The Decline of Civilization, Part 4: Are Humans the Answer?

Remember the salesman with the jokes about large families while we were washer-shopping? We ignored him, but let's go back and revisit that subject: 

I have been told that the replacement rate for the population of the US of A is 2.1 children per woman.

We are on a decline at 1.7 children so we currently will not be able to meet our replacement rate. 

All future workers have been born already at this rate. Sure, computers can take over some of those future human jobs, but do we want them to? (Even Elon Musk, the AI genius who wants to go live on Mars, thinks we need more humans on planet earth to be able to function.)

If I had been quick-witted, I would have informed the man that yes, we have a big family (actually I consider 6 kids a medium-sized family), but we have nearly tripled the required replacement rate to help pay for government social programs. That family with 10 children he was joking about? They had more than done their duty for our country. 

Furthermore, the large families I know are trying to train responsible, God-fearing citizens.  They are raising people who are honest and can do some mental math (so that businesses don't lose money from computer or computer operator mistakes, hmm?). Most of my friends are raising their many children to also stay out of debt, be a steady, faithful worker, and to perpetuate morality and common sense. They are raising men who will be in a good shape financially to support families, meaning that their wives can stay home to raise the kids and provide a stable society, while their husbands are contributing to the stability of the economy by showing up to work with thinking skills. Yes, these are usually religious families and/or yes, a large percentage of them are homeschooling. Yes, they are usually the ones trying to grow their own food to meet costs and no, they are not burdens on society but rather trying to avoid getting messed up with the rest of it.

If any of the young folks I know from large families had taken one of those jobs for a month, they would have had it down pat and been promoted quickly, and learned to work for customer service around the computer glitches.  Like most teenagers interested in computers, they also could have written the code to fix them. But folks, even large families only have so many to go around. The lady with 10 kids can do more, but still only distribute them so far into the workforce. Maybe we need more people to join us making humans so we can save civilization. 

We could start with promoting the old-fashioned marriage with family approval. That way if a large family is to come into being, it isn't a welfare situation, and that way the whole family is more inclined to help each other. No more career shame to the mother who is willing to stay home and raise children with common sense.

Let's celebrate and thank anyone who has children, even if they just have one. Maybe we can help and encourage them so they won't feel overwhelmed at the thought of more.

Let's take the stigma out of large families and re-label the labels, so that they are not "fat-shamed" with words like "big" or "large."

A Family: 0-1 child (or "minimalist family" if you like; that sounds more on-trend than "small")

Adorable Family: 2-3 children

A+ Family: 4-6 children

Amazing Family: 7-10 children

Awesome Family: 10+ children

Then the 1.7 society could do some appreciative gestures, maybe even celebrate the fact that future customer service workers are being born. Perhaps manufacturers could start making vehicles in "cool" designs to carry around more children without people making jokes about "school buses," and revamp (and re-name) "mini-vans." In some cases rental laws need to be a little more lenient for families who may have to put 3 children per bedroom not 2. Architects, developers and builders need to re-think housing for the trending A+ Family, who may also be living with multi-generations. Let's get used to neighborhoods with bigger back yards again. Perhaps new home designs should expand the kitchen and laundry rooms so that double appliances could be housed for Amazing and Up Families (how's that, washer salesman?). 

And please, don't throw any government programs at us. That is the surest way to aid in the decline of anything! 

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/total-fertility-rate

https://ifstudies.org/blog/half-the-worlds-population-is-reaching-below-replacement-fertility

The Decline of Civilization Part 3

 The next morning, I talked to my brother to relate all of our adventures. As usual, he had some stories to swap. 

He was in his local big box hardware store trying to get some paint last week. It was the same paint he'd been using for a project, from the same place, purchase recently; he just needed a couple extra gallons to finish up. The conversation went something like this:

Paint counter lady: "Computer says there is none of that paint left."

"What about in the back room?"

"Nope."

"Have you checked on the shelf?"

"I didn't see any. Computer says there is none here."

Other paint counter lady comes up. "Oh hi! You were the one painting your barn, weren't you? We have some of that paint left, I just saw two more gallons on the shelf." Helpful Other lady gets him the paint.

First paint counter lady shrugs and says "The computer says we don't have any."

Going to purchase lumber was worse. He needed twenty 2x4's. The bill rang up at $41.00. My brother tried to explain to the gal behind the register that although he would love a bargain like that, the bill should be around $300 given the price per foot. Young Gal says "$41 is what the computer says it is." Round and round it went. Finally after getting nowhere with her and the number on the computer, a manager shows u. The manager, pushes her out of the way, rings up the proper price, and then leaves. Young Gal is left embarrased, mumbling "That was, like, not very helpfuuulll...."

It sure wasn't! 

Then to top off the morning's stories, he had told me about someone who had recently been at a restaurant. The man went up to pay his bill and the cashier lady gave him $1,000 in change! He had to explain to her that it was the wrong amount. Can you guess her reply by now? 

