Reflections on Work and Change

And now I'm in the, uh,

uh, pretty well along in the next century, and now I

exercise a little, but I don't call it work. Uh,

I don't call this work.

Why, this is play. Do you see how nice that is?

Why I don't exactly call it work?

Do you know what work is? You don't.

Why, work's doing something you have to do.

When you're doing something that you want to do, like to do,

that's play.

Now, uh, a good many years ago, I don't like to tell you

quite how many, but-

You've seen many things happen, change in your days, King?

Oh, yes, yes, yes. We live

in a world of change.

The trees are just the same as they were when I was a boy, only larger.

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west,

but when I was a boy, we didn't have the telegraph,

and we didn't have the

telephone, of course, nor the electric lights, nor, uh, uh,

any of these

other

things which have come up to bother us and help us.

Bother us and, oh, well, they help us.

I suppose it's all right, but then

the good old days were pretty good, pretty good.

Don't you boys think that you're living in just the best time

in the

world's history?

It's pretty straight,

but it's no better than, uh, our fathers had, and I don't believe it's

very much better than our grandchildren's.

And now that's slow. Now the railroad's slow, slow.

Just now, this afternoon, going right up over here, I saw, I guess,

a dozen

airplanes going back and forth all the time,

and how long will it be, do you think, before that'll be slow?

It'll be good as slower than I am, uh, digging out these weeds.

And if you don't stop talking to me and bothering me and getting me to tell

about

old, old-fashioned times, why, I'll never get the weeds out.

Well, never mind. Never mind.

I want to play tomorrow.

What we don't do today, we can do tomorrow.

Huh.

All right.

Yes, yes, that's Hudson over there. Nice little city.

Not much larger now than when, uh, than it was when I was a boy.

Too many changes come over the little city, though,

in the river this side.

Why, I remember very well looking out of my

window,

I would see anywhere from 10 to 20, hardly ever less than 10,

sailing vessels on the river.

Now I don't see, uh, more than one in three months,

and very few

steamboats. Everybody went to New York then.

If they wanted to go in, uh, deluxe style,

why, they'd take a steamboat. If they wanted to go cheap,

they'd go on one of our

river sloops.

Yes, Hudson,

Hudson is about the same as it was when that Hudson River Railroad

first went through.

It, uh,

it, uh,

shows the marks, yes. There was a man killed there in blasting,

and the

blast hole is there still, quite many years ago.

Do you drive in a car much, Mr. King?

Do I ride in a car much?

Oh, no, no, no, not very much. I'm too old to get a license

and haven't nerves enough and, uh, quick enough to drive,

but I do ride in a car every once in a while.

And there's a case, talking about cars.

When I was a boy, about 14 years old, I wasn't very well, and

my father took me over the mountain, right over the Catskill Mountains.

We went 50 miles out to a boarding school,

old-fashioned boarding school,

and, uh, I was one of the youngest ones, but we went out with a

horse and buggy. Took us all day.

And, uh, when I wanted to come home, come in an old-fashioned

stagecoach with, uh, four horses or six or eight,

hung on straps, rock and shake,

and I had quite an experience going back and forth.

And then after 50 years, I wanted to see the old place again,

and my son took me

out. Started about 9:00 from home.

About half past 10:00, we were out there and visited a couple of

hours

and then thought we'd come home by the way of Kingston and got home long before

sundown. That's the difference between yesterday

and today