My dad was always complaining about how rough he had it as a kid. At the same time, he was always talking about the good old days when things were much better. It was confusing. Which was it?
For example, Dad loved Jersey milk. There was a man who lived over by Winkles Groceries who had a Jersey cow and sold milk in those large one-gallon canning jars, which we’d return each trip. I hated it. It wasn’t pasteurized or homogenized and tasted like someone had filtered water through freshly cut grass. But Dad preferred it to store-bought milk.
We actually had a churn at one point, just for Dad, so we could make butter the old-fashioned way. Sure, we could have gone to the store and bought a huge tub for one dollar that tasted like pure joy, but why do that when he could have my sisters, and I spend about ten hours churning milk into butter, which tasted like a mix of lard and battery acid.
Then there was the time Dad wanted to start making sorghum syrup the old-fashioned way. Forget the fact that you could buy huge cans of it at any store and even flea markets for next to nothing. But Dad just knew it would be better if he made it. We even planted about ten acres of sugarcane. Luckily, by the time the cane matured, Dad had lost interest.
Home remedies always worked better than over-the-counter drugs too, at least according to my dad. He never bought Alka Seltzer, even though it was dirt cheap. He swore by his glass of water and vinegar that he mixed with baking soda, creating a volcano eruption that he gulped down. Dad complained that in his day, they didn’t have all these fancy medicines. Yet, when he was ill, he still reverted back to home remedies he grew up with.
Dad often explained to us that when he was a kid, they had to make their own toys like flips and tractors made from empty thread spools. Yet, when the electronic age came, and home video players became common, Dad would be quick to tell you they had more fun playing with flips and makeshift toy tractors.
Dad despised canned biscuits, was appalled by TV Dinners, and hated instant grits, instant oatmeal, instant coffee, instant everything. He thought rock-n-roll music should be outlawed, microwaves should be banned, and every black-and-white movie ever made was better than any garbage that hit the big screen today.
I guess it’s just human nature. Just think, in 40 years, the youth of today will be defending all the stuff from their childhood to the kids of tomorrow.