Odd Things we learned from older people

My Mother grew up poor during the Depression, and would do things that looked odd but were effective.
If you cannot find a dust pan, a single piece of newspaper wetted on one edge will stick to the floor,
and allow you to sweep the dust onto the paper.
Newspaper and ammonia work well to clean windows.
Lastly My mother would wrap presents in the color newspaper comics (She called them the funny papers)

longview said:

My Mother grew up poor during the Depression, and would do things that looked odd but were effective.
If you cannot find a dust pan, a single piece of newspaper wetted on one edge will stick to the floor,
and allow you to sweep the dust onto the paper.
Newspaper and ammonia work well to clean windows.
Lastly My mother would wrap presents in the color newspaper comics (She called them the funny papers)

Click to expand...

Same at our house. Those funny papers make good gift wraps. Darned socks for extra gloves/mittens. Who darns socks? Navy bean soup. All kinds of meals with lots of noodles, potatoes, rice, breads, and other fillers. It was to fill you up at low cost, but cooking genius put some real flavors into those items. Some of the best foods I've ever eaten. Good radio announcers could make a snail race sound exciting. Times change and progress as a word used to describe that change might not be metaphorically correct. The hardships of life brought people clsoer together because of shared experiences. People were bound by real life, not imagery of things.

DaveFagan said:

Same at our house. Those funny papers make good gift wraps. Darned socks for extra gloves/mittens. Who darns socks? Navy bean soup. All kinds of meals with lots of noodles, potatoes, rice, breads, and other fillers. It was to fill you up at low cost, but cooking genius put some real flavors into those items. Some of the best foods I've ever eaten. Good radio announcers could make a snail race sound exciting. Times change and progress as a word used to describe that change might not be metaphorically correct. The hardships of life brought people clsoer together because of shared experiences. People were bound by real life, not imagery of things.

Click to expand...

I have experienced, what I think of as difficult times, but in talking with the people who lived in the depression,
none of us born after that period have a real clue what hard times look like.
My wife's cousins (much older), told how in 1st and second grade, their chore after school, was to walk the railroad track and pick up pieces of
coal, 2 buckets of coal was enough for their grandmother to trade for food for supper.

I once went without hot running water for 9 months.

Fun fact 1: Boil enough water on the stove, and the droplets will pockmark the porcelain (or whatever it is).

Fun fact 2: It takes at least 8 gallons of water to wash long hair. But the time you've filled up the last jug, the first couple of jugs are only lukewarm.

nota bene said:

I once went without hot running water for 9 months.

Fun fact 1: Boil enough water on the stove, and the droplets will pockmark the porcelain (or whatever it is).

Fun fact 2: It takes at least 8 gallons of water to wash long hair. But the time you've filled up the last jug, the first couple of jugs are only lukewarm.

Click to expand...

what is this running water you speak of?

as a brat, i had the best of both worlds. wonderful military base living offered the safest existence on the planet. first world quarters and gyms, and ball fields, and teen clubs, and NCO clubs, and swimming pools, and theaters, and snack bars. everything was cheap if not free

but staying with my Grandmother during the summer was equally magical. "getting" to draw water in a pail from the well. taking my "bath" in the nearby creek. slopping the hogs. weeding the garden. grubbing for potatoes, bringing in wood for her stove, feeding the chickens. digging worms to go cane pole fishing in the lake. using the outhouse was not so great, but a small price to pay for the adventure of it all, living free in the country on a farm/house that pre-dated the civil war

Grannie, being half Cherokee, was a midwife and knew how to find the plants and made every kind of potion. she always had a wonderful garden. when the hogs were killed she would take the fat and render it in a huge cast iron pot, add lye, and make soap. even then, as a nine year old kid, i thought 'really, ivory is only 8 cents a bar at the BX'. but that was 8 cents saved. these folks who had little made a great life for their kids and grandkids. if they knew you, and knew you needed something that they had, they would make sure you got it. it's just the way they were: wonderful

Dad was 6 when the depression hit, so he was cautious with his money. coming up, when one of the cars needed a repair, more often than not, he made the replacement part rather than buy it from the auto parts store. Mom always kept the fridge filled for us and our friends and we were welcome to anything we wanted, but it would piss Dad off if you took something to eat and did not eat all of it
truly the greatest generation

only wish i had paid better attention and learned more of what they had to offer

longview said:

My Mother grew up poor during the Depression, and would do things that looked odd but were effective.
If you cannot find a dust pan, a single piece of newspaper wetted on one edge will stick to the floor,
and allow you to sweep the dust onto the paper.
Newspaper and ammonia work well to clean windows.
Lastly My mother would wrap presents in the color newspaper comics (She called them the funny papers)

Click to expand...