"That's what the computer says it is." 

I realize that it is hard for employers to find workers nowadays. I think these employees would be excellent in their jobs, if they were to receive more and proper training. Lesson #1 is Customer Service tops the computer! Give employees some options around the computer if it is not cooperating. Train in whatever math skills needed so that the business will not be cheated by electronics! 

Perhaps new management is in order, if it could be found. Pulling capable people out of retirement to train the new workforce and be managers might be an option, if they could just face those computer programs.

(I am glad that we had none of us had reason to enter the medical system during these few days, we might have had a computer-diagnosis to argue with...)

The Decline of Civilization part 2

Sunday night, our car died on the side of the road.

It was a blessing that we had ended up taking two vehicles to town that day, and come home caravan-style from Bible class. My husband managed to drive on until the end of at a very easy-to-find intersection along our country route and a major highway. 

Thankfully we were within cell phone service. I begin to examine the insurance app on our smartphone, but was stopped when they asked me to log in. That is my fault; I do not have that password memorized. Rather than spend 10 minutes trying to reset the password, we decided to call the insurance company and talk to a human being. Next problem: nowhere on the app was there a phone number to be found! Finally got one from Google and dialed it. 

"We will connect you with an agent to give you a quote!" said the robot on the other end of the "line." 

While my husband attempted to get to the correct department for roadside assistance, the rest of us moved into the other vehicle to see what would happen. It was about 27F outside but we were close to home, as soon as we knew what the plan was we could know whether we could all go home send a few back, how long the wait would be, etc.

The first trouble was finding a human who had the roadside assistance inside information (as in, how to contact them in the first place). All of the humans kept transferring the call to the wrong department. My husband quickly told the last salesman, "Wait! Are you going to transfer me to ____?? Because that is the wrong number." 

At last, ten minutes later, the right department! The conversation went something like this: 

Insurance rep: "So you're in ______ town..." 

Husband: "No, I'm not; I'm at an intersection between ___road and ___Hwy."

"Well, the computer says you are in _____ town."

"No, I'm within 15 miles between these two towns, at an intersection between ___road and ___Hwy"

"The computer says your phone is located at _____town."

"No, it is not."

"Sorry, I cannot get the computer to change your location." 

"Well get me through to the local town's towing company, they'll know exactly where I am."

A little while later: "I'm sorry, the tow truck companies are all booked up.  You'll have to call someone yourself. Send us a receipt."

By now 30 minutes had passed (I'm not kidding!). Husband told us all to go home, he was going to stay with the vehicle, although he was wondering how far the towing companies were booked out... till April??. He eventually found one tow truck 40 minutes away, who was not booked but could do one more tow before closing time. 

(Interestingly, the tow truck driver was from a town 2-1/2 hours away, who worked down here... I didn't know we had a shortage of tow trucks/drivers???)

Two hours later all was done and husband was home. Thankfully it was not a worse situation; it worked out as best as it could be for all of us. 

There are a few things I will always wonder about: why didn't the insurance dispatcher just look us up on Maps on her smartphone? I can understand that she couldn't get the computer program to cooperate, but was she allowed to do some manual work and just figure stuff out on her own? I guess you can't get around the "proper" way that business has to be done with the computer for records and things, but what, oh what are they going to do if we mail them a paper receipt? 

The Decline of Civilization part 1

 We had an interesting couple of days. 

It started when the washer was in pieces on the laundry room floor-- yes, I was trying to fix it. After some phone consultations with a repairman, it was advised that we had to get a new washing machine. 

Now you think this would be a happy event in a homemaker's life to get a shiny new appliance, but I am usually reluctant to spend on large purchases. I'm not the one to make those large decisions. The only ones in the family available to do this purchase were my daughter and I, however, so off we went to a Lowe's. I will preface this story by saying I used to know all the employees in Lowe's by sight, but all the workers I encountered were new to me (they seem to have had a big change-over during the pandemic) and it feels like I am in a different town whenever I go there nowadays. 

I went straight to the washer that had manual controls and was the lowest price, as is my wont. The one lone employee lady was busy with another customer, but promised to be with us when they were done. After wandering around the appliance section for quite a long time, I realized that the employee and the other customers had been gone quite a while. I saw a couple employees in the neighboring plumbing aisle, who were in casual conversation. One was the Manager Lady. So I went over there, and as much as I hate to interrupt I knew that I was a purchasing customer, so when they paused to acknowledge me I explained that I was here to buy a washer, and the appliance employee had disappeared. Manager Lady: "Oh, I don't know anything about appliances. You are better off talking to the lady in that department." Plumbing guy said something similar to brush me off and I was sent back to wait while they continued their conversation. 

I told my daughter, "You know, they could have just got on their radios and called someone." So after politely wandering some more in the appliance aisle, I went across to the decorating department, asked the employee there to call someone to help with appliances, which she promptly did. An knowledgeable, older employee appeared in astonishing rapidity, answered my questions, got the appliance up to the front, managed my purchase, and loaded it in my van for me. Although the Manager Lady's lack of interest puzzled me, this fellow made up for any complaint I had!

