29 September 2006

On Generations

Jon's thoughts (Beggar's All) on his generation and on anomalies in generations (those who "escape" the spirit of the age) has me musing. In my own case, it's simply a matter that I really don't belong to my own generation. My mother was 43 when I was born; my father 40. My grandfather was born in 1879, and HIS father was over 40 when he was born! My grandparents did not have indoor bathrooms - a visit with them entailed the use of the "John." Let me tell you: as a kid this I did NOT enjoy! Come to think of it, as a grown up I don't think I'd enjoy it either. They only had cold running water at one sink in the kitchen in the their very last years of their lives when my dad ran a pump and line from the spring where they got their water into the kitchen. They regularly ate food prepared on or in a wood burning stove (and let me tell you: no food I eat nowadays can even begin to compare with THAT food!). Heat in the house came from wood burning stoves, period. My kids are always a bit surprised that the "past" is so "recent" for me. My mom used to tell me stories she heard as a little girl from a relative that remembered what things were like before "the late great unpleasantness between the States" (aka, the utterly unwarranted war of northern agression!). Does this disjunction in generations - account in part for those who do not grow up "in the spirit of the age"? In fact, I didn't fit in with my contemporaries, most of whose parents were the age of my siblings!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could we be a lost set of identical twins? Only diffo so far is paternal grandfather occasionally held slaves.
Fr. Hank

William Weedon said...

Fr. Hank,

Too funny! Tell me your family is not from Richardsville, VA!

Anonymous said...

Well, just on the other side of the hill, actually,,,,, Washington County, State of Franklyn,,,,, err, Tennessee nowadays.
Family settled that area in the 1780's and 90's from the Valley of the Virginia. The went in with Blount and Seviere to establish their own state,,, and haven't forgiven the Feds yet for messing up a good thing.