OCR Text |
Show High Timo By FLORENCE BITTNER The general concensus seems to be that our children will "enjoy" a lower standard of living than we do because we have been piggish and have used up more than our share of the earth's available resources. SUCH throw aways as four wrappings on a be r of soap, electric lights left burning, pleasure driving and clothing discarded because it is out of style will not be available. So they say. There are those who equate a lower standard of living with a better way of life. "We are too cumbered by things. We need to get back to basics to learn to relate to nature and the fundamentals of life." So they say. AS ONE who has been there, let me have my say. AH these newfangled foofarrahs which are causing such clutter clut-ter to the environment are what makes living enjoyable. Take fuel as a for instance. I lived the first half of my life in houses without heat anywhere except kitchen and living room. Maybe you like sleeping under a half ton of wool blankets with frost as the top layer, but thank you just the same, not for me. And unless you've tried bathing in unheated bathrooms you really don't appreciate central heating. I KNOW we heat rooms for 24 hours in order to be comfortable com-fortable one hour, but oh the luxury of that comfortable hour. Mornings in a home without central heat are devoted to the argument of who gets to build the fire (Dad) and who gets to stand nearest the stove to get dressed (littlest child). REMEMBER long underwear? under-wear? Cotton stretches and bags and isn't warm enough and woolies stretch and shrink. Each washing the woolies are a little smaller and by spring we could tell who was wearing woolies because they hitched and squirmed when they sat. I even remember when paper bags were a luxury. I've seen store clerks wrap merchandise in the pages of newspaper which is very economical and you get used to seeing the lamb chops decorated with the prices from the weekly grocery ads because the ink comes off. Carrying home even the basics from the grocery store without a large paper bag becomes a practice in dexterity. And things tend to leak. LETS talk about preservatives preserva-tives for a minute. How do you suppose we are able to keep foods around for a week or so or sometimes shelf foods for months? Do you know what stale, rancid foods taste like? Before preservatives and refrigerators, we ate leftovers left-overs until there were none then a new batch was cooked up. None of this three and four items for dinner every day and each day a new menu. We didn't wonder what we'd have to eat on Monday because we knew it would be the remains of Sunday dinner. Tuesday was stew or hash. Wednesday would see the start of a new pot of beans and we had beans on Thursday. BREAD was baked fresh daily or at most every other day and we told ourselves we liked our bread soaked in milk. Where do you think bread and milk came from? It was the way to use up the stale bread without fracturing teeth. I could go into the glories of fresh milk at great length. but the memories of being tied to a cow mornings and evenings are too painful. COWS HAVE to be milked twice a day and approximately approxi-mately on time whether you have the flu, gout, or a chance to go on a world cruise. They also have to be fed, taken to pasture, cleaned up after and doctored and they "come fresh" annually which means the joys of motherhood. I could recall the glories of fresh butter and where it comes from, homemade 1 cheese and how quickly it molds, the scouring and scalding necessary when dealing with that lovely fresh milk, but I will simply sum it all up by saying I have a great fondness for milk which is delivered in bottles, same as cows and butter which comes wrapped and possibly preserved so it doesn't become rancid within five days. THERE are certainly many superflous items in our daily lives which we would neer miss, and I am all for taking a good look at what we throw away. I am also in favor of taking a good look at the houseful I have accumulated and which I could donate at least half of it to the underprivileged un-derprivileged in developing nations and then not replace it. Life would certainly be simpler, and housekeeping would be a breeze if someone would go through my house and my life and throw about half of everything away. Not me. I've tried and I can't part with any of it, but if someone else would make the decisions, I wouldn't holler. But I would demand veto rights. YOU can have all second wrappings on anything. You can have most of the fabrics which have to be ironed or dry cleaned. You can have the piles and stacks of reading material except for the books which are the stuff of life. You can even have the electric knife, toothbrush, and shoe polisher. I can use muscle power for some chores. I will defend with great enthusiasm such non essentials essen-tials as automatic clothes driers, automatic washers, refrigerators, freezers, wash and wear clothing, central heating and air conditioning and automatic transmission. TVE BEEN a pioneer and thank you just the same, I like the cluttered life. It's so comfortable. |