When I got home I realized that the washer I bought was too small in capacity-- I totally forgot that I needed one that could wash all those sleeping bags and camping stuff in the summer! My husband thought a front loader would be better anyway, and why not a matching dryer? It was about time for a nice pair. He talked me into it. The new store policy meant I only had 48 hours to return or exchange, so as the next day was a Saturday I was able to get my husband to come with me (yay-- a date to Lowe's!). We had not even unloaded the washer from the van. 

This time in the appliance department we were told to wait again by employee who was beyond retirement age. He was the only one there, covering everyone's lunch break, and was helping other customers. We spent time looking at our choices, and picked a front loading machine. Thankfully the man didn't disappear on us, but came and helped us understand that anything we saw online that said "in stock" was a lie. This one here had no washer available. This one here had no dryer. Furthermore, all of our choices were out for weeks. 

So we went over to look at one of the new, large capacity top-loaders. I made my choice: it had all manual dials and only one computer-button, and was as retro-looking as a classic car. I took a shying to those white-and-silver dials. Anyway, the employee checked stock. Not in here, not in at the other store either. One of the washers we were looking at came with  the most astonishing news:  "I don't have any here, the next town doesn't have any there, my warehouse has none and as a matter of fact, none are available. I cannot sell you the floor model, I cannot sell you this model at all."  I did not scream "Then why is it sitting here with a price tag!!!" but went over whatever "choices" we had left. Older employee asked about our family size, cracked a few jokes that were not in good taste about another large family he met while we shopped, but it was best to ignore that and just keep the employee close by. 

We ended up with an all-computer run, flat panel buttons, large capacity top loader, that smacked of 1980's styling (including the dark tinted window). At least it wasn't beige. Not what we wanted, but it was one of the few we could actually take home that day. The matching dryer was out for another week and a half. "Everything you see here is a lemon," the employee offered. "They don't make them to last anymore. My Maytag lasted 30 years before I sold it. You won't get that now. Nothing here is going to work after a while. You just have to accept that." We knew that in the back of our minds, but we needed a washer at home pretty soon, not two weeks later. Although we would have loved to spend a month researching, finding, traveling for and purchasing a Speed Queen of large capacity, we neither of us had the time. 

Like the fellow the day before, this employee was determined to take care of us from start to finish. He went up to the customer service desk to make sure that we got an exchange. Who should we see but Manager Lady, and I didn't hold out much hope for help from her. Older employee told her what he wanted her to do for us, and we went we went out to haul the previous machine in. We had parked so close, we were only gone a few minutes, but that was sufficient time for Manager Lady to disappear. Older employee went around to try and find someone else to help us. As we were standing there waiting, I noticed another couple next to us in customer service who had been standing patiently longer than we were. They gently spoke to their cashier and enquired, "Do we need to go and help them find it?" I felt for them, really I did.

Finally the older employee came back with another manager, who had to leave his "team meeting" to come and help us. He was a younger guy but super friendly, as if we had not interrupted him at all. He proceeded to find out that he couldn't get into the computer, but took it all with a smile. He found out he couldn't get into the other computer, but continued to smile although it surely was annoying to him. He eventually got our return done, our new purchase made, and helped us out to the car. We all begged the older employee to go and take his lunch break, otherwise he was going to to get that washer in our van for us. Never saw Manager Lady again through all this, but wonder how she ever got to that position. First impressions, but she seemed the most unhelpful employee in the whole store (besides her companion the plumbing guy, perhaps). 

If there is any joy in buying a new home appliance nowadays, it was dashed by the end of the purchase. The "date" with my husband was the only fun I got out of it. I was trying to find the most straightforward, manual, repairable model, even though I knew that our only choices were throwaway junk. I knew that before the employee even told us, but hearing it spoken aloud was extra discouraging. Towards the end, my husband had to keep patting me on the shoulder and telling me it will be alright, it will work, and if it breaks we'll get a new one again. 

My new washer is extra large capacity, extra choices and features, and in some ways much better than my old one. In the end, the only thing to cry about is purely cosmetic, because of the lack of white-and-silver dials. My only hope is that because I think this machine is so ugly, it will last as long as orange shag carpet, avocado green refrigerators and harvest gold ovens. 

"Just don't drink the [lead-free] water."

(A long rant today, skip it if you are not in the market for a faucet!)

When we decided to go as healthy as we could with building materials for this house, we were surprised at the lack of resources in this day and age of "awareness" about so many things.

Since we had gone to all the trouble to have reduced-chemical plumbing pipes (in the house at least, can’t control what was outside), we naturally wanted our "finished" plumbing fixtures to be as free from toxins as we could. That, my friends, was not an easy task.

Trying to keep excess toxins out of this house build is just as frustrating as when you go on a special diet and try to avoid certain things– only to find out that they are everywhere and in everything and you can’t eat anything but lettuce. 

