The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise.
Aiden Nowlan
THE WORLD IS GETTING SMALLER!!!!!! I have noticed this seeming shrinkage for the past decade or so, but it seems more amplified every time I visit the places of my youth. As I was traveling the highways and back roads of Georgia a couple of years ago on vacation, I would periodically go out of my way to drive by childhood haunts. I drove by Faulk’s pond, a nice pond, but not near as big as I had remembered
it being. It seemed that it used to take forever to dig the worms from the sawdust enhance dirt on the one side of the pond and walk around to the other side where the fishing was better. Now, as I looked at it, I realize that it would take only a few minutes to walk all the way around. I drove passed the home where I spent my childhood and it looked smaller than ever. As a matter of fact, I did not even immediately recognize the house because it had been painted a different color, the swing set had been torn down and the cow pasture that used to be behind it had been replaced by mobile home lots. As I drove out to my brother’s and sister’s homes in Dodge County, I realized that the distance was not near as great as I thought it was when we used to pile in the family station wagon on the way to grandma’s house. The ditches that seemed like raging rivers after the rain when I was a kid were very shallow indeed. I drove down the old dirt road to the field where grandpa’s house used to stand and realized that the world was indeed a much smaller place now that I was older.
The advent of CNN and other cable television news stations has brought the world to our living rooms. My family took numerous cross-country car trips when I was growing up, but now I fly everywhere I need to go. I count the distance between myself and my parents in hours instead of days. My husband and I were talking just the other day about how ruffled I was at the prospect of using dial-up service when I stayed at my mom’s house instead of having a wireless DSL connection. It is sad that we have gotten so spoiled that we are upset at it taking a few extra moments to send a message and digital photos to someone clear across the country or even the world. I remember how exciting it was to gather around the kitchen table when we were kids and see the photos that we had taken on our family vacation after my dad returned from the pharmacy where he had dropped them to be developed the week before. Now everyone has a digital camera with immediate confirmation of whether they go the shot or not. I even took my laptop, an invertor and digital camera on our family boat for our trip to Lake Powell so that I could download all my photos and videos and burn a copy for my friends before we parted company to return to our respective homes. We have become the ultimate ‘immediate gratification’ society.
Although I have noticed the shrinkage or our technology-based world to a greater degree recently, I have also relished the simple things as I have visited with so many relatives in my trips back to my childhood home. My mother and aunts had been reminiscing about the ‘old days’ and things they used to do. We talked about the simple pleasures of life before there were TVs in every room in the house. It was interesting to hear stories about the way they grew up picking cotton, raising chickens and cows and playing family games every evening on the farm. They literally wore ‘flour sack’ dresses to school and had a wood-burning fireplace as the only heat source in their home until my mother was a teenager. They were raised simply, with very few worldly possessions, but with a lot of love. It made me wonder what kind of stories my daughter is going to tell about her father and me when she has children. I hope that her childhood memories are filled with as much love and laughter as mine were.
THE WORLD IS GETTING SMALLER!!!!!! I have noticed this seeming shrinkage for the past decade or so, but it seems more amplified every time I visit the places of my youth. As I was traveling the highways and back roads of Georgia a couple of years ago on vacation, I would periodically go out of my way to drive by childhood haunts. I drove by Faulk’s pond, a nice pond, but not near as big as I had remembered
it being. It seemed that it used to take forever to dig the worms from the sawdust enhance dirt on the one side of the pond and walk around to the other side where the fishing was better. Now, as I looked at it, I realize that it would take only a few minutes to walk all the way around. I drove passed the home where I spent my childhood and it looked smaller than ever. As a matter of fact, I did not even immediately recognize the house because it had been painted a different color, the swing set had been torn down and the cow pasture that used to be behind it had been replaced by mobile home lots. As I drove out to my brother’s and sister’s homes in Dodge County, I realized that the distance was not near as great as I thought it was when we used to pile in the family station wagon on the way to grandma’s house. The ditches that seemed like raging rivers after the rain when I was a kid were very shallow indeed. I drove down the old dirt road to the field where grandpa’s house used to stand and realized that the world was indeed a much smaller place now that I was older.The advent of CNN and other cable television news stations has brought the world to our living rooms. My family took numerous cross-country car trips when I was growing up, but now I fly everywhere I need to go. I count the distance between myself and my parents in hours instead of days. My husband and I were talking just the other day about how ruffled I was at the prospect of using dial-up service when I stayed at my mom’s house instead of having a wireless DSL connection. It is sad that we have gotten so spoiled that we are upset at it taking a few extra moments to send a message and digital photos to someone clear across the country or even the world. I remember how exciting it was to gather around the kitchen table when we were kids and see the photos that we had taken on our family vacation after my dad returned from the pharmacy where he had dropped them to be developed the week before. Now everyone has a digital camera with immediate confirmation of whether they go the shot or not. I even took my laptop, an invertor and digital camera on our family boat for our trip to Lake Powell so that I could download all my photos and videos and burn a copy for my friends before we parted company to return to our respective homes. We have become the ultimate ‘immediate gratification’ society.
Although I have noticed the shrinkage or our technology-based world to a greater degree recently, I have also relished the simple things as I have visited with so many relatives in my trips back to my childhood home. My mother and aunts had been reminiscing about the ‘old days’ and things they used to do. We talked about the simple pleasures of life before there were TVs in every room in the house. It was interesting to hear stories about the way they grew up picking cotton, raising chickens and cows and playing family games every evening on the farm. They literally wore ‘flour sack’ dresses to school and had a wood-burning fireplace as the only heat source in their home until my mother was a teenager. They were raised simply, with very few worldly possessions, but with a lot of love. It made me wonder what kind of stories my daughter is going to tell about her father and me when she has children. I hope that her childhood memories are filled with as much love and laughter as mine were.
If you haven’t told your children about your younger years, tell them. It may be too late to get to know their grandparents or others that have passed on, but your mother, father , and other relatives can live on through your stories. Believe it or not – your kids will actually listen. It may be because they think it is cool to hear about life in the ‘olden days’ or because they just find it comical that you and your parents grew up so different than them. Maybe they will catch on to some of the similarities between you and themselves. Maybe it will help them understand why you expect the things from them that you do sometimes. Maybe – it will just be good quality conversation time with them. Either way – it is worth the effort. May you all take time to enjoy the simpler things in our ever-shrinking world and help your kids to understand and appreciate them as well.
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