Getting Back

The highlights of the trip for the grandparents were, of course, seeing the new great-grandbaby. She is over 9 pounds now! They were really excited to be able to hold her. What a strange and wonderful thing to think that 4 generations were all together under one roof. My dad was born on May 1, 1926. Savannah Melody was born November 28, 2004. The world has changed a lot in that period of time.

A blog was probably a rude noise a boy used to describe something he found in his nose.

E-mail was most likely how the sorter at the Post Office, who was a government employee, separated the D-mail from the F-mail.

A website was the dank, dark corner of the barn where all the spiders lived.

They had “Instant Messaging” back then. It consisted, if you could afford it, of a handset that you picked up and rang the operator on and as for numbers like “Shawano 5555” which was translated to “SHA 5555.” That is why later on they put letters on the phone when you could dial it yourself. Look at some old newspaper ads from the thirties.

All the kids went to the same school and had lessons in the same room and, get this, the teacher did not complain to the school board about overcrowding.

Of course, the teachers had some control. Instead of parents constantly criticizing every little action of the teacher, my dad says that, “If you got a lickin’ while you were at school you knew you had another one waiting for you when you got home.”

He brought home a report card with a grade of 75 in deportment. He never did again.

Thirteen children in the family and every one of them had a job and a responsibility around the farm. Later on they grew up to be hardworking individuals that kept jobs for 20 to 30 year stretches.

Computers? They didn’t even have electric lights in the house when he was younger.

It is interesting to listen to the stories of “the good old days” and I can only say I had felt that way 25 years ago when so many of the old-timers were not only still alive, but younger and able to tell one story in less than an hour.

We do have to make sure that we do not over-glamorize or glorify those days too much. Just as there were many good things about that age, there was much evil as well. I read a quote that I don’t know the source of that said, “Many say, This is a corrupt age. This mode of speaking is not just; it is not the age that is corrupt, but the men of the age.”

Remember, the Good book says, “Don’t long for ‘the good old days,’ for you don’t know whether they were any better than these!”