DINOSAURS

January 25, 2010

This one is for the old folks. You know who you are. If you’re younger than 50 hit the “back button” and read something else. You won’t understand this one and that will make you either unhappy or mad. Don’t want that.

For the rest of the over-the-hill gang, I just have to ask, has anyone called you a dinosaur yet? You are one you know, and yes, so are we. We are leftovers from a time which truly will die with us.

Confused? Give it a little thought. 

Our grandparents most likely lived before electricity and telephones were in every home. Food was eaten fresh or canned, smoked or dried. Refrigeration was storing food in the pump house or an icebox. Remember them? You put a 25 pound chunk of ice in the top and the food you wanted to keep chilled in the bottom. There were even special recipes like icebox cookies (which I still make) or various ‘cakes’ which were built of real whipped cream, graham crackers and perhaps a tin of crushed pineapple. Chilled overnight and served with Sunday dinner. (Remember them?)

The little house with the moon on the door was not a joke. The outhouse ruled in most households, running water wasn’t in the picture yet. They may have been a pump in the kitchen sink. Plumbing as we know it didn’t exist.

Families had several children, it took many hands to work the fields, take care of livestock and the garden, wood had to be gathered and split. These were hard working folks who lived a very basic life - but read their diaries and journals and you find they were happy lives. They worked together, respected and loved each other.

Books were treasured and the Bible read aloud in most homes. When the work day was done the children invented their own games, played outside and learned more about nature than most of us will ever know.

Horses were still the means of getting work done on the farms and everywhere else. The big machines were still a generation away.

The big events were weddings, funerals, Grange picnics, family reunions and church on Sunday.

Henry Ford invented the assembly line around 1908 and by 1915 and cheap transportation was rolling off the lines. You could have any color you wanted as long as it was black. Jobs were available for the masses.  Some people left the farm and came to the towns where industry was just beginning. Our country was on wheels, traveling, exploring, and if you saw any of the PBS series on our National Parks you know this was the beginning of them as well. The children, our parents, grew up to take advantage of the industrial revolution. Electric came to most homes, the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) dammed the rivers and brought electricity to the most far strung dwellings. Anyone who wanted it could have it. Light to the world. Radio followed, with the Grand Old Opre sending mountain music as far as WSM could reach in 1925. Not to take this too far, but all the country/western music you hear today is the result of those first radio broadcasts.

Did your grandparents have a telephone? Do you remember what kind? Did you have to turn a handle and pick up the mouthpiece and talk to the operator? What would they have thought of the cell phone you carry around?

The Great Depression officially ended in 1936, but our country suffered through what was a world-wide financial disaster into the 1940's.

Then Pearl Harbor happened. The Japanese declared war and joined with Germany in World War 2. American young men volunteered, and the congress declared a draft to direct those who didn’t volunteer into the armed forces. The world was already at war for a couple of years before we were attacked, and it took four years for our country to get up to full strength to fight. It was a terrible and bloody war.  our dad or grandfather - or some family member likely fought in that war. Many of us with family military backgrounds were also drawn into serving in Korea or Viet Nam. The wars they fought, that kind of warfare is gone, thankfully.   

The war put our country back on a sound financial basis and life overall improved after the war.

Your parents had the benefits their parents would never have even imagined or dreamed of. The veterans had the opportunity to get an education. The GI Bill provided money for college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s) as well as one year of unemployment compensation. It also provided many different types of loans for returning veterans to buy homes and start businesses. By the time the original GI Bill ended in July 1956, 7.8 million World War II veterans had participated in an education or training program. Another 2.4 million had home loans. (Yes, there still is a form of GI Bill.)

That’s how the “Great Generation” was created. They were our parents – and a great number of them have already passed on. The country they built/created became the most advanced, richest in the world. Because of them we are the envy of the rest of the world.

They saw automobiles; industry, air planes, jet power, the atom bomb, television, space development, medicine, sub-divisions and most lived long enough to see computers and cell phones. Although they probably fought the need to be plugged in or tuned in they still had the desire to see the real actual world around them and be part of it, independent to the end.

They still treasured books, their family, the world of nature and their church. Americans loved their country, respected the government and believed in God. 

And then there is us. It would be good to remember our past. Not much is being written about where we came from. We indeed are the end of an era. 

Take a look at the kids today. Plugged in and wired is an understatement. They are constantly engaged, plugged in, entertained, occupied and enthralled with various electronic devices. They don’t have much use for books unless it is available on the Internet. There is little or no interest in doing anything outdoors, unless of course they can bring all the electronic toys with them.

The numbers of kids in church is alarmingly low, there really isn’t any interest and their parents, opps that might be you, really don’t see what their folks thought was so great about going to church. Being concerned about where one might spend their eternity just isn’t relevant. 

If our generation of Baby Boomers doesn’t meet the expectations of our parents, wonder where the current “Me” generation is going? If it isn’t on Face Book or Twitter or some other social networking vehicle it can’t be of value. That doesn’t say much for our current status does it?

Do you realize we are the very last bastions of unplugged disengaged people? Oh sure, you’re reading this on a computer, but you still know what a newspaper and book are. Right? You probably have a cell phone, but is it permanently attached to your ear - and does your phone bill show how much it costs to ‘tweet’ your buds? Can you still carry on a real conversation with adult type people? Can you get through a meal without having to text someone? I sure hope so.

Hold on to your shorts - we really are dinosaurs. When we pass from this earth a whole way of life will be gone. There just aren’t that many little old people in log cabins on the top of mountains off the grid who have found all the secrets of life and will be able to pass them on to the generations who have lost a way of life. 

And since you can’t tweet or text them, how can you ask?

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