Today is Sunday. Snow is falling. When my wife looked out on a white world, she purred, ?Such pristine beauty.?
I grumbled an ill-mannered response. ?Dammit all. I?m tired of shovelling pristine beauty. I?m tired of this rotten winter. Twice too long and it isn?t even February yet. And we could get a lot more layers of pristine beauty. Right up to the eyeballs.?
After being shushed and sent to another room, I took some time to think about the winters and summers of long ago. Compared to the conveniences and entertainments children now hold to be their rightful portion, all the youngsters of my generation lived like paupers.
The village lacked a sewer and water system, storm drains, an arena, an auditorium, a natural gas distribution system and a power plant that ran for 24 hours every day. In most homes, the only electrical appliances were a wringer-type washing machine and an electric iron. Until battery-operated radios came along, the only recorded music came from 78 rpm platters on crank-up gramophones. Our gramophone was purchased second-hand at a time when most household were graduating to radios. We finally did have one of those new fangled radios, also second-hand, and powered by a couple of hundred pounds of batteries. Many homes had musical instruments and people who could play them. Our instrument was a second-hand piano that my mother misplayed with tremendous enthusiasm. There was no telephone. None was needed where there was a little boy who could be despatched to any destination in the village bearing beautifully penned and scented notes. (This was the introduction to the character-building activity of doing chores.)
We had pleasures outside the home. We explored every nook and cranny of the village and we wandered over acres of dusty prairie. When the ditches along the railway right-of-way were filled with spring run-off, we took ties from the railway?s stockpile and cleated them together to make rafts. For about two weeks every spring, we were gondoliers, poling up and down the ditches. Later in spring, the serious business of killing gophers began. We were rewarded with a bounty of one cent each for gopher tails. This usually produced sufficient income to be able to afford the 10 cent admission to the village movie house. All films were in black and white. (The first technicolour show I saw was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.)
Whenever we collected enough bodies to play team sports, we were totally unencumbered by managers, coaches, rules or schedules. We decided when to start and when to stop and when to do something else. When my legs grew long enough, I was given the use of my family?s only vehicle - a second hand bicycle. I used it to join other boys in trips to swim in a farm dugout which we shared with a vast multitude of salamanders.
In the winter, there was an outdoor skating rink and second-hand skates. There were also second-hand skis, home-made ski poles and two hills, little more than dimples on the flat prairie.
When I discovered girls were more interesting life forms than salamanders, I became desperate to find odd jobs. I needed money in order to learn about cigarettes, poolrooms, beer, dances and girls. I never learned much about dancing and girls. I suppose it?s too late now.
If any young persons are reading this I want them to know how sorry ? and frightened - I am to see what society is doing to them. They are overburdened with techno-toys that are constantly being ?improved.? Beginning in kindergarten, they are over organized and regimented. Too often, their sedentary entertainment is provided by trivial people doing trivial things. As they grow older, they face the perils of drugs, cyber fraudsters, bullies, stalkers and sexual predators.
As one of generation who wanted something better for future generations, I owe the young an apology. I almost think life would be better for them if they were experiencing the same frugal boyhood I knew.
