Many of us remember days gone by when we think things were simpler. Life didn’t have some of the quirks and twists of today.
A drug store was a drug store, not a variety store. If you wanted to purchase something, you got in the car and went to the store to get it. Milk was delivered in bottles to houses. The newspaper was delivered by a carrier, and people knew their mailman.
Kids played in the front yard, and in the back yard, and in a neighbor’s yard. Kids also played in the dirt, making roads with toy trucks and cars.
Neighbors knew neighbors, and so neighborhoods felt safe. Kids were allowed to roam around the neighborhoods, because moms knew the other moms on the street. All the moms were watching out for their own kids as well as the neighbors’ kids.
Mothers cooked meals for their families, and families ate at the kitchen table. Sometimes people would stop by to visit in the home, sometimes unannounced.
If you found you were short on sugar in the house, you might grab a measuring cup and go next door to borrow a cup of sugar, or something else, because neighbors were neighborly.
When we think of those times, we may remember them as more simple times, and maybe in some ways they were. Without a doubt, our society has changed a lot since a drug store was just a drug store, and kids could play in the neighborhood without moms worrying about them.
Today, we would not be satisfied with that simple life we had years ago. Now, we are used to more modern conveniences, technology. In fact, we are dependent on our devices and inventions, and they were designed to make our lives simpler.
I don’t remember a time when I had to churn cream to make butter, or use a wringer washing machine, but I do remember not having some of the modern conveniences we have today.
I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. Our family of five had one car. We had a refrigerator with a door that locked, and the freezer had to be periodically defrosted. I remember having to use an ice pick and a saucepan with boiling water to get the ice off the walls of the freezer.
I remember not having air conditioning in our home in Florida, and having linoleum tile on the floor with no carpet. There was no air conditioning in school either.
We had one phone in the house, permanently wired into the wall. Long distance calls were very costly. We had no family living in our town, so letters were our communication with our cousins, my parents’ brothers and sisters and their parents. We didn’t text or email, or have cell phones.
Clothes had to be ironed, or else shirts and dresses had wrinkles. We didn’t have a dryer, so washed clothes had to hang on a clothesline in the back yard.
I learned to type on a manual typewriter. If I made a mistake, I had to retype or use correction tape. There was no auto-correct. I also had to use a physical dictionary or thesaurus if I needed to think of a synonym or definition of a word. I couldn’t use Google or Wikipedia.
These are just a few of the things that have changed over the years. We didn’t miss the modern conveniences because we didn’t have them, but we could not eliminate them now and be satisfied without them today.
Neighbors can still be neighborly. It may take a little more effort, because we’re now used to an expectation of privacy in our homes. People don’t drop in to visit anymore. A phone call before a visit is expected, but if we expect our society to continue to be a caring and considerate one, we must remember to reach out to others.
Get to know your neighbors. At the very least, know who lives on either side of you, and right across the street from you. It’s important.
Enjoy your weekend with all your modern conveniences and devices.
— My love to all,
Nancy
• • •
In everything, give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
— I Thessalonians 5:18