Posted: 1/29/2010 9:19:53 PM EDT
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We all will provide for Moms, and other elders. What are your plans for saving that knowledge?
Mom knows way more then me and I am 52. |
| We are cleaning out my great, great grandfathers house for it to be torn down Monday some time. I would have loved to know half of the stuff he seems to have known. He's been gone for over nine years now, but seeing the items he made and the books he had I would have loved to have him around now. All I can do is just keep it in the back of my mind and hope I don't get early Alzheimers. |
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My folks are well into their 80s and both grew up hard and poor.
To this very day, the stuff they simply KNOW flat out amazes me. Between their hardscrabble upbringing and years of making do, or doing without, they have learned to improvise anything and everything! I mean from canning, to carpentry, to welding,to livestock,to farming, to sewing, to medical: you name it! And when I do sometimes ask something, they look at me like "HOW can you not know that?" Then tell me! |
| you needed to be at their elbow and their beck and call while you were growing up but you were too busy with your own interest. as most of us were.. If they are still alive get a tape recorder and show some serious interest.. sit back and let them talk you listen..ask questions where appropriate.. Ever hear of the FOX FIRE books?? A very good study of appellation mountain people compiled by some students for a collage assignment and then published..A great set of books.. |
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Two of the people that had the most to do with me growing up the way I did were an old farmer and his wife. They are still with us and I always take time when I am there, which is a lot, to visit and make sure they are well. I take care of their computer and help them with stuff around the house. They aren't blood relatives, but they might as well be.
Someday I will loose them, and it will be 100 times worse than loosing my own father. |
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"We all will provide for Moms, and other elders. What are your plans for saving that knowledge?
Mom knows way more then me and I am 52." One day you wake up and realize the truth of this. If you are lucky, you can still do something about it. But remember, in some ways YOU are the one with some of this arcane knowledge as well. What are you doing to see that it is not lost? Remember how attentive (not) you were when grampa was telling stories about the old days? |