By Mandy Feder —
My friends asked me, “Why don”t you take a second mortgage out on your house?”
That was years ago.
I have to admit, I was a bit envious of the vacations my peers took. They were so carefree.
My dad always told me not to spend more money in a day than I made. So I didn”t.
Even with three jobs, I didn”t make much.
I had two girls to raise on my own and also was honored to raise a boy, dubbed “the best son I never had,” for a large majority of his childhood. But I was the lone adult. They depended on me so I had to function the old-fashioned way.
Fast-forward about 10 or 15 years: Many of my friends who spent money they didn”t have lost their homes to the banks. Some lost their jobs, too.
It”s not an “I-told-you-so” scenario. I feel so badly for all of the people who were blind-sided and their visions and dreams shattered.
I am grateful for the sage advice I received. It probably saved me a lot of heartache.
Often young adults believe themselves to be the brightest and treat people who are older as if they”re clueless.
This is not the case.
Last week a reader sent me an email about what it means to be “green.” The scene is set with a young woman telling a woman in her 80s that the older generation didn”t care about the environment and they were not “green.”
The following excerpts are from that story:
“Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
“Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling. Then we were able to personalize our books.
“We walked up stairs, because we didn”t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn”t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
“Back then, we washed the baby”s diapers, because we didn”t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts ? wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
“Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.
I was reminded of a Father”s Day gift that I purchased awhile back for my dad.
I knew he was having problems with his home telephone working correctly.
I went to an electronics store in Manhattan to purchase what I thought was the greatest gift I could get for that guy who was nearly impossible to shop for.
The kids and I carefully picked out “the perfect phone.”
But when I gave it to him, he told me that I didn”t have to do that because he was getting his phone repaired.
All of a sudden I felt sort of wasteful and I realized that is the curse of my generation and other generations afterward.
When something broke, it was repaired.
Garbage dumps were not filled with televisions, many of which still work, but are not the newest thing anymore.
When we lived in the suburbs, our lawn mower required oil, not gas, it was a push mower and the blades got rusty.
When I make scrambled eggs I reach for this old hand-powered mixer with the turquoise-colored handle. I think June Cleaver or Donna Reed could have endorsed it.
Life in the United States has improved in so many ways, but I think we would have been better off if some things didn”t change.
When I was a youngster people took pride in working hard. It was considered respectable.
My daughter Nicole told me that she thinks my generation changed that, too.
“All of these parents drilled it into their kids” heads not to take menial jobs. They led them to believe they were too good to wash dishes or flip burgers. Now they think they”re too good for those jobs. They are disillusioned when they graduate high school or college and some of them don”t work at all,” she told me.
She reminded me of a line I used on them:
“It”s OK, don”t do your homework. Just memorize this line: Do you want fries with that?”
I am guilty too.
I still have a long way to go and many lessons to remember passed down from my grandparents and parents.
I have to admit that I was thrilled when my 25-year-old daughter asked me for an old-fashioned push mower for her birthday.
Mandy Feder is the Managing Editor at Lake County Publishing. She can be reached at mandyfeder@yahoo.com or 263-5636 ext. 32. Follow on Twitter @mandyfeder1.
