Life is easier today

a Stodghill Says So blog:
Too busy on a couple of major projects to spend time blogging, but I was thinking how fast a popular saying can become obsolete. When I was a kid back in the 1930s an oft-heard one was, "Now you're cooking with gas." It meant you were right up to date, really getting somewhere, moving ahead in the world. No more carrying coal or wood to feed a stove. Now you just turned a handle, struck a match, held it over the jets and up shot the flames. You were cooking with gas.
Life is easy today. People don't seem to realize that, but it's true. Back then you used a push mower to mow the lawn. You washed clothes on a washboard or, if you were really prosperous, with a washing machine that still required a lot of physical work. No clothes driers so you hung everything out on a clothesline to dry. On rainy Mondays they had to be hung in the basement. No wash-and-wear clothing so everything had to be ironed. Lucky women had a Hoover or Eureka but most used a broom and dustpan to clean the floor. They scrubbed floors on hands and knees. After every meal they washed and dried the dishes by hand.
In cool or cold weather you fired up the furnace and kept it going by heaping on coal at regular intervals. You carried out the ashes when they began to pile up. You emptied the water container under the ice box, but very carefully so you didn't end up making a mess.
There was much more, of course. The mother had the worst of it but there was plenty to do for the father and the kids. Keeping a house running smoothly meant hard work. Does anyone darn socks today? Does anyone alter clothes so someone else can wear them? Probably not too many.
Time to get back to work while I'm still cooking with gas.

Modern conveniences made it possible for women to return to the formal workplace and have three jobs: homemaker, mother and income producer on top of the role of wife and partner. I'm not so certain that is all a good thing.

I don't miss pulling frozen sheets off the lines in the backyard at mom's; but I do miss the sheets blowing in the breeze in springtime and a freshly made bed. Some gym memberships could be abandoned in favor of mowing with a push mower and pulling the clothes through the wringer.

It was fun to have our parents open the door in the morning and collect us at night in the summer. Can't do that today; too dangerous. Coming home to a hot tray of cookies after school beats extended day programs, television or video games.

I know the world will evolve in a new direction because of technology. I think our lives have programmed obsolescence so we don't have to adjust to changes forever, just a few along the way. The new generations have brains already following paths that ours will never touch.

There was still a nice feeling in the spring from the sheets blowing in the wind, and a fresh made bed. I still smell those cookies. I miss the open doors, screen doors swinging to and fro and mothers yelling, "don't let the dog out (or in)."

Dick,
Thank you. I am glad you are still at it.
It is much easier today.

I wonder if people are happier now ?

Dick,
your blog was a walk down memory lane for me.
I think it is good to remember how things were. It helps us appreciate many things we have today. I say many, but not all. Much of the physical labor was beneficial. The chores, and there were many, kept the family working together. Today we have many conveniences that make life easier, and in many areas, too easy.
There is another aspect often overlooked and that has to do with independence. People are no longer dependent on the family and don't stay home or remain in their home area. They go their own way, moving to far away places for employment, or just to get away. If they succeed, they take pride in being self-sufficient. If they fail, many return home, assuming they have a home to return to.
Is home truly where the heart is?

Yep life can be considered easier from that point of view Dick.
We used to throw coal on the fire to warm the house and heat the water. Treking out in the cold at night to empty the ash pan and fill a bucket of coal to bring in so that the fire did not die overnight.

But now days with modern tech we have a faster pace of life, it's side kick is called stress. The mobile phone ensures that my working day is crammed full. I travel often hundreds of miles a day servicing peoples Fire Alarms. I get phone calls while driving care of my office and hand free technology. There is no escape.

Every other week I am on call which means that at home I can't relax because of the darn phone.
Yes life is easier for those people who want inclusive service and can pick up the phone and demand that you come out at 2am to silence a fire alarm that went off because they burnt the toast or caught the frying pan on fire because they were too drunk to watch it properly or because they were just stupid enough to stand under a smoke detector and light up a cigar.

When I was a kid I mistakenly assumed that when I grew up we would be living life like the Jetsons. Doh! What an Idiot!

