okay. How many grandchildren do we have? Eight. Gosh, that's a lot of... Mm-hmm that's a lot. That's a lot of Christmas presents. So we wonder how, when those kids grow up, what it's gonna be like in America. It seems to me like there's so much hatred going on, and, uh, disbelief and unpatriotism and, uh, fighting. One of the, one of the things I hate to see, uh, at, uh, well, like, baseball games or football games, when they s- play the Star Spangled Banner, people don't put their hands over their heart- Take their hats off or take their hats off. It's, um, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not good. No. But that's the way it is. And, uh, I guess if we look at it, you know, people, I've read, don't even believe that this last space mission happened. You know, they went around the moon? People believe that was fake. And this is, this is what I'm getting towards. It's just, it's just crazy. But we're old people now, and we can look back, and we have our beliefs, and, uh, we're gonna keep 'em, aren't we? Yes, we are. One thing we, uh- We are so lucky to live in this country and, uh, people need to appreciate it more One of the things that comes from our Air Force newsletter, uh, is, uh, news bits, and I'm also on a website that, uh, Strategic Air Command has that I like. And, and a couple of days ago, one of the people put out a questionnaire about Have you done any of these things? So Jo and I said, "Well, let's look at them." So there's, uh, 20 things we're gonna go through, and we're gonna just say, "Have we done them, or haven't we done them, or..." Like, have you used a rotary phone, Jo? Oh, absolutely. You, you had a- a party line, didn't you? I, I had a party line, and, and you, you had a rotary phone. I had a rotary phone, and a- my number, if you remember from last, uh, episode, was 6-2761, I believe was my phone number. Yes, it was. Did you ever use a floppy disk in the computer? Oh, definitely. You know, those were, um... I guess they were called floppy 'cause they were floppy. Yes, they were floppy disks. Weren't they five-and-a-quarter inch floppy disks- Yes as I recall? We used those. Now, did you ever use a typewriter? Yes, indeed. M- And I could type 120 words a minute. That's fast. Very fast. Now, did you subtract errors from that, or how did you n- know your word count? Well- W- We were hoping not to have errors. I mean, did you type, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog's back"? No, I didn't do that. Oh, boy. That's what I... And, uh- "All good men came to good..." I forget. Oh, yeah, you forgot what it was. Right, I forgot what it was now. Well, I took typing, uh, I took typing in high school, and I think I was one of two guys that, uh, took typing class. Kinda glad I did. I still, I'm a two-finger typist, but I'm fast. Fast two fingers. Now, the other thing, have you ever taken pictures with a film camera? Yes, it was a Polaroid camera. Well, but that's not film. Oh, that's right. I'm talking about film where you had to go get it developed. Oh, we didn't have too much money, so we didn't d- take too many pictures. Well, my dad was into pictures. We took a lot of pictures, and pictures, uh, go to the drugstore and get them developed. And you always get double prints, because you wanna be able to give them out to your friends, and that type of thing. But- Didn't your dad take pictures of your classrooms? Every class. Class? Every class, first through eighth grade. Mm-hmm. I've got pictures of my class, and it's fun to look at the people as they cha- as they changed. So what about music on a CD? Sure. Yeah, we've got CDs. Yes, we do. Most of them are put away because we stream. Ooh. You know, we have Pandora. We have Amazon Music. We have Sirius Radio. S- it's so easy now. Yep. Music on a Walkman, I remember those, walking. Mm-hmm, yes. Well, I used to walk at the gym in Palatine. They had a walking area, and I used to take my Walkman and listen to the Walkman as I was walking. So boombox. Do you have a boombox? No. Well, in, uh, Pennsylvania they didn't allow- outside music? No, they allowed it, but we just didn't have it. You didn't have a boombox. I don't think I had a boombox either. But video on a VHS tape, yes. Yes, indeed. You know, it was gonna be Beta. Betamax and VHS was the big contenders, and VHS won. You know, I got a VHS tape of me in, uh, Branson, Missouri that I can't get transferred to a See, there's our clock going, so you know this is real. Um, I can't get transferred because it's legally protected or something. Well- And they can't They won't put it onto a- a tape or something that I can play other than the VHS Right So- And it would be fun to watch, but- And you can't watch it 'cause we got nothing to play it on. No, we don't. Our, our, uh, VHS players both went kaput, so They don't make them anymore. No, they don't. Access by the internet by dial-up. You know, when internet first came out, you used to sub- subscribed to, like, two hours a day or four hours a day or Nobody ever thought they'd use eight hours a day. No. Eight hours on the internet? Mm. No. No. I do that every day. But- But I have to say that we did other activities a- as a family, and now everything is individual. Right. And I think that's sad. Look at Kids look at the phones instead of each other. Mm-hmm. I heard somewhere where phones were being not used in school. They were collecting them, and the kids were having a, a good