It has become obvious to this slow thinker that I’m never going to get over my Depression era rearing.
I came to that conclusion recently (I told you I’m a slow thinker) during my attempt to put a smooth finish on some plywood.
I had stained it and applied a coat of Polyurethane, sanding the roughness between each coat. The roughness persisted.
I called my refinishing friend Tom Schaible (He likes me because I usually spell his name right.) He asked, ‘Did you use a fine hair brush??
No! I took his suggestion and got my smoothness.
Now then, why didn’t I use a fine hair brush to begin with? I have them in various widths. Well, they’re rather expensive compared with the three for a dollar kinds I usually buy.
That’s Depression era thinking. Use the cheap brush and save the $5 brush until you need it, which time may never come, but it looks good hanging on the pegboard.
It’s like our finest china, silverware and table linens. Depression raised people go through lifetimes using the daily ware, saving the good stuff for special occasions, of which there may be none that warrant bringing out the best.
My snow shovel blade is at least an inch and a half shorter than when new, it’s been pushed across the concrete so often. My hoe is much thinner, I still use a manual lawn mower at times to save fuel and often wash my own van to save $4.
We weren’t raised exactly poor. Dad went to work for the Grand Trunk Railroad in 1926 and was never without a job. Maybe it was because all the news was about our country being in a depression that we were raised with that influence.
I don’t know if we really had to put cardboard in our shoes when we wore a hole in the sole or if we were being taught thrift. I’ve come to believe our smashed bean sandwiches, hand-me-down clothes and the order to ‘eat everything set before you? was lesson-teaching, not necessity.
If that was the case, our folks did a good job. Such rearin? slows one’s hands when a dinner check arrives. It also makes it reasonable to use toilet paper on our noses instead of Kleenex, not turn the hot water tap when cold will do just as well, save pennies, shut doors, use more blankets, rinse brushes, save ribbons and cheat on deodorant.
You won’t find a Depression raised person having On Star communications in their new car. Nor will they have plasma tv, clear-channel car radios, battery operated can openers, midget cell phones hanging from their belts or wearing clothes that accentuate their navel and surrounding area.
The 1930s people regarded saving string as a competition, comparing the size of their ball with neighbors. Gifts were opened with care, not to tear the wrap, but to have it for reuse. We still rinse out re-closable plastic bags, reuse bread and newspaper wrappers, wash paper plates and take unused motel soap.
In our basement are shelves of jam jars, baby food jars, salad dressing, pickle and peanut butter jars. We have every game ever bought for our three children, and I don’t believe a single one of them is complete, nor has an intact box.
So, why don’t I throw them away?
What?
That would be throwing out our past. It would be like not proving our love. I just couldn’t do it.
It would be very depressing.