Excerpts from a “the way things were” email:
“My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). “
“We didn't have a television in our house until I was 19. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people..."
“I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.”
“Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.”
“All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 6 AM every morning.”
“Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive."
There are plenty of stories that get passed around the internet on how things used to be. How going to the movies cost a nickel and how children played in the neighborhood until the streetlights came on. I didn’t go to the movies as a kid, nor did I often play in streets. About half of my childhood was in a rural setting with the balance in more urban neighborhoods. The the stories about how life in town sixty years ago are quite novel to me, while stories of rural life in the same era aren’t quite so foreign.
I’m glad Paw Paw Vann was born in 1899 (98?) because Dad was born when Paw Paw was about 50. That means the way Dad was raised “skipped a generation” so to speak, as if he had been born 30 years prior. So I think part of how I was raised came from a parent with a Depression Era childhood, even though he didn’t actually live through it. The house he grew up in looked to be about 1,000 square feet, wood and stone, with animal pens and barns around it. And every face in every picture I see of Dad’s family in front of that stone wall or on that porch had a smile on them (for the most part). Possibly as a result of this generational anomaly, I find I relate better to those who are 30 years my senior than the ipod/Facebook generation. Whatever contributed to my parents style of child-rearing their values, in turn instilled by their parents, helped mold me into who I am and how I view the world.
I am 30. I saw my first Nintendo consol around age 8, which appeared to be magic to me. How was this child who owned it able to manipulate that screen? I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons with my brother and we had to wait until 6 AM for programming to resume. The first thing that played was the national anthem. Granted, the background scene was F-15 jets soaring through the air – in color, no less. Apparently NBC still liked America back then. My worldview is partially shaped by a family who did without and didn’t seem to have a need for modern accoutrements. A family whose values included frugality, making-do, improvising, common sense and virtue. My mother’s family and my father’s family share much the same values. While most of my childhood memories are of Dad’s family, Mother’s family is comprised of intelligent and resourceful people, as well as the make-do, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps individualists.
Even if we were pretty well “poor” when I was little, I never knew it then. My parents never complained about financial status and never made us feel like we went without. It was just the way things were and I knew no different way of life existed. The games my brother and I played were made more of imagination than plastic. The clothes I wore had “previous experience” and patches (parents, don’t ever try to make “cool” patches for your kids jeans). I never knew what Wranglers were until we got some hand-me-downs from my cousins. Rustlers were synonymous with blue jeans and when they wore out, they went into a pile to be disassembled and made into rugs, backpacks, blankets and other useful items.
I’m glad Mom is a good cook but I wouldn’t have known what fast food I was missing out on anyway since we really didn’t eat out. Even if Dad had a bad day we were still going to have supper around the table. I still had to ask to be excused. I had to eat what I put on my plate and complaining about my options was not an option. Even if the conversation was the obligatory check on how school was going, we still had it. And we prayed before every meal. Man, what a rough childhood. But I expect that way of life was no different between rural and urban households across America, just maybe in different proportions.
I remember an old green pickup without child seats, where I could stand on the bench seat if we were driving through the pasture. I remember beat up trucks that still kept running because calloused hands made sure they did and the stuff they were made from lasted. I remember a swing set that was really a horse walker. I remember a trusty rifle cut out of a 1x4. I remember solid metal toys. I remember plaid shirts, pliers in back pockets, equipment and fences held together with bailing wire, and chewing tobacco in sandwich bags. Sneaking black jelly beans with Paw Paw was a real treat because we didn’t get candy very often. I remember bicycles that were cobbled together from several donors. I remember cars that started with screwdrivers and taping flashlights to the car so we would have head lights. I remember my mother putting on makeup in a broken mirror because she wouldn’t spend the money on a new one. I remember Mom sewing for fun and necessity and showing me how to mend a ripped seam. I remember watermelons on the front porch that we picked up out of the field because they were “too big” to be sold in stores. I remember cur dogs, muddy pigs and egg carton ships in mud puddles. I remember rock walls, wood floors, storm cellars and vegetable gardens. I remember the smell of hay barns and auction barns, the smell of sweat, the smell of corn cribs and molasses, the smell of ripe figs and ripe peaches, the smell of axle grease, and cattle cubes. I remember falling asleep in church services because I was worn out from the week. I remember houses built by the hands of the people that lived in them and houses passed down in families. I remember Grandad’s workshop and Granny having sliced tomatoes with her eggs. I remember shelves loaded with canned vegetables and fruits. I remember people dealing in cash.