time, playing with each other and just- Yes everything, so. Now, Jo, I know you didn't have a telephone, but did you have a phone book in Ambler? Well, at the drugstore they did. Okay. So, and you know what would happen? People would get a number and rip the page out. Oh, gosh. So you would be looking for a number, and that page is gone because somebody else took it. That's nasty. Well, they used to do that. But I tell you, I was sitting on phone books when my dad had a car crash, and, uh- Is that right? Yep. I was sitting on ph- no seat belts in those days, you know? No. In fact, our little kids, I think we put little plastic carriers to carry them around in plastic, plastic bucket seats, like, uh, no, no seat belt. Well, they were like, like a bed. Yeah, but they sat up. They could sit up in them. I mean, they- Well, they folded down to be like a bed- Yeah or a chair. But they weren't safe in any way. Not at all. But- They, they were strapped in and, uh, all the k- all of our children are still going, so they survived, uh, without seat belts. Unbelievably. Now, postcards. D- you ever send a postcard? Yes, I did. I remember when I was working and we had a Sunday school class, and, and I used to mail postcards to the kids from what different cities I was in. I remember that. And, uh- I didn't send too many because we didn't travel. Yeah, but you know, you used to collect postcards, and, uh, a lot of schools, a part of grades now is they ask people to, from other states to send postcards. Mm-hmm. So they can get postcards from all the states, so. You know, the other thing is paper maps. And I remember going up to the gas station. There was a ga-... I think it was a Gulf near us, and they had maps. And I used to love to go and get those maps, and just open 'em up and look at places, you know? And then you carried them in your, in your car, and you had a stack of pa- of maps. Yes, you did. We used to go to the AAA too and get maps, you remember? Mm-hmm. We used to get triptychs, and it would be, uh, folded pages of a map. And you would just start driving and fold the page to the next page to see where you went next and, uh- Wasn't that, uh, AA or...? Yes, it w- d- Triple A. Triple A. Triple A, yep. Used to do that. Dictionary. Do you ever have a dictionary? Oh, yes. You ever use it? Okay. Look up words? Sometimes. Yep. We had a dictionary. My aunt that passed away at 98 years and years ago had a dictionary that was given to her as a gift, and I still have that, uh, still have that dictionary, so, which we're keeping. Encyclopedias. Uh, you ever have encyclopedias? We did, and then you got that yearbook. Yes. You had to- Every... To keep you up to date you had to paste in, uh, pages and articles and stuff. Right. And the, the guy used to come. Encyclopedia Britannica was one. World Book was another. Mm-hmm. And what'd we have? About 10. I think we had World Book. World Book. Uh, 10 books. And, uh, if you didn't have 'em at your home, you had to go to the library to use them. And kids today, all they have to do is, uh, get on the old internet. Get on the, on their teleph- or their phone. On their phone and dial it up. Now, paper checks. I was in the grocery store the other day, and a fella ahead of me actually wrote a check. Uh, you don't see that many. That's so rare. I think we- Did he not have a credit card? I don't know. We have about, what, four checks a month that we write. Mm-hmm. But, uh, other than that, checkbook used to go pretty fast, but now they kinda last forever, don't they? They sure do. But, uh, anyway, well, those are some things that, uh, from the past that, uh, we thought we'd talk about. You might be interested in knowing what was- And I hope some of you can reflect on- Reflect on- Right using those things Before we close out, there was an article I read about a doctor who died December 2025. He was 103 years old. Wow. He spent 75 years in practice, uh, as a neurologist, and in fact, he's the, uh, named the oldest doctor in the Guinness Book of Records. He had three principles that he lived by, and we try to do those, and I think they're good. One is keep your mind engaged, and, uh, we try to do that with games. Uh, we do. That's why we play the games every night. Games. We're on the computer a lot. Uh- And I wor- I use those Word Find books Word Finds, and, uh, you know, Amazon. Ordered on Amazon kind of keeps you sharp. At least what I think, anyway. And it also, uh, increases our expenses. Our credit card bill. N- don't carry hatred. That's another thing he had, and it's, you know, hard. People are pretty opinionated today, and a lot of hate out there, and, and we don't need that. What we need is more love. More love. And the last thing he believed in was do everything and enjoy it in moderation, and I think, uh, those are good, good words. Moderation in everything you do is, is fine. Don't- Yes don't go overboard. Well, I think we're about done with our, uh, our podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. We- Hope you, uh, found it interesting certainly thank you for listening, and, um, as I said before one time, we've got some young listeners, and we got old listeners, and we got listeners in, uh, other countries, and, uh, that- that's good. We like it. We are very lucky to have- Lucky have you out there listening to us. Yeah, listening to us. Until next time, as John and Jo are saying, what are we saying? Bye-bye. Bye-bye for now.