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Hunker Down with Kes

Ode to The Generation Gap

Posted

I’ve been doing some serious thinking.

About life, living, children, work ethic, vacations, brown Jersey cotton work gloves, the-way-it-used-to-be and weeds.

I did not grow up in the much celebrated Greatest Generation. But I sure knew a lot of them. They were the best! Sober. Honest. Generous. Conservative when it came to money. God fearing. Practical. To put it in the terminology of the old West, they were “someone to ride the river with.”

I grew up understanding the model of life they set before us. Listen, hard work does pay off. “A penny saved is a penny earned.” “A stitch in time saves nine.” “Pretty is as pretty does.” “Don’t take any wooden nickels...”

You get the idea.

It all seems perfectly right and normal to me. And, in my younger days, my Father (who was from the Greatest Generation) didn’t give me any options. As I grew and expanded, I agreed with him because age and wisdom led me to the logical conclusion.

I questioned some of that “old fashioned, nose to the grindstone, get-the-job-done-before-all-else” philosophy for the first time in my life this past Saturday morning. I told you this was serious stuff!

I was pulling weeds out of my hedge. I don’t mind mowing. Edging the drive is not a death defying chore. And using the weed-eater is not gosh-awful unless you “run out of line” with only the last half of the back fence to go.

Pulling those weeds by hand is a whole ’nother animal. Some are half grown trees with deep roots. Most have those claw toothed barbs growing out of them. None want to be torn out of the ground. They fight you like a cornered cat in a rocking chair factory!
And I’m about half as strong as I used to be.

I paused to rest my back and to see if I could do something about the bleeding fingers…..and the broken off azalea limb stuck in my left leg. Sweat was stinging my eyes. I saw camels wobbling across the desert. The sand was choking me. Rod Serling appeared out of nowhere. My mind began to speak to me...

My two sons are in their early forties. I don’t know if that puts them in with the Millennials, Generation X, Z or some Cyber-net group. They don’t think exactly like I do.

Jesse and his lovely family live in the mountains of North Georgia. On this Saturday morning of Memorial Day Weekend they are vacationing at the beach in Destin. The children are for sure splashing in the Gulf, the gentle breeze bouncing off their angelic faces.

Josh and his crew have driven across Tennessee to spend the holiday at Gatlinburg and Dollywood. They are riding the Barnstormer and Daredevil Falls. The late May air is cool and crisp that high up in the mountains.

I’m pulling weeds in my front yard under a blistering sun in Florida.

There is most definitely something wrong with this picture!

Instead of reciting “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop” over the years maybe I should have been whistling “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

I’m not saying the Greatest Generation might have underestimated a sandy resort or Dollywood. I’m just thinking out loud. My grandchildren have already seen more, experienced more, done more than I would have ever imagined at their ages...

And that is not a bad thing!

We didn’t take vacations growing up. We went to visit our grandparents. We didn’t have “money to waste” on a hotel room. And Dad didn’t have many days off.

We spent most every holiday downtown at the square in McKenzie with our friends and neighbors. It didn’t cost anything. And somebody always brought food.

My boys think nothing of waiting 45 minutes to get into some fancy restaurant at one of those vacation destination spots. Those Greatest Generation folks had great patience often sitting up through the night nursing a sick person or waiting for a calf to be born. But when it came time to eat, they weren’t waiting on nothing or nobody!

From the middle of the hedge, you could see both sides of this thing.

My boys buy those expensive genuine leather work gloves for $23.99 a pair. And then more than likely leave them wherever they used them last. I have told them repeatedly how much you can save buying two pair of cotton gloves for five bucks. They never listen.

’Course, it’s my fingers bleeding this morning...

Respectfully,
Kes