When I was a kid I enjoyed listening to older folks talk about the changes they had seen during their lifetimes and their first-time experiences. First time driving a tractor, first time seeing an airplane, first time they had electricity on their farm … I enjoyed their stories.

Thinking about some of these dear older folks recently, I realized that I have now lived enough years to join in those conversations. There are a lot of “firsts” that I can recall.

For instance, I can remember the first time I realized what turn signals were. When my father purchased a new 1953 Ford he had to take it back to the dealer to have turn signals installed. A few years before that I thought that the little lever on the left side of my grandfather’s 1950 Frazer steering wheel was just another shift lever. I guess these memories qualify me as a genuine old guy.

The first television set I can recall seeing was at the home of my Uncle Harold and Aunt DeLoris. This was in 1952 when central Iowans could receive only one station — WOI-TV in Ames. In fact, I remember watching Miss Frances and her “Ding Dong School” with my cousins. “Ding Dong School” was the earliest known preschool series to be produced in the United States. And I was there.

Why, I can remember our family’s first pop-up toaster. Our previous toaster was shaped like a tent with room for a slice of bread on each of its two sides. Mid-toasting, one had to manually flip the slices of bread so the other sides could be toasted. The pop-up toaster was invented in 1919 and took only 45 years to reach our house.

The first time I used a dial telephone is also memorable. Our home always had an old-fashioned crank-magneto telephone. A turn of the crank got the attention of a switchboard operator who would connect you with the desired party. My high school was in a community that had dial telephone service and that’s where I used a dial phone for the first time in 1962.

That was the same year I first drove a car with an automatic transmission. I learned to drive a “straight stick” and was comfortable with that. In the summer of 1962 I operated a car wash (with a hose and a sponge in the backyard) and offered pick-up and delivery. I was only 14 but large for my age so no one suspected I didn’t have a driver’s license. I must have been old before my time because I preferred an automatic over a straight stick.

A year later I experienced stereophonic sound for the first time. Uncle Floyd was an electronics experimenter and had rigged up a stereo amplifier and speakers in his living room. The orchestral music from a long-play album seemed to come alive in stereo.

It was in the early 1970s that I was introduced to a microwave oven. Our town hosted an annual “home show” at the county fairgrounds and I was assigned to conduct radio interviews with some of the exhibitors. The community’s largest appliance dealer had an Amana Radar Range on display and as part of my interview a store salesman tossed some unpopped popcorn into a paper bag, put the bag in the microwave oven, set the timer and … voilà! … we had a bag of freshly-popped popcorn in just a few minutes.

Watching a movie of my choice in my living room seemed like a dream until the introduction of the video cassette recorder, aka the VCR. We had rented VCR players to view movies several times but in 1984 one of my advertising clients offered me a highly discounted price on a player — just $400.

Being an electronics geek, I had followed the story of cell phones from their inception in 1973 to their introduction to the public in 1983. It was another decade before cell phone prices were down to my budget and in 1993 I acquired my first — a heavy, bulky bag phone.

I remember the first call I made on that new bag phone. Cell phone minutes were still expensive so I had to be brief. That was difficult for me.

Yes, I’ve seen some new things in my life! I am reminded of the old adage, “Don’t be afraid to try something new. It might be the best thing you ever do.”

Arvid Huisman can be contacted at huismaniowa@gmail.com. ©2025 by Huisman Communications.