Today the boys and I went to the town park in Geraldine for some old fashioned fun. I threw the babies in the little red wagon and drug them down the middle of the streets in the sunshine. I was amazed at the spectacular weather for the first week of February. February is often the coldest, most severe month of the year in this area.
I refer to the park as “old fashioned” fun because it seems that the majority of children these days are mostly being entertained by high tech or highly organized play. There’s wii, X Box, Netflix, cable TV, internet games….the list goes on. Or parents feel that they have to enroll the kids in every possible activity. Such as, soccer, dance or even “little guy wrestling”. They even do that here in Geraldine, though not nearly as much. A lot of these kids are too busy on the farm or ranch to have a need for such entertainment. So going to the park to dig in the rocks and grass and go down a slide seems….quaint.
But have you noticed, as I have, that some of the old ways of doing things and the old things we had to do them with are just, well, better? I didn’t grow up being carted around to activities. We didn’t even have a TV until I was about 10 years old and even then we had 3 channels. TV didn’t make the list of “important things” in our house. I grew up climbing on a pony after school or drawing countless colorful pictures to entertain myself.
Here in Geraldine there are a lot of “old” cars. Not decked out, polished antiques, just old, dirty cars. A few folks drive something we’d call “new”, but not very many. Lots of late 80’s model pickups running around. But those old trucks are still going out here where they’ve had a hard life! We have 2008 truck with 50,000 miles on it that almost lives at the shop. But the old ones are running.
The dishwasher in my house was put in around 1994. It’s a bit worn on the inside, but you know what? It gets the dishes really clean and totally dry! I had a brand new, very expensive one in our last house and it was pathetic. Left them grimy and wet. The washer here is probably and 80’s model and I do drool over the pretty new ones….but this one has a large capacity and still does a great job. I’m scared to replace it with something “new” that might disappoint me.
There are some old things here in Geraldine that just might need to be updated. The other day a very nice man came to my house. He was trying to fix a wiring problem we have. This man moved here in 1986 and he has never changed his hair style since. He has a classic, 1980’s mullet. He’s said after he moved here he really doesn’t like to get out much. Just sort of checked out of the rat race and never looked back.
It seems to be a common theme around here. Old trucks, old houses, old hairstyles and old folks…. and I’ll take it.
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