~from a Don Henley song lyric
There was this stand-up comic once who told about going into a restaurant. He ordered fries and when they were set in front of him, he noticed they were burned. He said to the waitress, “these fries are burnt.” She glanced at the fries, then replied, “ok then, I’ll bring you more.” The guy looked perplexed. No, she didn’t REPLACE his fries... she really did just bring him more burned ones. What kind of logic was that, he wondered. How does MORE of a bad thing make it better?
Just how did we evolve into a MORE and BIGGER is better society?
Always a Double-Sided Coin
Growing up a boomer was an exercise in naivete. We sprang from an innocence that’s hard to imagine now. Oh my father had been in the war. He was overseas for four years, but he didn’t talk about it much. And my mother had worked out, in a factory, something that was new for women. Women who had to work in those days were maids, house-keepers, clerks or teachers. My mom wore slacks and went shopping at Eatons at 2 a.m. because they stayed open all night for shift workers. She lost her job when my dad came back. She was told to stay at home and make babies. In those days, that attitude toward women was deemed acceptable.
Three kids: two boys, one girl. We weren’t rich, on the other hand, we were about to be savagely bombarded with new inventions ~ a plethora of consumer goods so voluminous, we got all caught up in the hard work of making choices based on price and availability, instead of questioning if these newfangled products were good for us, or if the labour-saving devices really created more leisure time. Like all things, they had pros and cons. Sure, the household devices made laundry, food storage, cooking easier, and that was great, for women especially. But they really didn’t create more leisure time, because the demands on us tend to increase exponentially with each great invention. The more convenience and technological devices we get hold of, the more time we spend being slaves to them. Like now.
Then there was the television. It was a pricey thing, but my grandmother bought one so she could see her daytime stories ~ The Guiding Light, and Search for Tomorrow. Before that, she had only heard these on the big, old wooden radio. Her vision was fading and she wanted to see her stories while she still could. And we kids spent a fair bit of time in front of the TV too. There was Howdy Doody, Captain Kangeroo with Mr. Green Jeans, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy, and Uncle Milty. Ironic that we got to watch that goofy stuff, when today, even though television has evolved into a useful, educational tool, with science, art, and so much more informative, quality programming, kids are told they mustn’t watch too much. Hehe... ok. They’ve got all kinds of techy toys to fill the void, right? Do we EVER think first?
Life was supposed to be easier after the war. Why, women no longer had to bake their own bread! There was store-bought bread.... loaves of soft, gooey white bread made with bleached, processed and refined flour with all the nutritional value of wallpaper paste and loaded with preservatives so it was always “fresh.” There are 24 nutrients stripped from white flour in the processing, and the flour producer artificially puts back four. That’s why they get to call it “enriched.” All this ease and comfort was the beginning of our consumer society, and the beginning of the destruction of the family farm, wholesome foods and our dietary health as well.
Don’t get me wrong... I’m not touting the unrestrained wonderfulness of the good ol’ pre-war days either. Sure, they grew their own food, which was a good thing... something we need to re-learn. But at the same time, my grandfather died of bronchial pneumonia because there was no such thing as antibiotics in those days... something we are already apparently re-experiencing because we so carelessly loosed antibiotics into our food and water chain. Life was hard, especially during economic hard times, like the Great Depression. It’s just that when the opportunity for prosperity came along after the war, our society really didn’t do the walk before you run thing. It broke into canter from the get-go. Some things were great, especially for women, or to a kid growing up. But the environment was not a concern. Health impacts from some products were not a consideration. People were desperate for prosperity, and that was all that mattered. Do humans ever THINK first?
Still holding onto that onion.
Prosperity
It had such clean lines, made of shiny chrome
and a new thing they called plastic ~
no wooden table in our kitchen ~
Mom dancin’ about all kinda spastic
to Blue Suede Shoes, newfangled rock and roll;
Elvis and all kinds of new music
playing on the fine, new, plastic radio.
Television, washing machines and cool new cars;
all plasticized, pasteurized, bread from a store.
We were so very modern, the fifties family ~
in our post-war, suburban houses, row on row.
Doesn’t do any good to look back, you say.
But you know, it actually does,
because where we’ve been is where we’re going.
It’s a cycle, you see, not a ride on a bus.
No comments:
Post a Comment