Until I was 10 and had to move to the US, I lived with my grandfather and this third wife. There was no running water, the outhouse was 30 meters away attached to the barn. The nearest supermarket would have been Kitchener a good day's walk one way.
There was electricity of course, but crude, and certainly no lamps to read in bed.

I never saw a can or any kind of food packaging in that house, it was all canned from the garden, peaches, apples, all of it. I have a picture of me at age 4 holding a potato so big it takes both of my hands to hold it. And I never saw a barber till I was 11 years old.
I lived there summers. We had, no TV just a huge radio and a piano. And they are the fondest days I my life.
My grandfather had many trades, farmer, brewmiester, wood carver, furniture maker, [all of which he passed on to me] but of all the things I learned from him, the best was his "old fashioned" way of treating women. He outlived three wives, survived WW1 and the depression, and was at all times the perfect gentleman, from opening doors to tipping his always present hat. And women loved him

I emulated him.

I learned manners that were laughed at in the US, like standing up to answer a teacher's question, always opening doors, always ready to lend assistance, all the "Canadian" stuff I was teased about. I had learned to make eye contact with a woman passing on the street and say "hello' not "hi", to open doors for them, carry packages for them and be, well, polite and helpful, what today sees as "Canadian".
Like my grandfather I was well liked for my manners.
Then something happened. I moved to the US and standing to answer a teacher's question with due respect, was a source of derision. Today manners are bad. Stepping aside to let someone pass on the sidewalk is often a duel; trip your hat and say "hello" and some stunned bitch is going to call the cops for some whacked out reason.

"It's a lovely day with you in it" to a stranger [common in my youth] can be sexually suggestive, and don't anyone comment on a women's looks, dress or shoes, or hair do - that's sexism. [doesn't matter here, 70% of women dress in yoga paints and wash their hair one a year whether it needs it or not]
I don't care, I do what my grandfather taught me, and the recipients of these gestures become angry, I do what my grandfather did: 'always learn to laugh at assholes."

He also taught me to be wary of anyone who smiles all the time, always count your change, wear clean underwear, stand when someone, especially women enter a room, share a meal whenever you can, take dancing lessons, and it is man's role to protect women and children, not prey on them.
I'd say it was the best part of my education, except when I was really young and he would go walking with me in the cow pasture and sooner or later he would lead me into fresh cow **** in bare feet so everyone could have a good laugh.

If today's "empowered woman" find such gestures distasteful, I am sorry. I am not going to change though, because its part of me, part of my grandfather and part of a tradition of decency sorrily missing from our society, and sadly for the worst.

But I am not going to apologize for having manners, I inherited nothing from my beloved grandfather save that and its what allows me to like myself

longview said:

My Mother grew up poor during the Depression, and would do things that looked odd but were effective.
If you cannot find a dust pan, a single piece of newspaper wetted on one edge will stick to the floor,
and allow you to sweep the dust onto the paper.
Newspaper and ammonia work well to clean windows.
Lastly My mother would wrap presents in the color newspaper comics (She called them the funny papers)

Click to expand...

My grandfather and great grandfather were around during the depression, neither really had much of those quirks left. My great grandfather though told me about how he would send my grandfather and his brothers to find railroad spikes and other scrap metal, and cut down wood during the depression.

He had his own makeshift blacksmith forge, and he would make everything from kitchen knives to wrenches and axes with it. He himself admitted though he hated doing it, and stopped doing it when times were no longer hard, and only did it then because wood and scrap metal were free and tools were too expensive for him to afford.

this happened when he was working for a phone company, he was union and during the depression they voted a massive pay cut rather than massive layoffs to ensure everyone kept their job, post ww2 he was pretty well banking though with that same union job.

beerftw said:

My grandfather and great grandfather were around during the depression, neither really had much of those quirks left. My great grandfather though told me about how he would send my grandfather and his brothers to find railroad spikes and other scrap metal, and cut down wood during the depression.

He had his own makeshift blacksmith forge, and he would make everything from kitchen knives to wrenches and axes with it. He himself admitted though he hated doing it, and stopped doing it when times were no longer hard, and only did it then because wood and scrap metal were free and tools were too expensive for him to afford.

this happened when he was working for a phone company, he was union and during the depression they voted a massive pay cut rather than massive layoffs to ensure everyone kept their job, post ww2 he was pretty well banking though with that same union job.

