Things Dad didn't need to worry about

Just thinking about things Dad didn't have to worry about giving trouble.The dryer breaking, the dish washer leaking, The computer giving trouble,or losing his cell phone. Even paying the paying the water bill, or trash bill since we had our own water and burn barrel and dump. Things were so much simpler back then.
What happened? Stan

My father never said it because he didn't have to buy the farm. But a neighbor used to complain about TAXES, saying he was paying for the farm all over again!

On the flip side, my father didn't have to deal with it, but my grandfather did. Only two out of four offspring survived.

All services cost money. especially when supplied for "free" by the gubbermint. The trash pick up, the water bill, the school system. And look at what the real cost is? I heard that 100 years ago only 20% of people filed federal taxes.

The appliances of today save time. Before the clothes dryer and washing machine women spent 2 days of every 7 doing laundry. (very inefficient) I could not fathom washing clothes with a washboard and then hanging them on a line.

It was simpler back then, and look at what has happened to society with the advent of television and now the Internet. 24 hour news coverage, 800 TV channels, I liked it a lot better with the standard cable channels 30 years ago. 30 channels and some of it was quality. Continuous garbage fed out of a box to poison your mind if you let it. I watch almost zero TV, I am on the YTmag site, Utube.

What happened, as great inventions shaped the 20th century people have had more time to do more things.......some of it good, some bad.

(quoted from post at 21:16:04 11/29/14) Just thinking about things Dad didn't have to worry about giving trouble.The dryer breaking, the dish washer leaking, The computer giving trouble,or losing his cell phone.......

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nless his wife got mad, then he had to hang out the clothes and wash the dishes. :lol:

There are real "GOOD OLD DAYS" with some things that may have been simpler.

The simpler:
1) Far fewer bills; no electric bill, no phone bill, more than likely no insurance bill.

2) One car/truck per home. So much lower cost

The down side:

1) A far lower standard of living. without electric many simple things like washing cloths involved pure hard work. The average woman's day was filled with that HARD work.

2) Fairly simple/common medical issues could easily KILL you or leave you crippled/injured for life. Child birth was a major killer of women. Look in the cemetery the next time your there. See how many women died at young ages from complications of child birth.

3) Life expectancy was much shorter.


We all talk about how it was better when we were younger but in reality life today is mostly easier. There are things we grip about but are they really that much different than they used to be??? We are just better informed.

Think about the things he did have to worry about though. Far fewer medical breakthroughs,the cold war,etc. I think I'll take the worries I have now.

Back then they worked so hard they lived half as long as now.

A lot of it is greed. Companies charging more and more money for junkier products. A lot of it is our communist government keeping everyone under their thumb with their regulations. Where I live the majority of the year they won't allow you to burn your trash

We had a solar powered clothes dryer in the back yard. If the dishes didn't get washed, it meant that Mama was sick. We didn't have a water bill, but when I got old enough, I had to carry water from a spring about 200 feet down the hill, two ten quart buckets at a time. We had a well, but it did not provide enough volume, besides you had to lower a bucket and wind it back up with a rope. We depended on wood stoves for both cooking and heat. I jokingly refer to those as "the good old days" and in some ways they were. Neighbors were neighbors, who helped another neighbor out if he ran into hard times, or if he just ran behind with his spring plowing. People trusted others. A man's word was his bond, and he signed it with a handshake. We would go to church or most anywhere else and leave the house unlocked and most of the time there were two or three vehicles in the yard with the keys in the ignition. So, I guess one could say, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Kinda like today, hunh?

Forgot all about the dump, back of the farm in a big ditch, used to spend hours shooting cans and bottles.
Like somebody said medical care has sure advanced though. My dad died of a heart attack at 49, I was 5., middle brother died at 46 heart att., oldest brother 62, same deal, youngest older brother died last winter in heart surgery at78.
Whenever a doctor hears my family hist. they start writing more prescriptions. Been taking blood press pills over 40 years cholesterol pills about 20 years, blood thinner and a few more assorted pills, no wonder I don't feel good but I,m still alive.

