Remember When

Here's an example of the good ole wood splitter, nothing fancy, but it got the job done. Today you pay a pretty price for a "pretty" log splitter! Go figure!

Okay, even I have had enuff of the white stuff aka snow! I mean, I like winter and yes, snow is needed for the things I like to do like skiing, snow shoeing or even making a snowman but this constant snowing is getting damn old! One hardly has time to “clear” a path before another storm hits. Not exactly a storm but more white stuff falls…holy sheet!

Anyway, after a while you realize the TV shows are repeats or repeats, the books have been read so many times you can actually quote the pages and going outside becomes a bit boring too. I mean, yes its fun to get out there and do whatever, but it’s also cold, wet and you keep bundling up to insure you don’t catch a cold or whatever “bug” manages to buzz about this time of year.

So we find other things to occupy our minds and suck up the days. Napping only works for so long and then, well, our minds need to be awakened and used or we’ll go completely nuts. So, what else do we have – oh ya, those damn “catalogs” and “discount” magazines that usually have the same stuff month after month.

I gotta tell ya, if my folks were alive they’d love the recent stuff folks are selling. Ready for this---dig out those ole faucet handles, paint’em up and then hang’em up and have these colorful hooks to hold whatever you want aka, garden tools, coats, school bags, etc. Who’d of thunk!

As kids we had “hooks” for our winter coats and mittens, hooks---make that NAILS! Hey, they worked just fine and nobody seemed to mind and you know why, because that is what most folks used, we didn’t have fancy hooks and a nail worked just dandy! Hell it we’d been a little bit smarter, we could have painted those nails and had us a real fancy hook for coats! [ya, then we could of fought over them too]

How about the fancy, colorful and somewhat costly compost/trash cans for the kitchen. You know, something to put scraps in and then, supposedly use in your garden in the spring[or if on a farm, scraps to feed to the pigs and/or chickens].Hell, we used empty milk containers [plastic and cardboard, not glass] and they worked just fine. And we also used these same containers to freeze water so we could use them to cool down drinks in the ice chest when we packed stuff up to head out for a day of fishing, a picnic, hell even took drinks to the drive in movies -- you remember those days, right? And you probably remember "sneaking" many friends in the trunk of you car too, right? I wonder, did management know we did this and said damn little or were they totally dumb to this concept? Ya, some of us got caught but for the most part, you could sneak in quite a few people if they kept their mouths shut as you went through the pay area.

So here’s your assignment, sit there and think of the things you have around your house and think back to your childhood and remember what you “use to” have and use. Hey, it’s a fun little trip and you’ll find yourself smiling and laughing as you realize your parents weren’t so out of step as you once thought!

What the hell else ya got to do -- oh shovel the driveway again or perhaps the deck! Well, do whatever floats your boat...memory lane is a fun, inexpensive and less taxing exercise! You could shock yourself into realizing you are now buying stuff, you once used for free and never thought twice about it!