Facebook Posts - Remember When

You can criticize Facebook, but you must admit - some of the posts are 'cause to pause' with comparisons of today to the days when we 'boomers' grew up.  Here are a few good examples:

     'Checking out at the grocery store recently, the young cashier suggested I should bring my own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. I apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days." The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

     She was right about one thing -- our generation didn't have the green thing in “Our” day. So what did we have back then…? After some reflection and soul-searching on "Our" day here's what I remembered we did have....
   Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles repeatedly. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.
   We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.
   Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day.
   Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.
    We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. We did as we were asked BECAUSE WE RESPECTED OUR PARENTS
   But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?'

"If you were raised on bologna, biscuits & gravy, fried potatoes & soup beans, played in the dirt, got your butt busted, school started with "The Pledge," had a bedtime, rode in back of pickup trucks, recorded the top 40 from the radio on cassette tapes, drank from a hose, played in the creek, rode your bike all day without a helmet, your curfew was the sky getting dark, your mom called your name, not your cell.  You played outside with your friends, not online. If you didn't eat what your mom cooked, then you didn't eat. Sanitizer didn't exist, but you COULD get your mouth washed out with soap. You rode your bike without a helmet, getting dirty was OK, and the neighbors looked out for you as your parents did. Re-post if your drank from a garden hose and survived and/or - If you were raised on meat & potatoes, your crib was covered with lead based paint, road a bike with no helmet on gravel roads, your parents had no child proof lids or seat belts in cars, you got a lickin' when you misbehaved, had 3 TV channels you got up to change, school always started w/the Pledge of Allegiance, & stores closed Sunday, if you drank water out of a water hose and still turned out OK"

"I was raised to say please and thank you, to have respect for my elders, lend a helping hand to those who were in need, hold the door for the person behind me, say excuse me when it was needed and to love people for who they are, not for what you can get from them! I was also taught to treat people the way I want to be treated!"

"When I was a kid I didn't have a computer, cell phone, Nintendo DS, XBox, or Wii . I had dirt, roller skates, and a bike. If I didn't eat what my mom made, I didn't eat. And I dealt with it. I didn't think of telling my parents "no" or dare to talk back and or got in BIG TROUBLE if I did. Life wasn't hard, it was life.. And I survived"

And included are some comments on how our life was so much different than today -

"The world did not end. It's just being rebooted. Please be sure your security software is up to date. Run a full scan of your life and remove any malicious files which may be damaging your joy, stealing your hope, or slowing down your essings. If you need more instructions, please refer to the User's Manual, which is readily available, or put your hands together, bow your head and contact Tech Support." ♥"

"LIFE BEFORE THE COMPUTER:
Memory was something you lost with age......An application was for employment....A program was a TV show....A cursor used profanity...A keyboard was a piano...A web was a spider's home...A virus was the flu...A hard drive was a long trip on the road...A mouse pad was where a mouse lived...And if you had a 3 inch floppy...well, you just hoped nobody found out!!

Life lessons that my Mom taught me:
Religion - "You better pray that comes out of the carpet"
Logic - "Because I said so, that's why"
Irony - "Keep crying and I'll give you something to cry about"
Wisdom - "When you get to be my age, you'll understand"
Justice - "When you get old and have kids, I hope they turn out just like you!!"

Five pearls of Scottish wisdom to remember
1. Money cannot buy happiness but, it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes Benz than it is on a bicycle.
2. Forgive your enemy but remember the bastard’s name.
3. Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
4. Many people are alive only because it’s illegal to shoot them.
5. Alcohol does not solve any problem, but then neither does milk.

Other social comments:

In the sixties, 40-50 million boomers were passionate about the music we embraced as ours. The same group of musical artists carried us through the sixties, into the seventies, and right on to the present.

We were passionate about a war we did not understand, that we apparently could not win, and in which we were being ordered to die. We were passionately intolerant of an immoral government that lied to and misled us. Admittedly we have lost much of that zeal. Today, many of us are more passionate about getting the biggest SUV we can get our hands on, and looked the other way when our first boomer president lied to us. That is one of our severe shortcomings.

As I recall, it started in the mid-seventies with rocker Alice Cooper allegedly biting the head of a chicken off during his concerts. Or wait; is he the one who smashes his guitar on stage? No matter. These antics are part of the legacy absorbed by the X'ers. From there, it has "advanced" to what it is today - warning labels on the CDs of music aimed at our youth.

Gen-Xer Marcos writes, "Yes our generation is teen violence, Marilyn Manson, Columbine, but we are the ones left alone at home while our two BabyBoomer parents have forgotten their 60s idealism and only want more wealth, power and prestige." How would you reply to that, friends?

