My mother recently sent me 14 pages (in very small print) of stories and memories of growing up in South Dakota during the Depression, the Dust Bowl, and World War II. I use the phrase "living memory" for that, since I can still retrieve those memories from someone who was really there. After she leaves us, "living memory" becomes shorter - down to Truman and the Korean War, Eisenhower, and atomic bomb drills (as if going under your school desk would have protected you from an A-bomb). We saw Sputnik and the rise and fall of Communism. My generation first rode in the back of pickup trucks with the wind in our faces and old Nashes and propeller planes. Before we hit 25, people had landed on the moon.
I am grateful that I have indoor plumbing rather than an outhouse. I'm happy to have computers and other technology. I'm excited that we don't die of polio, the Black Plague, and other horrible diseases.
I am grateful that I have indoor plumbing rather than an outhouse. I'm happy to have computers and other technology. I'm excited that we don't die of polio, the Black Plague, and other horrible diseases.
I believe that my generation was the last one to experience a free and open childhood. We were allowed to ride bikes on the road, climb trees and build treehouses without someone spotting us all the time. We had chores, making us responsible. We learned common sense - although my generation is also the one that threw it away and grabbed for drugs, an amoral lifestyle, and entitlements.
The smell of a milk house can take me right back to age five. I climbed barbed wire fences and fed handfuls of grass to my grandfather's heifers. Now my grandfather's farm has become a community of airline pilots with a runway for small commuter planes where we used to throw down hay for the cows.
We weren't so tightly scheduled as today's children are. Sometimes I wonder, between music lessons, karate, track, and softball, when today's children find time to sleep or do homework.
Schools have changed. Phonics works. Some of these other systems that purport to teach reading don't work. There is at least one shelver at the library who isn't too sure of alphabetical order, and I've run across more than one store clerk who didn't understand math very well.
Cartoons have changed. We had Fractured Fairy Tales with Edward Everett Horton and Mighty Mouse. TV programs have certainly changed. Robert and Laura Petrie slept in twin beds. No need to explain what we are given as standard TV fare now.
The smell of a milk house can take me right back to age five. I climbed barbed wire fences and fed handfuls of grass to my grandfather's heifers. Now my grandfather's farm has become a community of airline pilots with a runway for small commuter planes where we used to throw down hay for the cows.
We weren't so tightly scheduled as today's children are. Sometimes I wonder, between music lessons, karate, track, and softball, when today's children find time to sleep or do homework.
Schools have changed. Phonics works. Some of these other systems that purport to teach reading don't work. There is at least one shelver at the library who isn't too sure of alphabetical order, and I've run across more than one store clerk who didn't understand math very well.
Cartoons have changed. We had Fractured Fairy Tales with Edward Everett Horton and Mighty Mouse. TV programs have certainly changed. Robert and Laura Petrie slept in twin beds. No need to explain what we are given as standard TV fare now.
Nietzsche declared God dead and the spiritual void has been filled with earth worship (paganism), psychic experimentation, and witchcraft. (I know what is requested out of the religion section at the library.) Prayer was taken out of the public schools and, at almost the same time, abortion was declared legal. The value of life has been cheapened.
While I appreciate the benefits of living today, sometimes the exchange makes me sad.
We'll get to some happy memories next time.
Kathi
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