THOSE WERE THE DAYS “Two Different Worlds”
Once in a while I like to play head games with my grandsons; they are both young men, very intelligent and well aware of current affairs. I have to smile when they give me that strange, “are-you-kidding-me” look when we chat.
“Can you build a crystal set?” I began.
“What’s a crystal set?”
“A homemade radio.”
“Radio?” I don’t listen to radio and crystal set? Never heard of it.”
“I suppose you don’t know what a kaleidoscope is either.”
“Ah, yea, some kind of toy, right?”
“I guess you can say that but, over the years it has given both young and old lots of homespun entertainment.”
“Red Barn was a fast-food outlet that came to Canada in the late sixties. Their specialty was a ten-cent hamburger.”
“Really grandpa, a real hamburger for only ten cents?”
“They sold hundreds every day. The building was shaped like a big red barn and although they tried, they were unable to compete with a new fast-food outlet called McDonalds and had to eventually close the barn door.”
“Did you know I had the last horse and wagon bread route in Windsor?”
“You drove a horse and wagon, grandpa? How old were you then?”
“I was seventeen, almost eighteen, younger than you guys. In the morning I loaded up my Wonder Bread wagon with different kinds of bread and a variety of cakes and sweets. Just a quiet “giddy up” and the horse knew the route better than I did. As I filled my basket and went from house to house the horse just followed along without any prompting at all. He knew when it was time to stop for lunch and get his feed bag and he knew when it was the last house of the day. I would leap into the wagon and hold on for dear life as he galloped down a busy street, through a traffic light as fast as he could run until he was back in the barn ending his day. There was no way I could rein in that big horse; I was just along for the ride.”
“Do you know how to build and fly a kite?” I continued.
“No, why would I want to anyway?”
“How sad, you guys have your noses stuck in those electronic games half the day and are missing out on the simplest yet most enjoyable past time a boy or young man could ever have. When I was your age a dollar an hour was a good wage, we played baseball in the back field, skated and played hockey on the pond in winter, picked wild asparagus in the spring and enjoyed all kinds of activities that did not cost an arm and a leg. We walked to school, brought our lunch in a brown paper bag and repeated the year if we failed. I lived through a depression and several wars, yet ours was a simple, uncomplicated life compared to today.”
“Are you guys happy?”
“Sure grandpa, we are happy, life is good, yes, we are happy.”
“Then that is all that matters, isn’t it?”
Russ Sanders
epigram@nexicom.net