So criticize it if you will, my Facebook friends post a few 'gems' once in a while.  Try 'liking' your 'You know you are from ( your hometown or home state  ), if......" to find some real pertinent posts about what life used to be like.  

Happy New Years all!

Final Post of the Year

Christmas was wonderful this year with our three youngest grandchildren spending the night and opening their presents Christmas morning, just like they did when they were very small.  Of course the presents at this age are not what they used to be -- 3DX, DXi XL, laptop, video games -- and no early morning waking to get to their gifts.

This was our Christmas gift - having the young ones spend time with us.  We cooked dinner, enjoyed the meal, and spent the rest of the day playing video games.  They even had fun dancing to Just Dance 3.

Hope all of you had as great a holiday.  New Years celebration is fast approaching and I wanted to get off one more post before the final minute.  I wish to print these posts as a book for my family and this is my cut-off point. 

So what should I sum up the year with - I thought about posting information for kids on their father's family, the Earle's.  But I think I will leave that for the new year.  Another possibility was my husband's family.  His mother passed away last year and I've yet to do any posts on her family, the Wingate's, who were early settlers in the Treasure Valley.  But another that I will leave for the new year.  So I think I will stay with the immediate family.

There was one birth this year (nephew Jake finally got his son after two darling little girls), no deaths in the immediate family, two weddings (my brother Adrian's grandson, Michael in May and my sister's daughter, Christi in July), a family reunion (the Crawford family descendents meeting in Emmett in June), lots of birthdays and I hope I remembered all the events.  Our family is so thankful to live in Idaho where hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, slides, and other natural disasters seem to avoid us - the occasional earthquake, forest fire, avalanche and winter storm, but not extremely severe.

New Years is a time to reflect on these things, so hope you take a few moments to think about what has happened with you this year and find what makes you thankful. 

Still Trying to Write that Family History

In my continuing saga of writing the 'story of my life', I purchased Lois Daniel's How to Write Your Own Life Story.  While this is a very good book in its fourth edition, it is still challenging for someone with either a poor memory or huge part of her life that she has blocked out.

The second chapter that she proposes you write (after talking about the details and significance of your birth) is about toys, first memories, and so forth.  So, I've tried to remember toys that I had as a child and, for the life of me, I could not think of any except the Barbie doll that my sister bought me in 1963, when I was 16 (I know, pretty old for a doll, right?). She was so tickled to be able to buy me a nice doll with her own money.

It is times like now that I really miss my sister, Christina, because in this situation I would just call her up and she would rattle off all the toys I had.  She was ten years older than me, don't you know, so she would remember so much more about my early years than I could ever start to, at least up until she left home.

I tried asking my brothers, but they could only remember toys that they had, and just barely that.  Roger remembered getting a bow and arrow one year and we all had memories of the cars and trucks we used to drive up and down the hillside beside our home in Garden Valley. Roger also thought he had a BB gun at one point or maybe a western gunfighter set.  He did finally mention that he thought I had a baby doll that you feed water and it wet its pants (Betsy Wetsy??).

Our family was really poor (and big) with my father's job cutting trees in the national forests only being during the summers and money being short in the winter time when Christmas came around.  So of course we did not get a lot of gifts at Christmas time.  And you would think, with a father that was around trees all the time, that our Christmas trees would be full, beautiful ones - not so.  Here's a picture of one of them that was pretty typical of our trees and not many packages for 8 kids (and about the tree selection, maybe he wanted to save the nice ones so they would grow into lots of board-feet for future cutting):

Well, anyway, back to my memories of toys - my last resort was to go to the internet and check for toys of the 1950s.  There I found a bunch of toys that I remember we had a one time in our home, whether they were family toys, brothers' toys or mine, I don't know.  The list includes the slinky,

Wooly Willy Magnetic drawing toy,

Pic-up Stix,

Jacks,

Thumbelina doll,

Tinker Toys,

and the hula hoop.

My husband shared that he had several Daisy Air Rifles sent to him over the years by his aunt (his father's sister Reta) who worked for the company in the Bentonville, Arkansas area.  He was the oldest of three kids, having a younger sister and brother so there weren't as many kids for which to buy toys.

Do you remember any or all of these toys?  Many of these are also toys my children were still playing with in the 1970s and 80s.  Not so today.  With the booming of the technology/electronic age, kids today would be bored to death with jacks or pic-up stix (unless it was a DSL, Wii, or XBOX game). 

I think I've mentioned before that my first memory was sitting on top of a chest freezer, gazing out the window at my brothers playing, confined to the house because I had measles, chicken pox, or some other childhood illness.  Other memories are jogged by looking at family snapshots taken of me during these times, but I don't recall a picture like this so it must have been an impressive memory.