The more times change, the more it stays the same.... only better ??? (misc)

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Here it is, Sunday afternoon again and I got to remembering the way it was 25 years ago, sitting on the porch reading the paper, fighting over the comics. Here we are in a new millenium, we spent the last hour reading 7 different news sites on line, while our son checked out the various comic strip sites out here on the sun porch on his game computer where I downloaded them for him. I can't decide if I miss that "paper fight" of my youth, but I do like the wider "paper " variety.

What are some of the things you all have seen that really hasn't changed in the basics, but has gotten better or worse on the dressings around it because of technology.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 08, 2000

Answers

I would have to say that I miss the classic nucluer family dinner. I'm not sure I can blame the loss on technology. However, I'm in a constant battle to revive it or maintain it.

I miss the classic family meal. Everyone sitting down and discussing their disappointments as well as their achievements and goals. Not only do I miss the meal, I also miss the cooperation of the entire family cleaning the kitchen and retiring to more comfortable quarters to learn, read, and study as well as relax.

What went wrong ? I think I must start blaming myself than employers, than just about everyone in business. First, I couldn't complete my work on any schedule that met these requirements. Somewhere in the late 1960's employers began to violate family hours as business violated our family times. Prior to that companies and shops were closed on Sundays and evenings. The "Quest for the American Dream" caused the destruction of that part of America that made it a place to dream of !

IMHO, the way back to reality would involve the closing of America at 5 pm. every nite and reopening it at at 6 am. every morning, and everything shutdown on holidays and Sundays. While I dream of this though, I am reminded that I'm married to a nurse and you cannot regulate or speculate on the times people get sick or injured. I guess that cold sandwich at midnight is my destiny but I still demand one meal a week be a family get together and dream of more !

-- Joel Rosen (Joel681@webtv.net), October 08, 2000.


I'm in the group of folks who believe that TV and radio killed off a large part of family unity by exposing each and everyone of us to professional entertainment 24/7. Back in the day, as it were, people gathered around at all sorts of holidays, and for no reason at all, to sing, act out plays, read poetry and literature, dance, etc. These were extremely effective bonding rituals amongst family member.

Nowadays, however, whenever the opportunity comes up (if anyone is so rash as to suggest it) everyone bows out because "I can't sing" or "There is no way you're getting me out on the dance floor to make a fool of myself",etc. Before omni-media pervaded our lives, it didn't matter if you were a bit off key - so was everybody else and if you thought you were bad, just wait until Aunt Edna and her Amazing Singing Pomeranian showed up. A talented voice or musical ability was appreciated for the gem it was and others were encouraged to join in and have fun regardless of their skill or trainging. Now however, we all have to face the reality that our voices, musical skills, and other entertainment attempts will be compared (however subconciously) with Mariah Carey, Yo Yo Ma, and Michael Jackson, and of course we fall short.

These folks are trained professionals, who spend their entire lives working on their skills - how can we compete? In reality, we can't and we know it. Even a talented, practiced voice is usually massively underwhelming when you have an immense and continually updated memory storehouse of any and all who have entered your eyes and ears over the years.

Yet, any voice coach can tell you that anyone except the truly tone deaf (that doesn't mean you with the creaky alto and the wandering pitch - this is a diagnosable physical condition, not a simple lack of skill!) can be taught to sing, if not professionally, at least moderately well, and in no great length of time. A handful of lessons can get you from frightening the livestock to passably enjoyable, if you practice and pay attention to your voice. Likewise, a few dance lesson can make the difference between a tangle and a tango, and sometimes community centers offer them free, or nominally priced.

It's time we quit asking and expecting our family and ourselves to live up to the standards set by Julliard and just sing. It's fun - you used to do it as a kid at the drop of a hat, remember? Take a few lessons if you're truly hopeless (your local choir leader, who no doubt harbors dreams of being the next great starmaker, will probably jump at the chance to work his/her magic on you). If you are tone deaf, learn how to recite poetry or take a few classes in the art of dynamic stroy telling. Anyone can play the autoharp, my sister notwithstanding. Learn a handful of "old favorites", get them down pat and insist on playing at every occasion. Teach others, spread the movement. It's time we quit letting ourselves be convinced that the only good entertainment is professional entertainment.

$7 movie ticket are a symtom of the fact that Americans have let Hollywood talk them out of entertaining themselves. Don't like the stuff your kids see at the theater? Learn how to play parlor games and put on plays - encourage the writer in the family to write, and the artist to design the sets. Invite the whole family/friend network over and pop some of that popcorn you grew on a lark last year. Have some FUN, for crying out loud, and quit shelling out your hard earned cash to have prefab fun inflicted upon you from an outside source!

