“What’s a bread box?” I still remember how shocked I was when a year or so ago my daughter asked me that question. In my youth we had a deluxe, double decker, metal bread box sitting on the counter filled with Wonder bread. By the way, the polka-dotted bags were not high on style but they made good boot liners. Sorry, I digressed.
I wish I could say the family breadbox was filled with delicious, nutritious, home baked bread, but my mom couldn’t bake a good loaf of bread to save her soul. Besides, Wonder bread seemed so wondrously squishy and tasteless.
What prompted the bread box memory was the recent findings put out by Beloit College. As stated in the news release, “Every year, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., releases its Mindset List to give a snapshot of how the incoming freshmen class views the world.” (Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/21/beloit-college-mindset-list-for-class-2016/?=#ixzz24zRZnn4P)
For instance, Item #13 : They can’t picture people actually carrying luggage through airports rather than rolling it.
I found that interesting and akin to the bread box revelation and my daughter’s awareness of such items.
Since this is a blog about aging, it seemed like a cosmic twist that a Lehman’s catalog arrived in the mail shortly after the Beloit list hit the media outlets. For those of you unfamiliar with Lehman’s, it is a company that offers “Authentic Products That Work For Your Life.”
But to me, they are a company that still offers the products that I grew up. From boot scrapers to butter churns I turn each page and exclaim, “I remember that!”, or, “Hey, I still have that.”
It’s rather comforting to know there’s a place I could buy a milk can if I wanted one. (A ten gallon stainless steel beauty sells for $209 on page 169.) I see they also sell the Squeezo All Metal Food Mill. I bought one of those in the early 1980’s to help make easier work of canning tomatoes and apples. It’s a fabulous time saver and still looks and works as good as it did the day it arrived.
So maybe the current crop of young folks will never know what a clothespin bag is for ($17.95 on page 153), or what a cloth diaper looks like (Pack of 6 pre-folded for $29.95, page 59), and it is a shame.
In our disposable, let’s get to the next-big-thing-fast world, there should be an awareness and appreciation for time tested and proven products.
And yes, I checked. They do sell gorgeous breadboxes… “It’s not just a bread box; it’s a once-in-a-lifetime investment you won’t find in a department store anywhere! Made by Amish woodworkers just down the road from our Kidron, Ohio store, this is a true heirloom that will grace your kitchen for many years to come.* “-thick oak is sanded smooth, stained… $129.95”
What’s a bread box? It is my youth lingering in happy memories.
Do you have any stories about items that your children or grandchildren have no clue about? I’d love to hear them!
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My wife’s changing rethiionsalp with guns may be illustrative.She is a degreed professional, a gerontologist, coming from a big-city social worker background. On top of that, her father and grandfather were old-time Chicago police officers. Her attitude towards guns when we met was a bit more apprehensive than Ms. Althouse’s.Apart from an early trip to the indoor range, for years, she just avoided them. When there were noises in the night, the presence of my old Colt was well-thought of, but the rest of the time, it was not highly regarded at all.There was a sea change in anti-gun attitudes on September 11th, 2001, and the tide also passed over my wife. Whether this national rethinking was accurate and justified, I am not sure.What it did do was cause sort of a look towards the self-sufficiency of the pre-Boomer times and a re-examination of the protection afforded by reliance on the state.A couple of years ago, she accompanied me to a pistol competition as a part of a weekend trip and saw first hand the sort of thing someone like Ms. Althouse might refer to as “gun people” in their own environment.Her reactions were instructive.A hundred people were armed, much to her initial consternation, but there was no danger at all.She is not patient with cognitive dissonace- she decided to change her mind about the practicalities and menace of firearms.Later, with further exposure, she agreed to take a women’s firearms course at the local indoor range. Subsequently, she came to like the kind of target shooting called steel plate, enough to actually enter a match.I would not call her a gun enthusiast. She likes shooting to some extent (one day she went off on her own and expended almost five hundred rounds at some steel), but only as an occasional pastime.The significant thing is, with exposure to ordinary gun ownership and activity, she came to see it as non-threatening.I can’t picture her packing a concealed weapon, even when working late at night in her office (when she sometimes ought to), but I can picture her taking up a gun in self-defense at home under the most dire circumstances.Most of all, she no longer sees a firearm as something that either “goes off”, or as something that would somehow cause an otherwise responsible and normal person suddenly and inexplicably commit mayhem.Real-life experience has shown her otherwise.So do the experiences of gun-friendly states where firearm rights are still in place, or have been restored.Permitted gun-bearers simply do not commit violent crimes, and do not have accidents with guns, not in any detectable numbers.I agree that persons unfamiliar and uncomfortable with guns should not carry them, and that persons who do carry them must constantly examine the possibility of using theirs in the gravest way.That is also not a comfortable thought, but it does not follow that not preparing for uninvited violence will prevent it, too.
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