The Clueless

margali

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Have a funny to share...
Talking with my new boss about weekend plans. Said I was glad rain held off cause I was sheet mulching my garden this weekend. During conversation also mentioned I was a little wistful my youngest was potty training and my cardboard supply would dry up.

She gave me this horrified look and said you mulch with diapers?! She honestly believed that I was laying human waste all over my garden.

I responded "no... I get 2 - 3 big cardboard boxes a week containing the clean diapers that I flatten and use on garden paths."
 

digitS'

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This not connected to gardening and might be the opposite for a young person but humor me, @margali ... i'm olde.

Yesterday, I was reading responses from journalists to a comment that a 21 year old didn't seem to know that people at one time had black and white televisions incapable of showing color on the screen.

The responses were many about remotes on wires, no remotes, limited channels, cassette tapes, no mobile phones, etc.

Not one, out of dozens of responses seemed to be from a person who had no television in their childhood home or only one channel. Even the person starting the subject seemed to be suggesting that the b & w set was a holdover from an earlier time and that there was a color set also in the home.

Okay, I've expressed some surprise over changes and responses to them. At least, I don't go back to the time of the Sears Roebuck catalog rather than the roll of tp in the little house out behind the shack.

Steve :)
 

Pulsegleaner

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Ah yes the famous joke that goes

"You may be older than you thing if......."you remember a time when "Don't Touch That Dial" actually MEANT something."

Or the time I was in an emergency as a kid and couldn't call home because no one had taught me how to use a rotary dial phone.

And someone pointed out that it's a little odd that the symbol on computers for "save" is still an image of a floppy disc. (as opposed to a CD-Rom or, I suppose now, a data stick.)
 

digitS'

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We have successfully hijacked this thread, right?

I enjoy looking back at an earlier time ... sorta. It's becoming a little scary because there is so much history in between. @Pulsegleaner , the pushbutton phones didn't just take over quickly. There was a couple years of transition. I was adapting well and by the last time I used a rotary dial, it seemed very awkward. It's possible for me to imagine a child having real problems, especially in a moment of stress.

Margali, my first child came along when we were in college and living in an apartment. Paper diapers were available but really new. We bought a portable washing machine for the cloth diapers ... Clothes rack in the living room over the floor heat through the winter; in front of a wide open window on nice days.

Recently, I was reading something that someone named Amy wrote about presidential elections and the first she remembered was Carter and Ford because Carter had a daughter named Amy. And here I am remembering Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. One was someone who led us through a war and could be trusted. The other had a confusing name for me but was supposed to be a deep thinker ...

Steve
 

Ridgerunner

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I'll help with the hijack. I also remember Eisenhower/Stevenson running against each other. I grew up on a farm where we used plow horses instead of a tractor. Mom made many of my sister's dresses from flour sacks, they were printed with patterns so you could do that and get a pretty dress. Life has changed a lot in my lifetime.

But I think about the changes in my dad's lifetime. He was born in 1917 and grew up on a farm, as did the majority of US citizens of that time. He rode a horse to the grocery as a teenager when his Mom needed something. When his family visited others they traveled in a horse drawn farm wagon, with seven kids you needed something with capacity. Think of modes of communication, I don't think radio stations became that common until the 1920's. Think of the war planes of the WWI, that was state of the art.

Then think of when he died in 2003. It had been a lot of years since we had men on the moon. Supersonic jets had long since been banned for public transportation because of the sonic boom. With proper equipment you could communicate with any part of the globe. The internet was a common way of life.

Things are still changing rapidly, you will probably soon be seeing lists of what the kids graduating high school this year consider ancient history. But I have trouble visualizing anyone going through more of a basic change in lifestyle that Dad went through.

Margali I did get a kick out of that story. It is funny. :thumbsup
 

flowerbug

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i told Mom we're using cloth diapers, if they were good enough for me they're good enough for her! besides we have a ton of old fabric she uses for quilting, might as well get some use out of it before throwing it away. all in fun, no idea what we will need, cross that bridge when we come to it. glad we still have a sense of humor.
 

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