I truly mean when I say that it is a good feeling to live more like the 1940's. It was a beautiful time aside from the war. As soon as Charles and I made the decision to go back and study the 1940's again we felt better. As we started adjusting our home again we started feeling a relief. All week Charles has said, I am not kidding, I just want to stay in this era. He was gathering the books he wanted to read the very first day we discussed it.
In yesterday's post, I said that I feel that in some way they were more modern than we are now. I keep thinking about this and I feel that maybe it is because what they did have was well made, they had a lot of practical and common sense about things from the times they lived through.
I feel we are more burdened today with too much and to many things to a point we are being exhausted and financially drained by modern goods. It is not just about stuff, it is the brain drain technical and fast information. The complicated things we have to do to communicate with services.
I can see the exhaustion in my adult grandchildren and even they talk about it and seem to be trying to find ways to get away from what I will just name it "The Constant". To me "The Constant" is carrying a cell phone, endless scrolling, and never having a moment away from this parasite.
We have the power to control this and get ourselves to a more sensible way of using these devices. They can be a help for learning or communication, but when they start robbing us of precious time from our babies and family and numb us to a point we have lost hours of our life each day it has gone too far and will require some kind of personal rehabilitation.
I talked about my father in one of my posts this week, this is Dad in the year 1917, he was born during ww1, his start in life was a tough one, his mother almost died during the flu pandemic, then his father died from this flu the next year, they called the next wave. Dad was a teenager during the great depression and an adult by the time that era was over. I can see why music was so important to him, it was something that brought happiness. The world war 2 and the Navy was another chapter in his life.
At times I feel a bit responsible for my generation possibly being the ones that dropped the ball so to speak. It seems that in my early adult years we took the bait. My parents were moving into this modern age too and they were slower to change but they eventually changed too because that is just what we do as we travel through time. I feel that somehow we stopped making sense and just let the flashy and new things tempt us into debt and a life far away from reasonable. Oh what happiness I would feel if only I could have my 1955 Ford back, why did I ever think more modern cars could be better than that one.
.jpg)
I can see the way that our lives as a baby were less toxic. It troubles me and has been for several years about the exposure that babies are getting in this toxic mess we have.
I have noticed that there is a move to better safer products now and this is good, I just wish that the cost would go down because we should not have to pay more for something less toxic. This is just not right.
Many years ago I would visit with my ninety year old neighbors. I enjoyed being around them because they lived a simple life and were so knowledgeable about things. When I took this photo above Naomi had forgotten how to tat, and so we brought back tatting to her and strengthened my knowledge of tatting. I took pictures so we both could remember how to hold the shuttle. Her husband Al, would talk about his days in the merchant marines. They seemed to be holding on to their earlier years and now I think that was because that was best memories.
I think about how many older lonely people there are with a wealth of information that would love to tell their stories.
I am repeating some things from previous studies but there are many new people that come to my blog that have not read those studies.
Naomi was a treasure of information for she would tell me about how her mother fed them during the great depression by share canning food for others. Her mother was the only one that had a pressure canner around where she lived and she would can for others and they would give her a part of that food.
I loved her story about when her family went on a long automobile trips to visit family and her mother would cook salmon patties before they left and this is what they would eat during a road trip.
Traveling by car was much different long ago, even in my time, because we had road side picnic tables and pull off places to stop and eat what we had packed in our car. There were no stores and places to eat in many parts of the country for many many miles apart. The states made road side picnic areas so people could stop on their journey to stretch out and eat a meal.
Please tell us your stories that you remember from long ago that seemed as an adventure or memorable. Did you ever stop and eat on a road side area? Do you remember when fruit trees and nut trees grew wild and you could stop on the side of the road and pick something to eat?
This photo is from the year1940. My mother and her baby brother.
These generations that came before us did not have the expenses we have today, they did not need the microwaves, televisions, dishwashers, dryers, cell phones, and subscriptions with high fees. They would have never talked to her house to tell it to turn something on or off. What are these things doing to our brain? Our home feels softer, I don't really know how to explain this any other way but some of you have already experienced this feeling of relief from these studies.
I hope that some of you are doing the study with us and even if you are just reading along, I hope it brings joy, peace and good feelings.
I will not be posting this weekend and go back to regular posts next week. Charles is reading the daily paper and keeping us informed of what is going on in town in 1940.
Next week I will start my weekly routine that was popular during the old days. I will do the washing on Monday, Ironing on Tuesday, Mending on Wednesday, Shopping on Thursday, deep cleaning on Friday and baking on Saturday.
Grandma Donna