I loved the smell of a feed store and the squeak of the boards under foot. The men you met there were tough on the outside and yet kind. Their overalls were torn but their morals were intact. Some had new trucks, some had old trucks, but most were paid for.
I can see how my family and extended family have changed over the years. We get together in nicer houses these days because people have worked hard to get there. The younger generations seem to be just as caught up in their electronic devices as much as their peers. I have received gifts from family members but they don’t last as long or are as treasured as much as the values and the lessons those family members taught me. Many of those lessons were not enjoyable at the time, nor were they evident in the moment. The value of hard work. Decency above profit. Courtesy and respect. Satisfaction in overcoming obstacles. Laughing around the supper table after a work day. I recall few situations when family talked about how difficult life was or how they were underprivileged. I do remember family continually plugging away and enduring through the years.
Sometimes I walked to school, sometimes I rode the bus and sometimes Mom drove me there. We did have a TV, but not cable. I didn’t have a room full of toys but I did have an imagination. We did go out to eat but only on special occasions and it wasn’t to McDonalds. I didn’t learn how to play golf but I did learn how to kick the can. I didn’t have video games (until much older) but I did have a lot of books. I didn’t know the names of music and movie stars, but I did know the difference between a pipe wrench and a crescent wrench.
I suppose the moral of the story is you can have it too good. Life can be too easy. You don’t appreciate what you have if you get everything you want and you don’t appreciate leisure without work. Like Dad says, “without a little rain you get a desert.” And I suppose you don’t appreciate morals without experiencing how they guide the lives of great people around you. Along the same lines, the greatness of some people is only visible through hindsight.
I am blessed to have the family I do – from my dad’s side and my mother’s. Incidentally, they are still married and I that's just a foregone conclusion. From them I understand that happiness is truly not found in the sum of one’s possessions but in the quality of one’s relationships and satisfaction in one’s endeavors. Have you ever noticed that a child tends to be happy in a house that has few possessions as long as there is a smile on his parents’ face? We have all seen children who are unhappy in a family that showers them with toys because the emphasis is placed on the toys.
I suppose the stories I see floating around the internet about how things used to be and what people had 50 years ago or more don’t really teach me as much about how tough life was in the past as they teach me the value of satisfaction. How much human capital has been squandered over the pursuit of stuff? How many children’s’ lives have been spoiled rotten because they weren’t taught to be happy with what they have? Those same stories also teach me that morals, values, and ethics are hard earned, yet their deficit leaves a person empty, bitter, and selfish. Isn’t that amazing? Self restraint and determination are not easily employed by the heart of man. Yet if that effort is not made the heart of man cannot be satisfied. Giving a child everything he wants results in an adult that always wants more. Letting a child engage in whatever activities he wants results in a stunted and unfulfilled adult. Telling yourself and your children “No” today has the seemingly paradoxical result of achieving perspective in the future. Disciplining yourself and your children is hard in the near term but makes life easier in the long run. "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
I look back on what I have written and I realize I may have idolized my childhood. I have lived in rural and urban settings. I can't help but ask myself, is there greater virtue in being raised in the country or is there simply a different set of obstacles to overcome to reach the same virtue? Has our country changed to the point where the mindset “on the farm” is no more different than that of the city? Is the rural life the same as city life but with trucks, cell phones and cow-hide purses? Was there ever any virtue, or have I romanticized it? Is the public psyche today really any different in its fundamental makeup than in the 1950’s or even 1750’s? Solomon said there is nothing new under the sun. Man has always been selfish and prideful. Murder and theft is nothing new – we just find new ways of perpetrating them. War and conflict has always been part of the human existence. I believe past generations idolize their childhood as morally superior. Are greater proportions of the populace really more prone to avarice and pleasure than the past? Does the density of the city versus the isolation of the country really accelerate decay? And is that decay fundamentally different? Tangentially, is there virtue in a modest existence that is lacking in affluence? I ask you genuinely.
"Agriculture... is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1787. ME 6:277
“A city life offers you indeed more means of dissipating time, but more frequent, also, and more painful objects of vice and wretchedness." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1823. ME 15:469
