Growing up in the South the Summers could be brutal. But, in the early ’60s, not many of us had air conditioning in our homes. We had screened doors front and back, and window fans and it was 100 out, with no breeze at that in the mid-Summers in the South. Hey, we didn’t know any different and it was all good. We. would come in and out and that screen door would SLAM shut. I can remember my Mama saying if y’all SLAM that Screen Door one more time you’re staying in the rest of the day. Wow, we sure didn’t want that I mean it was cooler outside with the creek that ran beside our home, the water was always cold.
We lived in a small town in Alabama it was so quaint, all the homes were wood and brick or full brick they stayed cooler. Most of our Mothers didn’t work, they had flower Gardens, and they still ironed weekly and cooked three meals a day. The ladies would gather around the kitchen table or the front porch drinking their coffee or Iced Sweet Tea, and smoking their cigarettes, yes it was a huge thing in those days many women smoked, today we know more about what smoking can do to our bodies. The women would talk and talk for hours in the early afternoon, I called it gossip but, you couldn’t tell them that, nope they were solving the world’s problems. haha!
By that I mean they were sharing recipes telling each other about who had what on sale and where you could get your best deals on this and that. People stuck together and helped each other. Today, we barely know our neighbors, and maybe we wave as we leave and maybe we don’t. Do they call that progress? I don’t think so, just my opinion though. But, if you ask me, and you didn’t I’m sharing my 2 cents anyway, today’s world is much more complex, not as friendly, neighbors are afraid to speak, and women can not rely on each other as much as they could back then.
I don’t know about you but, this doesn’t seem like progress to me. I’d rather hear that “Screen Doors slam, and see my Mother on the porch with her “friends” sharing recipes, much more than locking my home uptight, afraid to speak to the new folks on the block out of fear. I guess this progress has made us trustless, fear more, and look at what we have now. Scary huh? I can’t help but wonder if my Grandchildren will ever know the life I lived as a child the still calm soothing moment of those days. The simpleness of it compared to their lives today. We didn’t have school shootings, no policemen at the School doors, God helps us. What I wouldn’t give to hear that “Screen Door’ slamming at my home, today!
Happy Sunday to you all.
Love,
Debbie