Hi.
It’s been awhile. Glad to talk with you again.
Lisa, Taylor and I were having Sunday dinner at the restaurant Lizards Thicket (people from the North are going, “wha???”) a number of weeks ago. Lizards Thicket is the kind of place where everyone in the South eats the same kind of comfort food. Collard greens, mac and cheese, smothered pork chops, liver and onions, fried okra, chicken and dumplins…one of the reasons I gained about 35 pounds in my first few years in South Carolina (I’m happy to report I got rid of the extra weight from walking the dogs and people at work checking me).
The dinner conversation turned to the “old folks” talking about the work we had to do as children vs. the kids today, who need a mid-day nap during spring break, like they’re in a retirement home. Lisa told Taylor that in fact, what is known as Spring Break to Taylor and her peers today was known as Clean Up Week when we were pre-teens in Chicago in the 1970s. For me, that included time spent cleaning out the garage, organizing your room, straightening up the basement, mopping the kitchen floor, pulling the weeds in the backyard, washing the car that you couldn’t even drive yet…with a few breaks for going to the park or seeing a baseball game (baseball was BIG when I was a kid). Taylor couldn’t take the lecturing anymore and went ham. “I’m tired of hearing about how ya’ll had to do so much work! We have technology now so things don’t have to be so hard! This ain’t 1828!!!
Indeed.
I would say that I walk at times like Redd Foxx on Sanford and Son and sport a grey beard, but even Fred Sanford was not alive in 1828.
Some 1828 facts:
Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams to become President of the U.S.
White comedian Thomas D. Rice introduces blackface (a legacy unfortunately still alive in the 21st century)
The first edition of Websters dictionary is published
Many people believed the earth was flat, not just Kyrie Irving
After we enjoyed a belly laugh at Taylor’s statement (even Taylor started grinning after the words passed her lips), we all considered how important it is to have a work ethic, even in these days of consistent innovations. Anyone born in this century cannot fathom the idea of not being able to watch a TV show “on demand,” not get a phone call on your phone like Dick Tracy, saying “loan me” instead of “cash app me” and buying clothes, food and hardware at the same location.
Old school heavy metal musician and movie director Rob Zombie says he prefers to have most of his movies take place in the 1970s and 1980s because it was a “primitive time.” Ouch. I remember it was a big deal when a soda can took the small aluminum piece that used to separate from the can and possibly cut your finger and make it bend inside the can to prevent injury. GENIUS.
Pre-Michael Jordan basketball players with their white sneakers, tube socks and booty shorts (ewwww…)
The RnB/Jazz group Ohio Players giving me the opportunity to take home pictures of beautiful nude women that were displayed on the record album covers (and is real tame now)
Playing softball, baseball, basketball, football, foot races at various open lots, playgrounds and back yards until the street lights came on.
And it was a given that you had to work around the house (for me and my peers)- no going outside (for kids today it would be no Playstation), no riding bikes, no going to see the Parliament concert until you handled your business. Taylor still needs a routine, to let her know, as comedian Robin Harris used to say, ”There’s no such thing as a knock on the door from someone with a job. Who is it? Job!” That hard work done by earlier generations (I don’t even want to think of what I would have had to do in 1828) enables us now to experience fascinating advancements in technology, to recognize accomplishments of more people of color, people of different genders and people of different faiths making a difference and helping to improve the world. Bad folks come in all types as well; I’m counting on there being more of the former than the latter.
The wheel, plastic, the lightbulb, the streetlight, open heart surgery, pasteurization, the printing press, vaccines, Apple, Microsoft, the flight across the Atlantic, Madam CJ Walker, Berry Gordy, Coco Chanel, Eva Peron, Malala Yousafzai, (it’s important for my girls to be aware of women who changed the world),GPS, social networking, the artificial heart, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Tesla, Nike – all examples of people and ideas contributed by people who were not afraid of putting in the time, so we would have MORE time.
Oh yeah, the microwave. A Godsend.
From the Desk of Daddy D 