~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Dear Grampa Tom,
I’ve been thinking about you lately because of the absurdity of life in the 21st century. Knowing I think it’s absurd, I’m pretty sure you would have trouble believing it even if you lived it.
Let’s see, you died at the age of 93 in 1972? ‘73?
A ton of things have changed since then, just as a lot changed in your nearly 100 years. But I’ve read that there have been more changes in the last 40 years than in all of recorded history.
Just to start somewhere, we have a recreation center in Jefferson now; it’s been around fewer than 20 years and is a fixture in our lives, used seven days a week by folks who need exercise.
It’s a good thing Jefferson has a rec center, a place where folks can exercise in the winter — something I know you did not do – because many of us are overweight.
Even though the Community Center is only a block and a half from my house, when it’s really icy, I’ve had to drive there, walking in the great outdoors being so dangerous, what with the ice and the falling down. In bad walking conditions, I drive about 700 feet so I can walk 5,280 feet (a mile) indoors. Not to forget that I’m paying money to walk, Grampa. What do you think of that?
I can see you shaking you head in true amazement at these strange goings-on, the laugh-worthy things we do now that were not a part of regular life during your 93 years on the planet.
Exercising was not a problem in former decades, was it? You worked on the farm, you ate a lot, you did not get fat. Oh, Grandma wore a corset and carried a little more weight than in your wedding photo, and you were always a big man – big boned, tall, strong – but, all in all, you were trim, and walking for exercise probably never entered your mind. I can’t imagine Mom and Dad exercising purposely, let alone you and Gramma Mae. None of you were fat, however. And Mom and Dad, whom I never saw walk beyond the daily work they did – house cleaning, mowing the lawn, shoveling and so forth – never exercised in any formal way that I was aware of. Even as I paid as little attention to them as possible when I was a teenager, I’m pretty sure they were not doing sit-ups on the living room rug while I was upstairs on the phone.
Really, Grampa, are you laughing out loud?
When the bottled water craze first hit America, I can remember wondering what you would have had to say about it. You were opinionated in a gentle way, but I can imagine at least a little sarcasm if you knew I was paying for water I could get out of a tap. Most muni water costs less than 1 cent a gallon. If I buy a $1 bottle of water, the price is 5 cents per ounce. Dumb, huh? But as I think about it, I never saw you drink water anyway; in this era we hardly stop drinking water because somebody (many somebodies) told us eight glasses a day would help something. You certainly lived a long time on very little water.
Another widely sold liquid whose price we never quit complaining about is gasoline. It has to be pumped out of the ground, shipped to a refinery (often halfway across the world) and shipped again to filling stations in town. You probably know all this, although at least when you were younger, our gasoline came from as near as Texas.
Around here, the price per gallon fluctuates between $3 and $4 a gallon (that no doubt made you fall off your chair because when you were around, gasoline was 25 cents a gallon). With 128 ounces in a gallon, the current price of gasoline is a little more than 2 cents an ounce – cheaper than bottled water.
Do you remember that summer in the ‘50s when there was a gasoline war and the stations were selling it for 10 cents a gallon? Maybe if you were around now, you’d abandon your car and walk just because the price of gas would disgust you.
Politics is about the same as when you were alive – “America has the best politicians money can buy.” Your contemporary Will Rogers said this in the 1920s, when your sons weren’t even grown yet and if you were here right now, you’d meet your great great great grandson). Will nicely summed up today’s pols as well as his. Most people think politics is worse now than it’s ever been, but that’s because they listen to broadcast news all the time, and it’s hard to escape idiocy repeated too many times a day. In the meantime nobody reads history, or they wouldn’t get so unhinged about current events.
Which reminds me of another thing — I remember when you and Gramma got a TV. It was early on in the ‘50s. You loved the Friday night fights; now it’s fights all day long — pundits arguing and ranting with big voices about things they make up. You’d be wise to watch football games four times a week now (way too many from my point of view, but I know you’d like it) because these TV fighters today just might make your easy-goingness go away.
Well, Grampa, more later. There are a zillion things I can think of that will amaze you – not that you’d want anything to do with them but you might be amused hearing about them – so I’ll get back to you.
Love & miss you, Collie