And as long as I’m complaining here, I’ll tell you about the many days of labor that I have no pictures for. It was too boring for photographs. Days of combing through the web looking for lead-free faucets.

 If any of you have done the research, you will know that in the USA lead-free doens’t mean exactly that. I’m not even sure “zero lead” means that either. The rules allow for a little bit of lead to be present in all potable water faucets. It's no big deal, according to almost everybody, but since we had had a cancer scare, things like that are a bit more of a thought process for us. What other parts are we connecting to this? Do certain metals react and leach? What about the chemicals to glue things together? This part isn't regulated by that law yet, is there a substitute for that part? Etc Etc. We were looking for more than an ordinary person would look for.

Somewhere along the way, I found out that all the pretty, $30 Chinese faucets on Amazon aren’t in compliance with the low-lead law, and indeed are illegal to install in a new build. So as long as we had to look at faucets three or more times the cost of what we had hoped, we may as well buy the most  absolutely lead-free faucet we could find. When I did find one, it was rather ugly or hugely expensive (or both). 

Making your own faucet is not exactly a DIY project you want to take on when building a house, although that thought did cross our minds.

For the kitchen, thankfully there was an acceptible option at the big-box store (Delta Diamond seal). I was able to find ONE bathroom faucet for under $100 from an obscure company that claimed it had no lead. My next dilemma is to find a tub-filler that has little or no lead, because there is no regulations on tub fillers. Yeah yeah, I know, "just don’t drink the water…."

Looking for lead-free plumbing was exhausting, demoralizing and frustrating.  Although you can find completely lead-free kitchen faucets and restaurant faucets (not just saying “lead free” and meaning “minimum allowed by government” but all lead-free), there’s no such thing for the shower or tub faucets. And to top it all off, people think you are really a nut-job if you dare to even look for no-lead plumbing. 

We had gone to a lot of trouble to keep our water supply as low-chemical as possible, but could not control the one little plumbing connection (that is fully leaded because the gov’t hasn't regulated it yet) or this or that portion of the system that allows some lead. You just can’t escape it. At least we have minimized it to even beyond “government minimum” levels. (And wouldn't you know it, our area had a water emergency for a short time which necessitated us putting in a drinking water filter anyway. So we are pretty sure our water is safe to drink, if you want to come over for tea!)

Moving on from the faucets, we had other bathroom fixtures to find. How about a replacement for my claw-foot tub? 

We were initially sold on a few acrylic freestanding tubs. Acrylic is light weight, warm to the touch, etc. You just have to be careful cleaning it. If it gets scratched though...hmm...oh dear.

What is this stuff made out of? They mix things with the acrylic… what do they mix in? Chemicals? Does it leach if scratched? What do you use to repair it?  Sometimes you have a simple question about something, maybe you never thought about questioning before...We reached out to companies and people who watchdog toxic house materials, with no results. Apparently no one had thought these thoughts before.

The little bit we could find out about things made out of acrylic mixtures (mostly baby cup research) made us shy away from having plastic anything as a surface material. We were sick of the whole thing– tubs, showers, water bottles, baby cups, pacifiers. Bah!

I felt that we were wasting our life trying to figure it all out. When you look at the time spent in the course of your life researching things on the internet (because local building suppliers are no help on this subject)… it’s depressing.  We could used all that time to compose a symphony, write a novel, or run for President. I find it hard to believe, but either we were pioneers in non-toxic house building, or Google wasn't smart enough back then to give us the results we needed! 

Birthday Ritual Musings

We have a few family and friend birthdays to celebrate in October. I'm prepping for one this afternoon. I've been thinking about the typical USA birthday traditions and wondering how they became so prevalent as they are so humiliating! Especially for children's parties. If you ponder them for a moment, you may come to my conclusion that they are odd little rituals that we could just as well leave off.

Did you ever have to endure the "birthday spanking to grow on" when you were a child? Sometimes at your birthday party in front of all the little kids? Yes, I know it never hurt, but what was the point? Is it leftover from some superstition, or just to make you wait longer for the cake?

Did you ever do "pin the tail on the donkey" or "blind man's bluff" or something similar at a party? You know, the one where you are blindfolded, disoriented, and then became the object of everyone's hilarity as you groped around?

What about birthday hats? They are awfully similar to dunce caps. 

Blowing out the candles? Who started the tradition of melting wax all over the top of someone's cake, and then asking them to blow germs all over it before people ate it?

The Birthday Song-- can you think of a more embarrassing tune? I have refused to be sung to at all for the past 4 years. It is liberating on my special day not to be the focus of that song! Or any song! I don't like standing there with everyone staring at me singing a song that I am not supposed to participate in. It is usually sung out of tune and at the wrong pitch (nobody tunes up before they start singing it, have you noticed?) and led at a glacial pace. It drags, it sags. Folks, it's just not working anymore. But please don't substitute anything; it's just plain embarrassing to be sung at. 