Oh good post as always Dick sorry for appearing to rant a little.

Don't blame you for ranting. My pet hate is the telephone and I no longer have to go out to fix things. Your story reminds me of the 1950s when I was working at a TV and radio repair shop. Can't remember how many times I went on a service call only to find the "dead" TV was unplugged. Then the people would say, "You mean you're going to charge me for a service call when all you did was plug in the cord?"
I have to admit that I once lit my pipe while standing beneath a hotel fire alarm.

Abe, your point about people no longer staying around home is one reason universal health care is so important today. Families no longer stay together and care for each other when the need arises.

I love modern technology, partly from my inventor grandfather's visions and dreams for the future, like when he told us in the 1950s we'd have microwave ovens someday.

I guarantee you can live for quite a while on food cooked in a microwave. I'd lean on the counter and put in the food and stand there until it was ready. Regular cooking would have been dangerous for me in my past condition.

I have called the washer machine person when I had put the dial in a place that shut the whole machine down, and I knew better, but I still paid him for his coming out to fix it.

Electricity goes out often at our cabin. Last week when we left we vacuumed with the dust buster and I held the flashlight while my husband could wash the kitchen floor. We need no air conditioning there.

Carol

10/6/2009
....
I remember in the 1950's where my Mother went ,we went. I remember in Brooklyn there was a candy store on the corner and if you got a quarter you were wealthy, candy then was 5 cents and still a penny, you were in heaven and you were rich !

The movies were 75 cents, you saw two films, cartoons and a news reel. I remmeber my Mother having a washing machine and hanging the clothes out to dry, sometimes in the winter she would forget they were outside and they would be stiff as a board..A quart of milk when it was on sale was four for a dollar.

I remember I had a teacher in the 4th grade, Mrs. Siegel, she told the class you bring in seventy five cents a month and you can order any book you like, I ordered books by an author Frank Edwards, " Stranger Than Strange," " Stranger Than Fiction." I have never forgot her, she got me into reading and going to the library, till this day I still think about her, how many kids today have a teacher like that , not many.

Cheers.Joe...

I was three when my family moved into the house that had been my grandparent's home before they retired to Kerrville.

I have a clear memory of an old cast iron wash pot in the back yard. I don't think mother actually used it. Her mother used the one at the farm in East Texas, so I can remember how it was done. A wood fire was lit under it, and the water brought to a boil. The sheets were sanitized in it before being hung on the line.

Mom had a wringer washer in the old washroom attached to the garage. I remember that wringer well. I once caught my arm in it. I was young enough at the time that I had this image in my head of my hand and arm coming out the other side, flattened out like the roadrunner in the old cartoons when the street steamer rolled over him. My brother heard me scream, came out and hit the release lever. I was quite relieved to see a perfectly normal shaped arm as I pulled it out.

Mom and I both continued to hang sheets on a clothesline, even for a long time after we had dryers, but we loved the way the towels came out of the dryer, all warm and fluffy.

Ann

See Dick,

You brighten the world.

Life is a whole lot easier today--even our cars run better. I like the air conditioning in them too. I am thinkiing of adding air conditionning to our house.

I like comfort. When I was young I didn't care --now we have a King- sized bed and insist on having the same in hotels.

I used to sit on the floor. I now love a nice chair.

Ann,

You were not the little girl my mother told me about who put her arm in the wringer. Her arm was totally demolished--I was petrified of the wringer.

When I was little, Mom would send my brother and me to the Saturday Kiddee-show. She gave us each a 50-cent piece. 25 cents go us in, the other 25 paid for all the munchies.

The rest of the week, young children could get in for 9 cents.

10/6/2009

I remember a hamburger was twenty five cents, a hot dog was twenty cents and pizza was fifteen cents. The subway in New York was fifteen cents, the New York Daily news was five cents during the week and twenty five cents on Sunday. I was given a quarter for church on Sunday. a haircut cost fifty cents, boy have times changed...In my day there were no computers, no cellphones, Cable TV, I Pods....


