When I was growing up, my mother stayed at home.  That was expected in the early 1960’s.  Since we were trying to survive on my dad’s salary, we had to do things to make the money last.  We had a garden, we used the clothesline, we made our own clothes, we didn’t buy things unless they were needed.  Since we had a perfectly good set of dishes and napkins, paper was considered excessive.  The children learned to wash dishes after every meal in order to build character.  Throughout most of my childhood we were a one car family, so if we needed anything, we walked to the store about a mile away.  I grew up in a part of the country where there were U-Pick farms, so family outings were to pick fruit and tomatoes.  After we got to pick them we were priviledged enough to be able to go home and can what we got as well.  I have “gone back” to the way my mom did things, and after some time, my husband has joined in with me.  He uses a reel mower on the yard, hangs clothes on the line, and makes trips to the recycling center.  He’s even figured out where the compost bucket is.  Our children participate because “it’s just the way we do things at our house.”  Hopefully they will continue when they are adults. 

I grew up in a suburban environment (7 miles from d/t Philly). Stickball, kickball, half-ball, wire-ball (the phone lines), baseball were our past-times. Hell, we used to walk through the sewer system playing ‘hide and seek’.I cannot recall one overweight person in my group. Dinner time was a whistle from my dad. Telephone was a shared line with the neighbor that cost about $2. a month (my bill now is $120 per month).We bought everything ‘live’, particularly chickens. My grandfather, who grew his veggies and made his wine, also took care of the chickens (not from a chicken perspective however). Our winter nights were spent roasting chestnuts in the basement in the furnance. One tv in the house. One bath for six people. No mortage and no car payments. I cannot recall my parents or grandparents ever taking us to a restaurant. Never. We never went on vacation unless to visit relatives in Philadephia. If we went anywhere it was the Jersey shore….one day…back and forth.Had a lot of ‘forest’ in the back where we played fantasy cowboy for hours and then years. That’s now a cemetery.Grew our own tomatoes, corn. Hung the clothes to dry (no dryer). Peach tree in the back. My dad always had a fig tree, wrapped in winter. The creek out back was our swimming pool (today it’s green with algae and other stuff).Today… we live in a really ‘green home’ in Arizona. We hang clothing, natural desert, low utilities (solar). We can’t grow stuff you can eat. Too hot…and we don’t have a watering system outside of grey water from septic. We drive cars that are 10-15 years old. They’re paid for and have some dents.We also earn substantially more then the average worker. College-educated (whatever that means), and seven grand-children.Those days are gone, but the fact remains you can still address issues of sustainability and ‘green’ if you apply what you learned as a kid.

This past weekend I dragged my butt to my mom’s house and canned tomatoes. First time in my life and I’m 38. Now, it was a 7 hour drive one way, which is not the greenest choice in the world, but I do drive an 89 honda Civic, which gets 40 mpg highway when it’s not loaded down with canned tomatoes, homemade grape juice, a bushel of apples, and a pumpkin. But I console myself for the gas spent that 1. it’s “love miles” to see my mom, 2. the tomatoes probably travelled a lot less than the canned ones I would have otherwise bought from the store, 3. Even if my mom had let me pay for the tomatoes ($10 for the bushel) and the canning jars ($9) it still came out a lot cheaper than the ones I would have bought at the store, and finally 4. I needed to really learn how to do it. I never would have gotten around to learning it on my own. Many times in my adult life I have been able to reflect on what my mom and grandmother have taught me or tried to teach me. I find I relish the lean times because once I get over it and do something, I feel invinceable. While I know I’m being naive, I’m not afraid of a financial meltdown or peak oil- I think it is as likely to bring out the best in people as the worst.

It occurred to me today (before I even read this article), as I was placing my clothes in the washing machine, that should I not have this machine (this train of thought was prompted by my lack of a dryer), I - and everyone else I know - would not even consider washing clothing by hand. No, it would be off to the laundromat. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no intention of washing my clothes by hand (although I did experience by-hand clothes washing for 4 months in Kenya), but it made me realize to what extent we are attached to our technology.  So much so that it does not even cross our minds, normally isn’t even an inkling of thought, that there is a way to go about something in another way should we be without that technology.  The technology has become so ingrained in our perspective of the way of life.  Just a note: This comes from the mind of a 28-year-old who is brainwashed in the necessity of our technology.

what a fun article.  it rang some nostaligic buttons for me, too.  money was never spent easily in my childhoodhome.  while my mother followed carlton fredericks dutifully on the radio, dinner was never a fancy affair.  i recall the fresh produce truck coming down the street and the milkman that delivered fresh farm milk with the cream still in it
i recall doing my own laundry and ironing weekly from a young age–and everything needed ironing.  perhaps that is why i jumped onto drip dry someplace in my teens and make that a standard for anything i buy today.  so no dry cleaning for me.  i loved wool sweaters as a kid, but i washed them by hand, and blocking them on a drying towel was nothing out of the way.  does anyone understand blocking a sweater today?  we also made many of our clothes.  i was 12 before i had a store bought winter coat which seemed so special then.  i learned to knit by that age also and still had some teenage projects until my house burned down a few years ago.  those sweaters were one of my big losses.
i love gardening and the feeling of self-sufficiency that comes with growing my own, cooking and preserving any of it.
i still hang my laundry up to dry and pride myself on not spending money on drying costs.
and then there all the memories of little cost and energy saving things that we did.  today, i recycle plastic food bags and garbage bags almost obsessively, each one getting at least a dozen uses (wonder how unhealthy that is for me).  carrots get scraped with a knife, not a peeler that removes so much of the flesh.  i do not buy many household cleaners and look for natural and organic sources.  it is amazing how little we really need to clean a house.
this definitely was a fun article and useless, too  thanks for doing it.
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Also, as a side note - I have a recipe exchange blog at lionlotus.blogspot.com if anyone is into sharing recipes! I also have a blog at joanjr.blogspot.com following my efforts to end up in a hand-built home with home-grown food.
Let me know if you’d like to share links or become an author on the recipe blog. Thanks!!!
 

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