Click to expand...

To the bold, it sure as **** isn't that way now. Now unions work tirelessly to ensure it's layoffs before pay cuts, and layoffs must always happen in reverse order of seniority, in other words, fire the youngest and lowest-paid first, and the oldest and highest-paid last. It's highly regressive and I find it utterly despicable.

Neomalthusian said:

To the bold, it sure as **** isn't that way now. Now unions work tirelessly to ensure it's layoffs before pay cuts, and layoffs must always happen in reverse order of seniority, in other words, fire the youngest and lowest-paid first, and the oldest and highest-paid last. It's highly regressive and I find it utterly despicable.

Click to expand...

To be clear this was during the depression and some unions then blackmailed their companies through the wagner act voting themselves out of a job.

But for alot of uunion people, they knew times were hard, companies were often losing money and only surviving off their savings and capital, and if they voted layoffs, they likely would have no other job and would be stuck begging in the streets or working under the table as a farm hand for food and just enough money to keep the tax man from siezing your home.

nota bene said:

I once went without hot running water for 9 months.

Fun fact 1: Boil enough water on the stove, and the droplets will pockmark the porcelain (or whatever it is).

Fun fact 2: It takes at least 8 gallons of water to wash long hair. But the time you've filled up the last jug, the first couple of jugs are only lukewarm.

Click to expand...

One of my fondest memories of living with my ex is after our power was turned off, he rigged a hose to a length of copper tubing he coiled through the fireplace, and then to another hose we routed into the bathroom so we could have hot showers.

I liked that shower a lot more than the fanciest showers I've been in since, heh.

Neomalthusian said:

To the bold, it sure as **** isn't that way now. Now unions work tirelessly to ensure it's layoffs before pay cuts, and layoffs must always happen in reverse order of seniority, in other words, fire the youngest and lowest-paid first, and the oldest and highest-paid last. It's highly regressive and I find it utterly despicable.

Click to expand...

And you hold as heroic messiahs the bosses that have ratcheted up employer productivity, profits and their own pay, even giving themselves extra bonuses and raises when they manage to get the workers to capitulate to pay cuts.

Right, nothing wrong with your values, judgment or reason. Nothing at all.

DirtyRat said:

And you hold as heroic messiahs the bosses that have ratcheted up employer productivity, profits and their own pay, even giving themselves extra bonuses and raises when they manage to get the workers to capitulate to pay cuts.Right, nothing wrong with your values, judgment or reason. Nothing at all.

Click to expand...

Most unionism is public sector. No "heroic messiahs" reaping profits in public sector management. I justifiably speak out against unionism, and that has basically nothing to do with your stereotypes about corporate executives.

longview said:

My Mother grew up poor during the Depression, and would do things that looked odd but were effective.
If you cannot find a dust pan, a single piece of newspaper wetted on one edge will stick to the floor,
and allow you to sweep the dust onto the paper.
Newspaper and ammonia work well to clean windows.
Lastly My mother would wrap presents in the color newspaper comics (She called them the funny papers)

Click to expand...

Mom's people live in fly over coal country Kentucky. They had no electricity until I was about ten years old. No indoor plumbing until I was 15. In my aunts home, they didn't have central heat...just a coal stove in the kitchen. I helped them do laundry in a big washtub over a roaring fire in the yard. The kids took their baths in that same washtub in the kitchen while listening to the millers bop against the screens trying to get at the light.

I can still taste the wonderfully juicy and delicious tomatoes warm from the summer's sun that we harvested in July. We went to town once a week...about an hour in an old car they hoped would get us there. I always got to buy different flavored candy canes. Bestest tasting candy everrr. Oh, and a pack of Teaberry gum. Sigh.

We always came home with a watermelon that my aunt would carry down to the creek to cool it down. Then early evening, we'd carry chairs outside and eat watermelon til we couldn't hold any more. I can still feel the juice running down my arms. It was sooo messy and fun.

My cousin and I would climb the hills that surrounded my aunt's farmhouse making sure to avoid a big patch where my aunt said T-Boy had a still. We walked up the road to the little tiny store that survived selling pack lunches to the coal miners on their way to work. Waved at the coal miners who hooted and hollered at us on their way home with their coal black faces and snowy white smiles.

No TV. No radio. No signals because we were at the foot of The Smokies. We played til dark and then some. Our moms checked us for chiggers before we went to bed. Then we fell in bed completely exhausted, slept fast and woke up next morning rearing to go.

Then after three weeks or so, mom and I would head back to Chicago and modern conveniences. Those were the days.