(I'm so happy with this diatribe that I think I'll post it seperately. Thanks for allowing me to vent! I hope no one got hurt. LOL)

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), October 08, 2000.


Sunday nites, about 35 years ago, me and mom and dad would get excited about TV. I remember it so clear, Lassie, Wonderful World of Disney, and Bonanza. It was the only time we were allowed to have chips and pop. She bought it special for those nites. It really was a bonding thing, we would laugh and cry right along with the shows. We looked forward to watching together. We didn't watch TV much at all during the week, I was always outside. Nobody was invited over on Sunday nites either, it was always just the 3 of us. I can say now that those times shaped my life. I got a paint horse when I was 9 cuz Little Joe had one. I wanted to marry Little Joe! Every weekend we would go to the big stables where I had my horse and they would rent horses and ride with me. They did this just for me. My career was working horse ranches. I have loved dogs and animals my whole life, I have 6 dogs now. Just learning to be kind to animals and others is something kids now don't have on TV. It's funny, but Steve and I only have chips and pop once in a great while. It's a treat. Saturday nite is our nite to watch together. Outdoor Life Network has all dogs and horses on Saturday nites. We look forward to it. And I still record all the good old movies, I got "The Red Stallion" the other day off satalite. That's why we got a satalite, Big Valley, Bonanza, Western Movies, Horsey movies, the old shows like Little House. To this day when we watch Bonanza I think of mom and dad, they are gone now, but left me with good memories and good values. Yeah, I have stayed the same.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@msn.com), October 09, 2000.

Soni, love your post!! You summed it up very well... Thanks! God Bless! Wendy

-- Wendy@GraceAcres (wjl7@hotmail.com), October 09, 2000.

25 years ago? Hmmmm, I miss jumping out of bed at 5:AM and getting right to work, spring plowing on the old John Deere, cutting firewood all day, then doing chore until after dark, working in the shop on equipment until 10 or 11:00 Now I get up at 3:AM, I don't jump out of bed anymore, I zombie down to the kitchen and push the button on the coffee maker, then back up to my office to fire up the computer. I start chores around 8:30, (that's when my hired man comes to work), and I buy my fireewood cut & split. The old John Deere-B is long gone, replaced by a new blue New Holland with a loader, I no longer plow, just disk some. Long before dark I am in the house by the fire, (in the winter)and yes the TV is on, isin't electricity nice.

-- Hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), October 09, 2000.


Yes, I agree with you all about things that have changed. One of my favorite pastimes as a child was Thursday night pizza and Star Trek and dreaming of the future. Forty years later those dreams are becoming a reality. We are beginning to see differences in world opinion. We have an international space station coming along to allow our children , not just our grandchildren to venture past the bonds of this planet and sadley enough, we are seeing our once dominant country not as powerful as it once was.

I expected some negative responses to this subject, however, I had also hoped that some would see the positive aspects of our technological advances. Although I have effectivly become burned out to the technological rat race , I also look at the positive stimuli associated with this media. Have we really lost the family dinner? We still have supper together at the table, only now dessert is taken at our terminal, surfing to far off continents or linking into sattilite sites from NASA. Instead of watching a movie, my son and I will produce our own animated cartoons (by our values and standards, not Hollyweirds). And the biggest positive, I can see, I remember when Mom and I stood at the back fence, talking to our next door neighbor and I find myself wishing that instead of calling this the "world wide web" they had opted for "planet encompassing backyard fence" . Even though it streaches through some bad areas, you can also see some beautiful scenery over more sections of it.

Don't lament at the loss of "family values" work harder to show your children you have them, take them by the hand around past the bad sections, stopping only at the beautiful yards out there. What we had isn't gone, its just more of a challenge to instill it in our children. One difference I see, when I was younger, a part of my respect for my father was due out of tradition , now when DJ gives me his respect, its because he feels I deserve it for what I understand and share with him. Many times, I learn from him. I know I'll leave this world knowing my son will do better than I, because he already is.

Gotta go lay more walkways in my new gardenspot, see ya'll later here at the fence. Thanks for all the input. Do any of the rest of ya'll ever feel this forum should be called "the fence"? Sorry, its ended up so long. Hope I didn't rub anyone the wrong way.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 09, 2000.


I think air conditioning has ruined the country! Without it people used to sit on the front porch or take a chair into the yard and talk to the people who walked by. Also, it was too hot inside after a cooked meal to watch television so family used to sit outside and talk and watch the birds and animals. With air conditioning everyone stays inside and breathes stale air. We don't have air conditioning here on the farm and still sit on the porch in the evening to keep cool. We do watch television though, mostly history and politics which keeps our blood pressure high.