Now I realize that some folks are just sentimental and these things are part of their good memories. For example, my family still has a shrunken, melted mass of plastic that decorated a cake top for 55 years. It was originally a little cowboy on a horse, from a set of toys. It rode to the top of a child's cake and continued to be exposed to flames until the poor horse and rider were unrecognizable to anyone not "in the know." But to have that melted mass on the cake was important to grandpa, to give him a good feeling I guess, and good memories of his family's birthdays gone by. Maybe I am not that sentimental.

I think that Americans are more and more "think outside of the box" type people and can come up with better birthday traditions, as indeed a lot of families have. When I was growing up, we got to pick a birthday trip in our beautiful and diverse state of Oregon. The coast, the desert, the state's tallest mountain and the world's deepest lake were all a few hours away for an afternoon to remember. I count my teen years by which places we were at for each birthday.

My own family have rather quiet home birthdays, partly because of construction (I have a lot of photos with messy or unfinished backgrounds!). We pick out a special meal, and a dessert. We sometimes have a pie instead of a cake (today we're making a chocolate cake upon request. Last year it was donuts!). My children have grown up with a candle in their own personal slice because we are germphobes (but still I wonder why we do even that candle thing?). We don't have humiliating party games. I can't get my better half to quit singing the birthday song to the kids, but if they are young enough they will sink under the table while it is sung. So I suppose we have a foot in the past, but I am open to other ideas!

Which humiliating birthday rituals have you left off? What have you substituted?

 

Back Again: Lost & Found Creativity

 Well I certainly had no intention of taking the entire month of September "off!"  My weekly writing time for it came and went throughout the month, but to be honest I did not make any effort to catch up. I certainly was busy, but it seems like it was a lost month anyway. I was traveling, sorting, purging, starting school, down sick, in a mess, but here's the oddest thing: I lost my creativity at the end of August. 

By "lost" I mean gone, zero, finished, through. I felt like shutting down all writing/publishing/blogging projects, selling my craft supplies and burning my sewing patterns. It was different than just losing your inspiration or looking at your hobby and wondering what to do. It was different from saying "I'm taking a break because I don't have time." It was something in me definitely saying "It's Over, Forever." I felt no obligation to continue anything.

I argued with myself-- don't get rid of it all just yet! Wait and see if something comes back. Think of the money you will have to spend if you suddenly decide to create again. Don't shut your projects down, you may yet write. So I did not act on it, but it was a "for certain" feeling.

I don't know what happened that Creativity just up and walked out on me. It has been years since I have sewn anyway, maybe I was tired of keeping the stuff. I was very much into my papercraft but that sort of ended this summer and I lacked time. This blog can become daunting because of the enormity of the photos I am sorting through for it, it is easy to be de-motivated. I was doing a lot of sorting of items that had been in boxes for years, maybe it was decluttering overwhelm. I had just finished a 3-year writing project, maybe it was goal-achievement exhuastion. One of my children was on a trip that we were all very excited about, but maybe with the extra person gone it affected my brain! Whatever it was, there was a part of me that kept checking with the other part: anything sparking yet?

I was a bit disturbed, because I have been writing and crafting constantly since I was seven years old. It is so much a part of my life, even when I can't do it, my creative mind does not shut down. I dare not even think of something creative (whether writing or hand-work) at bed-time because it will prevent sleep!Yes, I have seen hobbies come and go and let go of supplies. I have had to put things aside as I had no time, but never forever. And there was always writing. So you see how I was looking at myself wondering what happened?

It was three weeks later that some little inklings of inspiration started to sparkle. Why? I do not know. Traveling was over, I had found a bunch of sewing supplies in the declutter that I had been missing for years, it was mid-September, we were back on a school routine. Whatever it was, the sparks became more frequent but it took another couple of weeks for buckle-down motivation to follow. I hope today to get a few posts scheduled and get back on track here!

I want to know: Has this ever happened to you?

Tea and a Chat

TEA:

 

 

Construction photo of the day: The kettle made its way to the job site!

 

CHAT:

 

You might want a cup of tea right now because I'm going to chat at you for a while. Might be a bit of a ramble!

 

A thought struck me last night: what was life like before radio?

 

Not a profound thought, I know, but I was thinking of it in terms of how the in-home radio must have brought about a "new normal" in American family life.

 

Radios began to appear in every home about a hundred years ago. By the late 1920's and early 1930's the "golden age" of radio was in full swing. Many long to go back to those pre-TV days, when they see pictures of the family sitting in one room, quietly together listening to Lassie or the Lone Ranger. Eyes to tasks or each other, not glued to a screen. Mother knitting, children quietly playing in front of the radio. Happy memories for many I know.

 

Leffler, Warren K., photographer From Library of Congress

 

But without the family gathering around the radio, would perhaps the family have been gathered around the hearth or the table, listening to Father reading from the newspaper and commenting about the news, discussing it with Mother or helping the children understand it?

