Maybe all of you are getting tired of Social Security. Why do I think that? Well, I got on my calculator and figured out that in the past 29 years, I have written about 1,500 columns about Social Security. And it's rather interesting to note that I have never had so much feedback to a column as I did to a recent one that had almost nothing to do with Social Security. Instead, it was a column I wrote in honor of my wife's birthday — reminiscing about 1944, the year she was born.

That bit of nostalgia kindled something in my readers because I got so many emails commenting on what I wrote. And what I wrote had a lot to do with what was going on in the world in 1944. And one event in particular sparked a lot of feedback. I pointed out that on the very day my wife was born, Sept. 2, 1944, future President George H.W. Bush's plane was shot down over the Pacific. But I didn't say "plane." I said "jet." And about a hundred guys (and they all were guys) wrote to me to point out that he was actually flying a propeller-driven Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber. Sorry about that!

And many of you commented on the language of some of the ads I shared from a copy of a September 1944 "Look" magazine. And many said that they also enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane by looking at old magazines and newspapers.

So anyway, all of that historical interest in the years when many of us were just starting out in the world has prompted me to do a bit more research and reminiscing. This time, back to 1949, because that's when a future Social Security columnist was born. And speaking of Social Security, I promise I will tie in a bit of Social Security history before I'm done.

I'm looking at a copy of "Life" magazine from June 27, 1949. It's fun to look at the ads for long-gone cars such as the DeSoto, the Nash, the Hudson and the Imperial. Actually, at different times in my young life, our family owned a Nash and an Imperial.

But I saw one intriguing ad for a car I never heard of: the Anglia. It seems as though for a while after World War II, the Ford Motor Company was manufacturing this automobile in Britain and then importing it to the United States. The ad said it was "America's lowest-priced English automobile." I guess Ford's experiment didn't work out because, even though I'm a bit of a fan of English cars (my dream is to one day own a Morris Minor), I never heard of an Anglia.

One more car ad that intrigued me was from Chrysler. They were touting their newest product available in 1949 models: an ignition key that started the engine. I'm not much of a car guy, but a little bit of research tells me that back then, most cars had a key to turn on the ignition, but there was a separate button to actually start the engine. I guess the Chrysler innovation got rid of that separate starter button. Isn't it interesting how we have come full circle on that, with many modern cars going back to keyless push-button starting systems!

Another fun ad was for that relatively new entertainment device called the "television." And back then, all the TV sets were huge pieces of furniture with a tiny screen, maybe 15 inches square, built into them.

A related ad was for a rooftop antenna "to bring you the clearest fuzz-free picture possible." Gosh, I remember the antenna on the house I grew up in during the 1950s in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. And we must have had a deluxe model because it featured a little gizmo rotor-type thing on top of our TV. We could turn it one way and the antenna on the roof would point south toward Milwaukee and pick up the four TV stations there. Or we could turn it to the north and pick up the three stations in Green Bay. We felt so special because we had a choice of seven television programs to watch at any one time!

There also was an ad for a newfangled household appliance called the washing machine featuring a deluxe "Control-o-Roll Wringer." I remember helping my mom take the soaking wet laundry out of the washing machine and running it through the wringer a couple of times to squeeze as much water out as possible before hanging the clothes on a line outside to dry. Of course, this was before the dryer became a part of every household's laundry room.

A news article in the June 27, 1949 edition of Life magazine shared the results of a poll of 1,000 Chicago working "girls" — asking them what they wanted out of life. The top three answers were "a husband, a good typewriter and a pressure cooker!" It didn't say if their wishes were in that particular order!

Another news story pointed out that Ted Williams became the highest-paid player in baseball when he signed a one-year $100,000 contract with the Boston Red Sox! How times have changed. I'm guessing that today, a Major League Baseball team's locker room attendant makes 100K each year. And according to an Associated Press study, the "average" annual salary of an MLB player in 2026 is $5.34 million!

Yet another news story reported that "Hitler's car," something called the "Volkswagen," was going to start selling in the United States.

And finally, another story told readers that scientists discovered that a substance in a little-known agricultural product called the soybean could be used to make glue. Well, I guess that was just the beginning because, of course, today, the soybean is used in thousands of ways, from industrial products to food and cosmetics. I don't know this, but I'm guessing it must be just about the most versatile crop in the world. And it all started in 1949 when some scientist squeezed some goop out of a soybean to make glue!

OK, as I said at the start of this column, I've got to somehow tie some news about Social Security into this discussion of the world in the year I was born. Well, in 1949, Social Security had just over 3 million beneficiaries, compared to 71 million today. And the average monthly retirement benefit was a whopping $24, compared to about $2,100 per month today.

Not much really happened to Social Security in 1949. But the very next year, the 1950 amendments made a lot of changes to the program. A major one extended mandatory Social Security coverage to self-employed people for the first time. But interestingly, doctors were excluded. Why? Because at the time, the American Medical Association was one of the strongest lobbying groups in the country. And their members (mostly doctors) didn't think that the government should be involved in people's retirement finances. It wasn't until 1965 that the AMA finally caved in and doctors started paying Social Security taxes.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called "Social Security — Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security." The other is "Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts." You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets. Or you can send him an email at [email protected]. To find out more about Tom Margenau and to read past columns and see features from other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Kier in Sight Archives at Unsplash