Monica Kochelee

Geez the year is flying by so quickly!  It’s May Day, May 1st.  I was telling my hubby yesterday that I can remember as a little girl we had big May Day celebrations at school.  We’d spend the whole day partying.  The schools would set up a “carnival” type scene with games to play.  Parents were invited to attend and we’d learn a flagpole dance that we’d perform for them.  We’d make up May Day baskets full of flowers and leave them on the door step of a friend, ring the doorbell and run away.  Then all of a sudden one year it stopped because our government discovered that Russia celebrated May Day with big parades and we didn’t want Russia to think we were supporting them by celebrating May Day too!  What a crock of bologna that was!  I loved May Day celebrations and think we should continue to celebrate!  It was a celebration of spring!

When I was a teenager, it was “the style” to buy new jeans and then totally wear them out.  You didn’t rip them up on purpose, you simply wore them to “death.”  The more “worn out looking” your jeans were, the better.  That meant that you were a very active person, which was a good thing!  It was also a little bit of a snub against the corporate culture of consumerism that was always trying to get people to buy buy buy.  We were showing that we were going to be thrifty and not “buy into” the culture of materialism.

If the jeans ripped, you either patched them up somehow or just wore them ripped.  At some point the jeans were eventually shortened into “cut-offs” and the bottoms were allowed to fray into a fringe. 

We were cool back then.

After I got up and showered this morning I was getting dressed and ripped a sock.  I hope that is not an indication of how today is going to be going! 

At first I was going to just toss the sock in the trash, but then I decided that I will try to darn it to repair it.  In this economy, I’m trying to pinch every penny and stretch every dollar.  It’s been a few years since I’ve darned socks, but it isn’t hard to do.  So I’ve put the sock aside for now, will try to get to darning it this evening after supper.

I found that when it ripped and I was looking at the rip, thinking about darning it, memories of my step-mother teaching me how to darn socks came to mind.  I remember how she had a wooden bulb to use as a form to put inside the sock while working on it.  I don’t have one of those; I’ll just use a light bulb.  I find it interesting how often small and seemingly insignificant things will trigger a memory of a person!

I can recall visiting my grandparents on their farm when I was a young child.   Seems to me that the only kitchen appliances they had were a range, an electric toaster, and a refrigerator/freezer.  Their smaller appliances were an electric mixer and a blender.  

My grandmother seemed to spend most of her day in the kitchen, cooking the meals and canning fruits and vegetables while my grandfather tended the animals and crops. 

Seems to me that’s all anyone that I knew had in the way of kitchen appliances.  If you wanted coffee, it was percolated in a pot on the stove-top.  If you wanted to open a can, you used a manual can opener.   The day’s garbage was fed to the pets, or thrown in the garbage can.

I look around my kitchen today and see my range, refrigerator/freezer, two microwave ovens, a bread machine, an electric coffeepot, a food processor, three slow-cookers, a George Forman-type grill, an automatic dishwasher, a hands-free battery operated can opener, a blender, an electric mixer, an electric waffle maker, and a toaster oven.  (Note:  some of these are tucked away in kitchen cupboards.)  I COULD have, but don’t want, a trash compactor and a garbage disposal. 

I’m really glad that technological advances have provided for all of these conveniences.  I don’t think I would have the time or energy to live the way my grandparents did!

I’ve been spending some time recently thinking about how technology has really changed the way we live!  This is the first in a series of posts where I’m just going to be “musing” about the modern technologies we take for granted in our every day lives.