 

Would the family have been gathered to hear Mother read aloud from a book for entertainment?

 

Would the family have  listened to the older siblings read the Bible aloud for evening devotions? 

 

Would they have talked about their day, helped the children understand a concept for school, debated issues, solved problems?

Is that what life was like before radio? 

 

Maybe it was really boring. Maybe that is why people were excited to sit around and quit talking to each other, and listen to whoever was talking over the radio.

Publicity photograph of a family listening to a program from the Newark, New Jersey Telephone Herald March 30, 1912 Telephony magazine , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Harris & Ewing, photographer  via Library of Congress

F1jmm, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Crystal Radio Advertisement, 1922

(This photo looks like just about every family in the pandemic working online, school online, and socializing online, only put a device in front of them!)

Farm family listening to their radio
By George W. Ackerman, probably Ingham County, Michigan, August 15, 1930
National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Extension Service

 

This scene would be the norm for the next 80 or so years, radio replaced by the Television later. Then color TV, cable TV,  computers for email, websites and internet, social media and (since all land-lines are becoming extinct) our interactive multi-media mobile phones. 

 

Of course, Movies were already around by the time Radio showed up. You could choose to pay to go to a movie. Most of them were no good (not much has changed), but at least they weren't piped into your home. A parent would have probably not wanted to pay to have their entire family go to a movie every night. Or maybe they would have liked to, and a radio was an investment for cheap entertainment. And quick news. However they justified it, you have probably thought the same thoughts in buying your internet devices. :)

Records and players were around too. But you'd have to listen to the same ones over and over. Radio was variety, it was fresh content. 

 

Radios soon found value in the kitchen, when homemaker's shows and recipes became a good marketing tool for companies like flour mills (Betty Crocker was on the radio in 1924). And I suppose soap operas had some sort of value for distracting the housewife from the tedious task of ironing, plunging her into the imaginary world of things she shouldn't have been thinking about, and encouraging gossip. I suppose without it, she could have been out talking to the neighbor over the fence about another neighbor. Maybe no difference.

I'm sure also that their value as babysitters soon became apparent. Keep the calm and quiet extended when junior comes home from school, by plopping him in front of a radio until dinner time and finding some story for him to listen to. Many parents undoubtedly put limits on radio time for their children, using it as leverage to make sure chores were done.

 

Dad comes home from work and listens to the news. No need to squint at tiny newsprint anymore. And of course all the news coming over the radio-- the voice through the air-- had to be right. Those were the days of authority in truth and trustworthiness. No "fake news" until the internet, eh? I suppose that the cry that newspapers were dying started back then, as well as paper books (I haven't researched it).

I guess I'm saying that all the things we complain about today, with internet and devices and the struggle we all have as families to provide "real life" moments (outdoor play, conversations) is nothing new. We've been practicing a device-oriented behaviour for about a century!

No condemnation here. I'm not saying that there were no good things on the radio. There were many people who put good and educational and useful things on it. My own grandfather gave sermons over the radio for decades. Today, we contend that the internet is not evil, but many Christians have put many good things on it and it can be a tool for good. So I'm not saying the radio was bad. But I am contemplating how it impacted us as a nation of families.

I told you it would be a ramble! What do you think? Have you ever thought of the radio as the "internet/social media" of a century ago?

Your House Beautiful

Golden Sunlight
Philip Leslie...
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It might come as a comment on a post, on your social media, or an email in the inbox, and usually goes something like this: "You are so perfect. Your house is so perfect. Your family is so perfect. There's not a thing wrong in your photos. It makes me feel like such a slob [makes me feel like mud-- makes me feel bad-- discourages me from even trying]. I wonder if you have real-life problems. Can you show us all your kitchen when it is filthy and with dirty dishes in the sink?"

As a blogger, it is very tempting to let others "contribute" to the blog, steering your subject matter and making you add or retract things according to comments. Feedback on a blog can appeal to the blogger's sense of generosity and friendliness, or make the blogger feel guilty, backward, or as if they omitted something. Some of these comments can become downright discouraging, taking the wind our of your sails. The worst feeling is when a blogger thinks she has alienated her readers by coming across "snobby" or perhaps given the mistaken impression that she is a "perfect" housekeeper, organizer, etc.. To correct the misunderstanding becomes top priority!

The remedy to this is to have a "tell all & let it all hang out" post, in order to humbly let readers know that you, too, are human. There must be many admissions plus photographic proof that you are not a liar. Blog owners lower themselves to the dust-under-the-rug and show pictures of the messiest parts of their house, their children in PJ's at noon, or the blog author herself in some unflattering photo. This exercise may be to strip bloggers of the last shred of dignity they might have, or to get her to scramble to show the behind-the-scenes of the photo shoot instead of the photo shoot. This gratifies the readers who somehow assumed that you, the blogger, were from another planet or perhaps a fake, temporarily quiets the complainers, and provides amusement to the back-seat-blog-drivers who are probably snickering in their sleeves at the whole thing. For a while, the blogger feels better, too, and let's hope all suggestions of such a nature will stop and let her get on with her life.

