Fred Metcalfe

Revisiting the Twentieth Century: Book 1-the Twigbook 2-the Gopherbook 3-the Mating Call Fred Metcalfe

Revisiting the Twentieth Century, as the title suggests, is a collection of the author's experiences from his childhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, to those of him and his family before their move to New Jersey from North Carolina in 1955. The story covers amusing anecdotes he experienced in his student years, in a variety of summer laboring jobs, his early days with 3M in St. Paul, his bachelor life in New York, the courtship of his wife, their life in the High Point, NC and his job as salesman and sales manager. These anecdotes illustrate what life was like during this period which was marked by two shooting world wars, a depression and the threat of nuclear destruction. Against this background of international tumult, a great transformation in lifestyle occurred in the United States. At the beginning of the story, no one in his neighborhood has a car or a radio. Even the telephone and the record player were of recent origin. Families or churches took care of relatives and the poor went to the "poorhouse". The work week was sixty hours and payment for over-time was unheard of. Unions were fighting to improve the working man's lot in life, but were in their infancy. Neighborhood interdependency disappeared as the automobile shrunk distances and people achieved greater mobility. The change in lifestyle that occurred in this brief period seem somewhat unique in our history.