I tried to rewrite it below in what I think would be a modern colloquial way. (This is a difficult question because some things might be different based on region or social class, not just because of the time when it was recorded.)
Quite a few years ago, I'd rather not say exactly how many, but, well, I was born in the first half of last century, so you can guess how old I am.
And now I'm in the, eh, pretty far along in the next century.
Oh yeah. We live in a world of change.
The trees are just like they were when I was a boy, only bigger.
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 a telephone.
Of course, none of the electric lights, or any of the other stuff that's popped up to annoy us, or help us.
The good old days had a lot of good things, you guys shouldn't think you're somehow living in the best time in the history of the world.
We're safe, but it's no better than what our parents had, and I don't think it's much better than what our grandchildren will have.
Yep, that's Hudson over there. Nice little city.
Well, I remember very well, looking out my window. I'd see anywhere from 10 to 20, almost never less than 10, sailboats on the river. Now I don't see more than one every three months.
Very few steamboats. Whenever anybody went to New York then, if they wanted to go the modern way, they'd take a steamboat. If they wanted to go cheap, they'd go on one of those river sloops.
Do you know what work is? You don't? Well, work's doing something you have to do. When you're doing something you want to do, like to do, that's play.
And now I exercise a little, but I don't call it work. I don't call this work. This is play. You see how nice that is?