I don't know if my opinion counts for anything, but I, as a reader, am sorry to see those kinds of posts. I go to many blogs on purpose to see something clean and pretty; to rest my eyes on beautiful vignettes, like a vase of flowers in a well-lit room. I go to see someone's table made beautiful for a tea party-- someone's table that isn't covered in projects at the moment. I go to see the ideas in decorating. Sometimes the decorating isn't even my taste, but I like the colors, or the arrangement, or just to see someone else's style. Sometimes it is a homemaking blog I go to for ideas on how to organize my home, or homeschool my children, or to see a new crafty project. 


Sunday Tea-Time
Stephen ...
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I don't go to see blogger's dirty dishes, their piles of laundry, or clutter on the coffee table, I can see that without the aid of the computer screen. I know those things exist in everyone's home; I also know that as soon as I see those posts, the poor blogger got that email or comment.

I never assume that the person who posts fabulous photos of her clean and pretty home is a perfect person! We all have sick days, sick children, busy family schedules, Thanksgiving-and-Christmas-aftermaths, big projects, house renovations, tons of company, or just the plain old "I'm too tired" day. If my house was ever all clean at once, it would be enough of an event to warrant a photo shoot, too. All that assumed already, I can go and enjoy the moment of beauty that a blogger spends time to set up and share with the public, without worrying that they never have a mess in their house. I don't think that a blog has to have a "mess" post just to justify its existence.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't ever post something "real life." Some messes say "home," such as the flour on a cutting board next to a bowl of bread dough, or a game with all its pieces out, sitting on a side table. There are the posts that have an amusing story that we all enjoy, about housekeeping mishaps or what the kiddos did to make a mess, but those are published for the humor and not to humor. Construction or renovation posts are interesting and sometimes informative to follow along with. At the same time I'm sure that the blogger who is living through a renovation must enjoy setting up a photo shoot of a pretty, undisturbed part of her life to share on her blog.

There is nothing wrong with staging a photo shoot for the art of it. If the kids are playing with their toys strewn over half the house, I think it is okay for a blogger to set up a photo shoot of a toy-less part of her home and stage a pretty picture. I've never ever seen a photo caption that says "this is the way my house is: perfect all the time" and I doubt I'll ever see one.

I can also understand the reader longs for a pretty house, well-mannered children or a better organized space, and writes to ask the blogger "how do you do that?" As a matter of fact, I enjoy the "how to" posts very much. A post on "how to fold the laundry" is one thing, but I hate to see bloggers intimidated to the point that they start showing pictures of the dirty laundry just to appease a few.

For further thoughts on similar subjects, see  qualifying your blog posts and  cold-water dumping.

I Don't Like Loosing Things.

One of the things that annoys me as I read websites, blogs, or even magazines nowadays, is the misuse of the word "loose" for "lose."  It's probably a mistake to blame on the spell-check feature of computers -- the words aren't misspelled so of course the spell check will not call attention to them. I'm sure most writers just miss the mix-up in proof-reading, as sometimes when you are writing and reading and editing (and typing too fast), you just don't see the mistakes until the article is published!  

I just wish the computer knew that we don't loose weight, we lose it. We don't loose things, we lose them!

And of course, we don't find that the knob is lose on a door... it is loose. I see the loose for lose mistake the most often, though.

Loving Old Houses

When I saw the post on this blog, it brought back a lot of memories.

A long time ago, and far away, before digital cameras, I lived in a little old house out in the country. It was probably a slapped-together old farm house, and probably not exceptional from many little old farm houses built in the Victorian era and added to in every decade since. But it was a new experience to me, who had only lived in modern city houses, and I relished every antique detail of the place.

I remember very fondly the paneled doors-- each one was different from the other, the doorknobs, the old-fashioned key that locked them, the chimney-hole cover with the field of wheat painted on it, the pantry with the floor boards made out of old fruit boxes with the labels still on them, the old screen door with the rusty spring that had such a satisfying slam (not for my parents, I'm sure!). I loved every bit of that old house. I thought it was so neat that the weighted windows had real panes (that were loose and popped out sometimes!), that the floor boards were warped under the 70's carpet (I was sure there was a beautiful wood floor under there), that all the doors had trim inside and out (even in the closets), and that the outlet plates (probably from the '50s?) had embossed wreaths around them. The glassed-in back porch had an old rusty sink for washing garden produce in it, the old white porcelain sink in the kitchen had molded-in drainboards on each side.

There was an old brick well out front, with a board on top of it so no one would fall in. There was a brick walkway with "1900" stamped on the bricks. I unearthed another walkway around the side of the house when I was trying to plant a garden. The old gate to the pond had a post leaning over, and the gate was all gray and crooked, but it was charming.