(quoted from post at 22:16:04 11/29/14) Just thinking about things Dad didn't have to worry about giving trouble.The dryer breaking, the dish washer leaking, The computer giving trouble,or losing his cell phone. Even paying the paying the water bill, or trash bill since we had our own water and burn barrel and dump. Things were so much simpler back then.
What happened? Stan

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you chose to have those things to worry about.

It is YOUR choice.

At 46 I'm not old enough to remember the "good old days" like many of you, but I remember even 20 years ago things were so much simpler.

The funny thing to me is that when a topic like this is brought up, the things that make today "better" than the "good old days", are also the things that have made today worse.

Think about it, when the cell phone was invented it was supposed to make our lives easier. Now I will admit, yes, it makes my life a bit easier because I can call around and find a part, instead of wasting time driving around looking for it, when I am in the field working. The flip side, and I don't know about you, but my life was much easier when I didn't need to keep my phone on 24/7 to keep people from thinking I had keeled over dead because I don't answer.

Along those lines, remember when you didn't need to be available "instantly" when someone (a customer) called? Back then the whole world moved a little slower because it basically went at the speed of 'snail mail'. I mean things couldn't happen instantly, so no body expected anything to happen instantly. Now an email arrives a second or two after you hit the send button, and everything else is expected to happen that fast.

Take a step further in the 'good old days' a draftsman might take weeks to draw up a design for a project, then maybe weeks more to test the design (if needed), then the craftsman making it might take weeks to make the piece. Now, the design is easily drawn up in CAD, testing is done on the computer, the the design is input into a CAM program and the part is done in a few minutes. When a house was built there was a crew cutting all of the boards, and nailing them in by hand. A house might take a few weeks just to get the framing done. Now the boards are cut on a computer operated saw, laid down (often by hand I will admit) and nailed together by a machine. The it's put together by a handful of guys with air nailers and can be ready to put siding on, and begin on the interior in a few days.

Yes, I know I am talking in generalities here, but the jist of things is this. In the good old days people worked hard, but the whole pace of life was slower. People had time to live 'The American Dream", and many did. If they died at 40, 60, or 80, it was because it was their time, nothing more, nothing less. I mean people still die every day, at every age, from the same things that folks died from 'in the good old days', the difference is there are just more people around, so there are more 'to save' and for us to hear about.

So, yes, new drugs, and new medical advances might keep people alive longer, but in many cases, what's the real use? on the one hand the computers that made out life so easy have made way too many people so 'soft' that they are now suffering from obesity, high blood pressure, diabeties, and many other medical maladies because they aren't as active as people in the past had to be just to get through the day and live.

That said, who wants to live to be 100 when your 100 lbs overweight because nearly everything that you used to have to work for is now being done for you? Who wants to live to be 100 when you have to struggle to live because a computer/robot took your good paying job (or it went overseas) 20 years ago and you had to survive on a minimum wage job, working until the day you die just to survive?

Seriously I love my life, I love my family, but I'd much rather pass 'when it's my time' knowing that I had a chance to do more with my life than to work, work, work, work, not because I wanted to, but because that's how things have to be to survive in the US nowdays because things are "so much better" than they were in the past.

But that's just my .02

Sure was simpler. In the spring farmers busted their butts to get crops in plus get chores done. Slow days were spent cutting, splitting and stacking firewood, an all summer job between hay and harvest too. In the winter chores took longer because they had to carry water to the livestock on top of the other chores. Feeding took longer too with square bales. God forbid he get sick or injured! His wife worked just as hard. They worked sun up to sun down year round.

City folks didn't have it much better with many having to work 2 jobs to pay for heat and so on.

Simpler? Sure. But I wouldn't trade today for yesteryear.

Rick

What has happened is that, basically, we have pushed productivity in all areas of our lives. The phones, internet, high speed commerce. We can do more but we expect more and people expect us to do more with this high speed stuff.

In a way we're just chasing our tail. All that efficiency depends on increased marginal costs. You have to put all that stuff to work in your life to make it cost effective. We don't spend so much time hand washing clothes and dishes, but we have to use the saved time working to pay for the machines and electricity.

