The Year 1946

It's hard to believe, but it's now September. And that means another birthday. I was born in 1946, which means I have traveled 79 revolutions around the sun. One revolution is 584,000,000 miles, so my 79 trips equate to 45,820,000,000 miles. Perhaps all that traveling in my lifetime explains why I'm so tired all the time.

Our world has changed drastically since I took my first trip around the sun in 1946. World War 2 was finally over. America's economy experienced a post-war boom as our country shifted from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy. America was on the verge of entering a period of great prosperity. It would be a good time to join the world.

The economy and cost of living are always important topics for every generation. Prices and the cost of living were very different back in 1946. The minimum wage was $0.40 an hour, with the average annual income for a non-farm family being $2,600. For individuals not living in a family, the average yearly income was approximately $1,100. Purchasing homes or renting costs were far different from today's high costs. In 1946, the average price of a new home was $5,150. The average rent was $35. As of the first quarter of 2025, the average price of a new home in the United States was $503,800, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The average monthly rent in the US in June 2025 was $1,636.

Having spent my entire adult life in education, I decided to share some statistics about education in 1946. The high school graduation rates for the 1945-46 school year in the United States were 47.9%. Of that 47.9%, just 48.3% went on to college.

Farming was an essential part of American life in 1946. My grandparents raised nine children on a 40-acre farm just northwest of Dorchester. He was still farming that land when I was born in 1946. While I could not find the exact number of farms in the United States in 1946, I did discover that there were 5.6 million farms throughout the United States in 1950. In 2025, that number had dropped to 1.88 million.

Yes, the world has undergone significant changes since I was born. However, so have I. Both the world and I look much different. The only difference is that the world continues to make its yearly journey around the sun at the same speed as it always has. Yet, I make my travels at a much slower speed. It is called aging.

G UEST