Well when I was little….

I’m sure we all have ways to finish the sentence that our grandparents or parents used to let us know that we had no clue how easy and nice we had it in our generation.  You know the line -- “When I was a little girl we used to have to walk 5 miles to school in snow that was 2 feet high”, etc….

Well, this post will give my own finishing touch to that sentence. 

Our home sets across the road from a cemetery where I can to see the preparations that need to be made for a burial.

Now this isn’t new to me because growing up we lived in a home that was across the road from the church our family attended.  My parents were also custodians of the church along with keeping the cemetery mowed and trimmed nice and neat.  Dad was the one that was contacted to see what burial plots were available in the cemetery.  He was given a set amount he could use to have the grave dug and also covered.  While he would arrange to have the grave dug by someone with a backhoe he decided that money could be saved if we ourselves (Dad, my two brothers and I) would see to covering the grave by hand – with shovels. 

During the summer months Dad used these opportunities to give us kids some work.  So we would sit in the living room and watch out the window to watch and wait for the last person to walk into the church for the usual meal that followed a burial.  Then we’d hurry across the street with shovels in hand and start shoveling dirt.  And the race was on because we’d try to see if we could get all the dirt from point A (the pile) to point B (the hole in the ground) before the fellows who were working to take down the tent (this was before pop-up canopies), carpets and chairs had their things loaded and driving out of the parking lot.

So one day this summer I happened to look out my window and watched one man do in very short order what took three of us kids to do in not-so-short-order.

This gentleman used his fancy green tractor, with the perfectly sized bucket on the front, to carry a few loads of dirt and cover the grave.

 

The only time he used a shovel and a rake was at the very end when he needed to level off the top.

I watched this fellow (who appears older then me) do his back breaking work while I sat and drank my glass of ice tea and I couldn’t help but think….

Wait for it.

You know what’s coming.

Yep, here it comes.

“Mister, when I was a little girl I used to have to shovel the whole pile of dirt by hand from start to finish”.  “And oh yeah, there was a time or two when even in the pouring down rain we needed to shovel mud – which doesn’t merely fall off the shovel, you have to shake it off, each and every shovel full".

We obviously lost the race with the other fellows on those days.

So.

What is the ending to your “I’m-old-you’re-young-and-you-don’t-know-nice-you-have-it” sentence?

Goodness – my grandchildren will never take typing 101 classes on a monstrously heavy manual typewriter……  We didn’t get to use the electric, daisy wheel typewriters until Typing 102.  And my grands just touch and slide the iPod, iPad and games appear.

But then as one wizenheimer said -

Back then we used to eat in and go out to use the bathroom.  Now we eat out and go in to use the bathroom.  I’m glad I was born in the generation that I was.  We had it pretty good – shovels and all.

Thanks, Dad, for teaching us how to work.