The Thursday Ramble: 100 Years

I have had a couple of long conversations at the office recently. Long, rambling, and disconnected. The kind of conversation that takes me to the end of my cognitive bandwidth. Intellectual sparring with someone who processes information at a faster speed than I do. I have learned over the years that my best answer, comes afterwards, often at 2 or 3 in the morning - and I usually remember what the answer is.  Rambles that may not seem to have a point, or come to a conclusion, but often generate the seed of an idea that grows and blooms into a revelation. I fear this posting is kind of like that, but here we go.  

The stylish couple are my mother's parents, the photo that is about 100 years old.  Both of them are wearing hats, a norm up into the 1950's.  My paternal grandfather complained that lower roof lines in cars in the late 50's and 60's were the end of civilized people wearing hats.  

Cars have changed a lot.  This was an era when most cars, were open cars, no side windows.  Today open top cars are rare. A car without closing windows on the side, unheard of today.  

This photo was taken before Lindbergh flew the Atlantic,  before airline service. When passenger trains stopped in hundreds of small towns across North America.  In their lifetime they saw manned flight, too many wars to count, and man land on the moon.  

How much will change in the next 100 years.  How old fashioned will today's cars look 100 years from now?  Will people go back to wearing hats? Will natural fabrics, cotton, wool, linen come back into more common use? (I hope so, wool is so unused, that Jeremy Clarkson used the wool from his flock to insulate his new house.) 

For some article I was writing I looked up the cause of the increase in life expectancy over the past 100 years.  I expected that modern medical care, antibiotics, and occupational safety would be at the top of the list.  I was surprised to learn that the number one factor in living longer is sanitation and safe drinking water.  Indoor plumbing has contributed more to longer life, than Lipitor and penicillin.  Medical research is chasing the fringe of longer life.