I think that the ending of factory jobs and the newer technologies has damaged the family as most children leave home and move to other states to seek their fortune instead of going to the factory as Dad did. This has increased the affluence of the country but has also moved families apart. I have three sons all in different states and of course the grandchildren are there also. We see them once a year if we're lucky. It is a sad state of affairs from a selfish point of view. But then again, there is the telephone and pictures via email which keeps everyone up to date. It's not the same as giving the grandkids a hug, though.

Mary

-- Mary in East TN (barnwood@preferred.com), October 09, 2000.


Well, 25 years ago, I was just a kid, so of course things look a little rosier back then in the light of innocence and childhood!What do I remember? Sitting at my grandparents kitchen table hulling big bowls of strawberries, eating as many as I wanted while working(I loved it!) Picking fresh concord grapes right off the vine, at the same place, and watching grandpa garden, helping him mow the lawn on his riding mower. Thanksgiving and other holidays, where the whole family went to church together and then we all had the meal together, and we had a huge family! The adults played cards, frisbee,chess,board games, etc, often with classical music in the background. What really strikes me as different now is the food.Many women don't bother to cook anymore, or dinner comes from a plastic package or a can(this is progress?). I remember hor'deurves, lots of homemade decorated cookies, real meals, the kind you can't even find in most restaurants nowadays.Also, we eat things now that were hardly heard of 25 years ago, especially ethnic type cooking( I think that this is good!).I remember when avocados and kiwis were a novelty. The other thing that I think is quite different is that when I was a child,it was a real stigma and very unusual to have divorced parents. Nearly all the kids had an intact family. If somebody got divorced it was a major deal, with lots of talk around the whole town, even if you didn't know the family. Now just try to find intact families with kids, whose parents have never been married to anyone else. I can't think of very many. Back then it seemed like if someone got divorced it was because of an affair; now people get divorced over really stupid, petty things that they could work out if they wanted to. If we all sound pessimistic, maybe it's because we belong to a group of people that miss the 'good old country days'.

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), October 09, 2000.

I have to agree heavily with Joel. I think much of the problem with modern life is the fact that in most families there are several workers and most of the time the familiy is either scattered because of someone or several someones working, or the family has so many things to do they cannot possibly have time to sit down together. There is laundry to be done, housework, etc., long past the hours they were usually done because no one stays home all day doing those things anymore. Sunday afternoon football is another thing that is responsible. In Texas, no one can go anywhere or do anything on Sunday afternoon because they might miss some unforgettable, magical moment of someone making that perfect field goal or unbelieveable tackle. Getta life!! There is basically too much ready made entertainment available for families to be distracted too much by one another. Why go visit Grandma when you can watch Boob Watch or Cops or even the disease of the week movie?

What I miss most about my childhood was gathering with my mother's extended family. We often got together for dinner after church. The women combined the meals they had started and brought it to one house for a "pot luck" style lunch. Afterwards the children played together and the adults played Forty-two or dominoes. We did this nearly every Sunday during fall, winter and early spring. In the late spring and summer we usually went to our own houses because there was always canning or something to be done. I also miss the Sunday afternoon drives. We used to all load up and go for a drive that might last an hour or several. This was especially popular during extremely hot or cold weather. The car had an air conditioner- -the houses didn't. The car also had a better chance of getting truly warm in wintertime than the house did!! LOL

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), October 10, 2000.


I agree with Green and others. I don't think Air conditioning has ruined the communication and thereby the connection of the nuclear family, I think entertainment has been the culprit! We are being entertained to death in this country. Also, because of the Boob toob, people seem to think they should live in a super deluxe fancy environment even if they can't afford it, anf that makes them discontent with their lot and since we haven't learned how to converse meaningfully, our discontent turns to resentment, and voila, divorce.

It isn't really as much of a strecth as it might sound when you think about it. Instant happiness is shoved down our throats by the drug of choice....TV.

I don't know what's gotten better that has any connection to the tightness of the family. I honestly can't think of anything! Maybe long distance rates are cheaper, but I wasn't paying the bills 25 years ago and we had a 3 minute phone limit, so I can't be certain on that!

Medical technology has certainly advanced and that would seem to be the best technological advance, to me. However, it doesn't really change the connectedness with other people, and isn't that what you were referring to, Jay?

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), October 10, 2000.



No Dorreen, what I really was hoping that people would realize is that the family basics are still there only enhanced by the technology. I will say that by reading some of the answers, it has made me more appreciative of my family with its core values. Lynn and I are happy that we have been able to hold onto our old values in a new forum. Gotta go and start downloading the Sunday news and comics and have that "quality time" You know how I said I missed those fights over the paper, well that hasn't changed either, now we fight over the mouse. Things really don't change as long as you have family.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), October 15, 2000.

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