Cheers...Joe

With the advancement of technology we mistakenly believe we are solving problems. But reality reveals the technology itself creates a different set of problems.
Example: Problem Guard dog getting old now and needs to be replaced due to heavy vets bills.
Solution Fit latest technology, an intruder alarm. Saving vets bills and food costs.
Problem New Intruder Technology needs servicing and gives frequent false alarms, engineer is getting angry due to being called out when he should be posting on Published Authors.
Solution Ditch Technology and chain angry engineer up and use him for a Guard dog...GRRRRRRRRRRRRR

David, I like your solution. With a mind like yours, no wonder you became a writer.

When I was growing up... Wow, I seem to have enough stories for an entire book of memories of those particular times. Maybe I should wr... wait, I already did that. It's called The Last of the South Town Rinky Dinks, and I just got in a brand new shipment. (Plug, plug)

We had no television, no indoor plumbing, no indoor bathroom, no AC, no washer/dryer, no ceiling fans, no video games, no nothing. Hell, we were so poor my mom almost had to ask a woman down the street to give birth to me.

We played ball in the morning, ball in the afternoon, and ball at night, and in between we rode some kind of old bicycle that we had thrown together. We played marbles and mumbly peg, hide and go seek and kick the can, and if we were lucky we could manage to hide with one of the girls down the street, at which time our buddies knew not to come lookin' for us.

Movies cost a dime to get in, a dime for popcorn, and a nickel for a coke, and that included a newsreel, a preview of coming attractions, a cartoon, and usually a double feature movie. We always walked the mile from our home to the movie, and we walked back. Well, most of the time we ran, skipped, jumped, hopped, and did just about evrything other than walk, but we always called it walking to the show.

We ate at home, usually, and I was in my senior year of high school before I ever heard about pizza pie. And I hated it. Ugh. I was always as hamburger kind of guy.

We had dogs in the yard, cats under the porch, and maybe a hog or some chickens in the back yard.

We walked to school, had fights on the playground, and were all friends before the day ended. We had to be, cause we were all we had. But back then the sky was bluer, the days were longer, and the friends we made are still our friends. What there are left of them.

I'm getting old, approaching 70, and while I don't want to go back to those days, wouldn't it have been great if some parts of those days had been brought forward with us?

That's The Last of the South Town Rinky Dinks, folks, and I still have about seven copies lying around. $22 will get you one, and that includes shipping and handling, as well as my personalization on the front page. That alone is worth the admission price. Or will be, ... someday.

Where do we mail our checks?

Alice, I would have bet that you would have been the first to ask.

E. Don Harpe
162 Harmon Rd.
Ideal, GA 31041

Thanks--the check will be in the mail--save me a copy.

It's saved.

By the way, Saturday before last I presented a copy of The Last of the South Town Rinky Dinks to former President Jimmy Carter. Now, I have no way of knowing if he will read it or not, and certainly no way of knowing if he will like it, but I kind of think yes to both. I think he'll read it, and I think he'll like it. Anyway, that's two of my books that have been given to Presidents.

Good for you. I will be in good company then--who was the other PRESIDENT?

E Don You name droper you.
I hope you find out he loved it.

Alice, when it comes to my books, I hope they are enjoyed by Democrat and Republican alike.

A friend of mine, who is very active in Florida politics, especially Governor and Presidential elections, gave a copy of born wolf DIE WOLF to Jeb Bush, when he was the Governor of the state. She told me he liked it, and that he'd sent it to his dad, who in turn had sent it to G. W. Bush. I have no way of knowing if all of this is true or not, but there was no reason for it not to be, as nobody had anything to gain.

Sorry about the name dropping, D, but I thought it was newsworthy.

E.Don,

I am neither, but will enjoy your book.

Don, was that post from the book or for the post? It certainly captured the times in a few words. Even I remember kick the can. I just don't remember the details. Some youth today still have some of that; but likely very few.

Many that I know are too busy with their gangs planning the next rumble, where their smoke is coming from, who's got a car, who's got weed or worse and whose girl is pregnant (in this particular case, at 14).

On the otherhand, my friend's grandchildren are peaches and so are my niece and nephew.

DK, it was not a direct quote from the book, just something that I thought captured the times back then.