Will Rogers
Although I would have to consult Google for a clue as to the identity of the man credited with the above quote, I heard my daddy repeat it often. I think it means that the "good ole days" might not be all they were cracked up to be. Still, as we meanderd through Amish country in southern Ohio, the slower, simpler way of life on this autumnal day seemed attractive, indeed.
Open-air buggies make their way non-chalantly through idyllic landscapes pulled by clip-cloppy horses. Fresh laundry billows on clotheslines. Old-fashioned cornshalks stand tall in rows by pumpkin patches. Children play baseball in the schoolyard at recess...or kickball or Red Rover (where are their digital devices?) Pristine barns and homesteads dot the countryside, (no wires strewn from building to building or satellite dishes marring the view). Corner stores market homemade jams, jellies, noodles, pies and cheese (oh my, the Amish cheese!) with shelves of quilts and aprons, doll clothes and tea towels and bins of crocheted scarves and knitted stocking caps. Family-style restuarants and little tucked-away eateries serve home-grown veggies, gravy-smothered entrees and pies with meringue or lattice-crust or piled-high berries. Shy, small girls in navy and black with little white caps suck their fingers. Rambunctious boys, wearing suspender-held britches, pitch in with after-school chores. The sun sinks into a late afternoon glow that bathes every hillside in color. Dusk envelopes the farmhouses. We fantasize about soup being stirred on the cook stove, supper by candle light, homework in front of the fire, and fluffy comforters on wood-hewn beds.
Delighted, relaxed, challenged and inspired, we climb into our SUV and head for home. We adjust the heat (or air). We anticipate the ready-meal bubbling away in the crockpot. We text family to say we're on the way and consult the GPS just to be sure. No eggs to gather. No cows to milk. No livestock to bed down for the night. At home, we will flip on the lights and read or watch the game. We will spend the evening on Facebook or Pinterest or shopping online. We will push levers on the dishwasher and turn knobs on the washer and dump clothes from the dryer into a basket. We go to sleep wistfully thinking of those bygone days when life was simpler, slower, and less pressured. We awake to the aroma signaling coffee is ready and waiting. We flip on the light, check the digital calendar, the weather, the emails and the lists for the day. We head to the morning workout...for exercise, you know. Ooops, the car is low on gas, so we shift into high gear, dart in and out of the gas station and hurry back into the fast lane. Thankfully, there were no chickens to feed, no cows to milk....no manure to shovel.
"Different isn't better or worse.
Different is just different."
(Was that Will Rogers, too? Maybe Siri will know.)
No comments:
Post a Comment