20 May 2008

Time Keeps On Slippin'....
...Into the future (as that Steve Miller song goes). And yesterday, we spoke about history. Well, today that IS history, so let's focus on TOMORROW'S history, namely today's PRESENT. If you're a bit confused by all this "time travel", rest assured all will be straightened out...in good time.
One story the local news aired was about the rising cost of LANDSCAPING. Now anyone with some common sense will tell you that doing something half-assed doesn't take much money (or brains), but doing something worthwhile and lasting requires something I like to call WORK.
It's much like Accounting 101 in that regard.
Most every time, you will GET OUT whatever you PUT IN to whatever endeavor you choose to pursue.
That applies REAL WELL to landscaping.
Now since we're not fortunate (or is that UNfortunate) enough to have some palatial estate requiring a platoon of gardeners and an arsenal of equipment to maintain, we have the essentials for lawn care. With the rising fuel prices, many are rethinking the cost of HIRING a landscaper, and with good reason. Down side to this is that these landscapers are taking a hit IN THE WALLET (as well as on the chin).
Many professionals have to put out so much more money for fuel...for their vehicles that carry the equipment as well as the equipment itself, so...well...you do the math on all that.
Some firms have had to cut back staff to balance the ledger. It's not a pretty picture for those businesses in times like this.
Then we have the semi-pros...those that freelance themselves all over the place with nothing more than a trailer with a riding mower, some rakes, a blower, and a smile. Even they are feeling the pinch.
Down from that we have the "I drive a mower in the trunk of my Lincoln to whoever stops me so they can avoid Neighborhood Code enforcement citing them for not cutting their lawn" fellows. These men are farther from retirement than I am, and yet this is the ONLY thing they do. Must be for the pocket change. They will be affected the least.
As for me? Well, I'm one of those that does his OWN lawn, as I've mentioned here often. And I do it using Nikola Tesla's offspring, namely ALTERNATING CURRENT vis-a-vis ELECTRICITY. Got my electric mower, weed whacker, and blower. Less noise than gas-powered counterparts, enough power to get the job done, and NO pollutants. Also...NO going to the gas pump when something craps out. The ONLY thing that can stop me is a power blackout, and the usual time something like THAT would occur would be during a thunderstorm.
And between you, me and the fence post, I don't see the need to drag a 120 Volt power cord about in the pouring rain JUST to mow the damn lawn. I can wait. Patience is STILL a virtue, right folks?
But all of this is just another one of those dominoes you hear falling.
With these fuel prices, the future of family travel also comes into question.
Those long Sunday "drives to nowhere" have all but gone the way of the passenger pigeon.
Every Sunday, after church, the family would get into the car, and Dad would drive....anywhere...somewhere.
No destination in mind...it was just to get away from it all for a spell.
That was something we all came to look forward to.
And it WORKED.
Back in those days, hell we even took the DOG out with us!
Those times when Dad would head outside the city for a nice weekend afternoon tour of Americana are relatively extinct!
AAA has folded their hand, and admitted that people will be travelling LESS come this Memorial Day weekend.
Perhaps it's times like these that family will mean what it USED to mean, as far as "togetherness" is concerned? Maybe we'll see more family activities that are centered around the house (because we can't afford the luxury of driving frivolously to see some farm animals out in the country). Can the old horseshoe pit or badminton net in the backyard be far behind?
I've pretty much been a "homebody" most of my life, except those times when I was "compelled" to be away from home by circumstances I had no control over. But there was always something to do AT or NEAR home. We didn't even have to take a bus to attend school. We had neighborhood schools (something you will most likely see revisited in the very near future). We had neighborhood stores (none of this mall every so many miles apart thing). We had NEIGHBORS (that were a vital part of the communities we grew up in).
We had it all back then, and we didn't even have iPods, cellphones, GPS, MP3, computers, electronic watches (you WOUND it up every day), calculators (pencil, paper, fingers, and some brains were our calculators), and in some extreme cases...portable radios (that was for the "rich"). We couldn't even afford a car early on, so we did without one until Dad could get one. He had friends with cars and they offered to drive us around.
Amazing how we managed to MAKE IT to now...isn't it?
By comparison, today we've become SO accustomed to having "it all", whatever that means this week, and we cringe at the thought of NOT having all this stuff we seemingly cannot do without.
Well, this gas crunch is forcing us to think "outside our box" as it were.
And perhaps taking a few pages from our past will see us through just fine during the interim.We might even start a damn TREND!
Maybe if we were all just a little MORE self-sufficient, and a little LESS reliant on all these bells and whistles, we might rekindle what it meant to be a family...a community...even a nation.
What the hell...it sure can't hurt at this point in time...right?

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