Are we better off? Maybe.
If you can spend more time doing something you like and using the profits to cover the cost of efficiency to take care of things you don't like doing.

The underlying cost is that we use a lot more energy to get all this work done and the cost is steadily rising. Furthermore, I'm not an enviromentalist per se, but I really wonder sometimes about how disposable things are these days; planned obsolescence for appliances, cheap consumer goods, the short lifespan of commercial buildings and even homes.

There are a few things that I miss about the "Good Old Days" - but not many.

I am certainly glad that cell phones hadn't been invented yet back in the 70's. The boss that I had back then would have driven me crazy with phone calls while I was out travelling the U.S. and Canada.

What's a cell phone? "8^)

I'm only partially kidding. I have an old flip phone that I take with me when I ride the motorcycle. Turned off and in my pocket.

It spends 99% of the rest of it's time turned off and sitting on my desk.

Just because the technology is available doesn't mean you have to be a slave to it.

My dad had to worry about the "dish washer and dryer" yelling at him for being the only wife in the area NOT to have one. That was in the 50s. People and dads have always had things to worry about. When my dad was 14 years old, around 1933 - his dad had lost his business due to the stock-market crash. He was home trying to fix the roof himself, fell off, broke both his legs, and never walked again. No good fix for compound fractures back then like we have now. My dad at age 14 had to quit school (legal or not), and get a job to support the family. Note NO welfare or "free medical care" or food-stamps when that first happened either. No government safety network at all. Just church or friends. At age 18 he joined the Army and foght in WWII. His family certainly had no TV or computer back then but did all gather around a radio to listen to FDR. I'm sure if that radio broke - they'd been losing out on more then we do when our TVs go dead.

Never heard dad (even one time) talk about having his latest post "poofed".

Americans have too much money!
Everyone wants to get rich by selling something to us that we do not really need. And people buy the stuff to make themselves find like they are not poor. Which eats up their capital. Then they complain about being poor. The truly poor people are happier with nothing than most people are with their extravagance.
Dad did not have to worry about that. They knew who their were and that impressing others was a waste of every ones time. SDE

My Dad (R.I.P.) used to say "The only thing good about the good ole days were you were young and felt like fighting it". I agree with him about that. I have no desire to go back to what my life was like 50 or 60 years ago.

The good old days. I am living them. I live in an off grid cabin, gravity water from a spring, 12v solar and microhydro power. The only electronic device is this cell phone daughter threw away 12 years ago. We do have a small battery clock above the kitchen table. We use a wood stove to heat, cook and make hot water, Summers it goes in the summer kitchen and we have a coil of black plastic pipe on the roof for "warm" water. We have a small garden and we glean the timberlands around us. Life is simple but good....James

I read everyone's comments and remember my parents and grandparents would say about the good old days. My fil got a magazine called the good old days. I read some where "just remember today is you kids good old days". David

(quoted from post at 13:07:25 11/30/14) The good old days. I am living them. I live in an off grid cabin, gravity water from a spring, 12v solar and microhydro power. The only electronic device is this cell phone daughter threw away 12 years ago. We do have a small battery clock above the kitchen table. We use a wood stove to heat, cook and make hot water, Summers it goes in the summer kitchen and we have a coil of black plastic pipe on the roof for "warm" water. We have a small garden and we glean the timberlands around us. Life is simple but good....James

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So how did you get on this site??

I always figured that if you wished for those days back that hard either you didn't live them or you didn't have to participate in them.

This old cell phone and Verizon service. I can see the tower about 6 miles away....James

As has been said "these are the good old days." Having said that in the '70's and early '80's there was a LOT more industry and good jobs in my area. Now it would be tough for kids to find the opportunities I did. Lot less congestion, lot less police presence looking over your shoulder. There is something to the good old days.

The "luxuries" and complications of life employ hundreds of millions of people, people who would otherwise be shiftless and idle in today's society all else being equal.

Think about it: What would they do? We don't need them to produce the necessities of life. They would sit around, get bored and angry, and cause trouble. Orders of magnitude worse than it is now.

We'd probably have to have a big old conventional world war every 10-20 years just to clean house and vent frustrations.