When I was born the life expectancy for a male was about 59 years. Of course that means that the infectious diseases of the time claimed the lives of many young children. There were people who lived longer, but the greater majority died earlier. The women lived about 4 years longer than the men at that time.
There were people that were born at that time who have lived to my age, but if the tables are correct only half of the people born in 1934 in the United States lived past the age of 59.
There will be an ever-increasing number of us who will die during the next decade.
I was fortunate to have survived Scarlet Fever and pneumonia in the first two years of my earthly existence. I got measles, mumps, chicken pox, whopping cough and German Measles. There were no complications in my case.
So when I reflect back upon my life I am blessed to live as long as I have.
I have lived in an age where technology has blessed my life. I had a crystal set radio to listen with earphones when we lived in Denver. My parents had a radio with vacuum tubes. We did not have TV to watch until I first saw it at my aunt's house my freshman year in college and could watch 3 channels on a 12-inch screen. Now we have a 42-inch, wide screen, high definition TV to watch over 250 channels and the only reason the screen isn't larger is because it won't fit into the space in our house. One could argue that television is more of a curse than a blessing.
I used to have to go to a theater to watch a movie. We now can watch movies on Netflix or You Tube or pull out one of about 150 DVDs from our own library or an equal number of VHS tapes that we own to watch on demand.
When I was in high school my father bought a phonograph. We did not own one of the 78-rpm players. We bought a 45-rpm player with a record changer that would play ten records, one after another. We used the radio speaker to amplify the sound.
We bought a number of albums and a few single records.
When I got my inheritance money from my grandfather Gee in 1965, I bought a 33 1/3-rpm high fidelity system with large speakers and we started collecting long play record albums. We collected and played these records. We still have all of the records, but we rarely listen to them even though we have a high fidelity system.
We never owned a wire recorder. We did purchase a couple of tape recorders. We bought a four track stereo tape recorder and a number of tapes to play.
We then went to eight track continuous play tapes. We had an eight track tape player in the car and one at home.
The compact cassette tapes and players replaced the eight track players. We collected a number of tapes of this variety.
When compact disks or CDs came on the scene we found those to our liking and began collecting those and bought a player that would play our records, compact cassette tapes and CDs. We have a number of CDs including 25 just of Christmas songs.
My children gave me an iPod so that I could have music wherever I went. These tunes were transferred over to my iPhone, which soon became overloaded with music and other apps.
I was first introduced to cellular or mobile phones on our mission to Germany. They call them handies there. I carried one for three years and became so attached to them that I bought one when I came home. We got another one in Moscow and then again when we came back and have not been without one since.
I will have to write a chapter in my history entitled "Computers and Me" Needless to say they have been a part of my life.
And so technology has blessed my life.
Family history or genealogy has been a great interest and I have more work now than I will ever have time to accomplish in this life. I will entitle one chapter in my history to this subject.
And so family history has blessed my life.
The most important thing that I have done in my life of eighty years is to marry the right girl in the right place under the right authority at the right time of my life, then to be the father of eight children. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to see them grow and mature and have families and children and grandchildren of their own.
Recently in celebration of my four score years at a family reunion family night, I was privileged to address my assembled posterity and bear them my witness of the truthfulness of the restored gospel. I became quite emotional as I realized what a responsibility it was to bring eight children into this world and to teach them of their Father in Heaven and the gospel of Jesus Christ. I cannot express in the least how overpowering and daunting this task is and how inadequate I feel at this time.
There is no going back and starting over. If I live as long as my parents did, I hope that I will stand true to the cause of Christ and be a positive influence in the lives of my posterity.
My wife and family have blessed my life, and more abundantly than here expressed.
I hope one day to stand before the judgment bar of God and be able to assent to the appellation of having been true and faithful in all things and hear the words spoken, "Well done."
And so the gospel of Christ has blessed my life. There is no space to enumerate the ways.
Thus, now on to the rest of my life.
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