Ah, me. If I had only had a decent camera in those days! I'm not sure it would have occurred to me to take pictures of the door knobs and bricks and details, though, since back then you had to buy film and pay to have it developed. With only 36 blurry or grainy photo opportunities in a cheap kiddie camera, usually I did not think of taking pictures of hardware. A blog sure changes the subjects of your photos!

In the above link, please pay attention to the inside of the hinges. I toured an old Victorian house a few years ago, and noticed that the inside of the hinges were intricately etched (even more than the ones in the link). Can you imagine a time, when someone would care about what the inside of a hinge looked like? Does that not go along with William Morris' oft-quoted "golden rule?"

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

Why not have both?

[the house below is not my old house, but it sure is similar]

Rural Home with a...

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The New England Fireside

A Cottage Scene,...
Edward Thompson...
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Excerpt from A New England Girlhood  by Lucy Larcom. 

Primitive ways of doing things had not wholly ceased during my childhood; they were kept up in these old towns longer than elsewhere. We used tallow candles and oil lamps, and sat by open fireplaces. There was always a tinder-box in some safe corner or other, and fire was kindled by striking flint and steel upon the tinder. What magic it seemed to me, when I was first allowed to strike that wonderful spark, and light the kitchen fire!

The fireplace was deep, and there was a " settle" in the chimney corner, where three of us youngest girls could sit together and toast our toes on the andirons (two Continental soldiers in full uniform, marching one after the other), while we looked up the chimney into a square of blue sky, and sometimes caught a snow-flake on our foreheads; or sometimes smirched our clean aprons (high-necked and long-sleeved ones, known as " tiers ") against the swinging crane with its sooty pot-hooks and trammels.

Maine - Interior...

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The coffee-pot was set for breakfast over hot coals, on a three-legged bit of iron called a "trivet." Potatoes were roasted in the ashes, and the Thanksgiving turkey in a "tin-kitchen," the business of turning the spit being usually delegated to some of us small folk, who were only too willing to burn our faces in honor of the annual festival.

There were brick ovens in the chimney corner, where the great bakings were done; but there was also an iron article called a " Dutch oven," in which delicious bread could be baked over the coals at short notice. And there never was anything that tasted better than my mother's "firecake,"— a short-cake spread on a smooth piece of board, and set up with a flat-iron before the blaze, browned on one side, and then turned over to be browned on the other. (It required some sleight of hand to do that.) If I could only be allowed to blow the bellows — the very old people called them "belluses " — when the fire began to get low, I was a happy girl.

The Three...
Frederick Daniel...
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Cooking-stoves were coming into fashion, but they were clumsy affairs, and our elders thought that no cooking could be quite so nice as that which was done by an open fire. We younger ones reveled in the warm, beautiful glow, that we look back to as to a remembered sunset. There is no such home-splendor now.

When supper was finished, and the tea-kettle was pushed back on the crane, and the backlog had been reduced to a heap of fiery embers, then was the time for listening to sailor yarns and ghost and witch legends. The wonder seems somehow to have faded out of those tales of old since the gleam of red-hot coals died away from the hearthstone. The shutting up of the great fireplaces and the introduction of stoves marks an era; the abdication of shaggy Romance and the enthronement of elegant Commonplace — sometimes, alas! the opposite of elegant — at the New England fireside.

Afternoon...
Evert Pieters
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Have we indeed a fireside any longer in the old sense? It hardly seems as if the young people of to-day can really understand the poetry of English domestic life, reading it, as they must, by a reflected illumination from the past. What would the "Cotter's Saturday Night" have been, if Burns had written it by the opaque heat of a stove instead of at his

"Wee bit ingle blinkiu' bonnilie?'

By the Hearth,...

Philip Eustace...

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Grocery Store Musings

'Your Grocer',...

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I have plenty of occasion to muse over how going grocery shopping is like going into a battlefield, of a pit full of snakes.

Several other homemaking bloggers have mentioned how difficult it is to find healthy food for their families, so I know I am not alone in my frustrations over this. Trying to avoid  pesticides is the least of the difficulties now facing the home cook. Try avoiding GMOs, hidden MSG, BPA, antibiotics, and other letters of the toxic alphabet, and then add a soy allergy in the mix and you think the only thing left to eat is lettuce. 

Oh, whoops- lettuce has been sprayed with fluoride.

Just about the time you think you have found something everyone can eat, it comes out in the news that it has been injected with plastic-producing steroids.

I must have eaten something in my childhood that affected my memory, because I usually come home from the grocery store with some failure, some food that has an awful ingredient I did not notice, some produce that I forgot was on the dirty dozen or two list, or something has an un-pronounceable ingredient I was hoping was the secret recipe code word instead of another term for MSG.

I try not to sigh too much. While the farmer's markets are open in the summer, things are a bit better, but in the winter one has to go to the grocery store. Until we build a greenhouse and devote the rest of our lives to growing year-round apricots and lettuce, we have to go grocery shopping. 

We pray that God will bless our food, and we hope to live to see better days!

Trade Card...

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