Is It Technology?

People don't seem to go visit anymore. When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, Sunday afternoons usually included either visiting family or friends at their house or having them visit at ours.

My mom would fix a big Sunday dinner and everyone would gather aroung the diningroom table. Or we'd go to my grandmother's for dinner. I remember how she loved watermelon and deserts. 

People didn't all have televisions and no one had smart phones. Our phones were big clunky black things, sometimes on a party line. I don't remember spending much time on the phone until I was a teenager. It was rather unusual for the phone to ring, actually.

There was always lots of chatting and laughter. Now when there are folks to dinner they can't seem to be separate from their phones. They aren't even talking on them. They are texting or playing games. I feel rather disrespected by it. There isn't as much chatting with everyone at the table and the laughter is less frequent.

And when was the last time you received a personal letter via the postal service? Email makes contacting much easier and quicker. But I miss the excitement of getting hand-written letters. It feels more personal than getting "mail" through a computer. When someone takes the time to write me a letter I feel really connected, personal, even special. 

I confess I seldom write letters anymore, only email. So I'm guilty of taking the easy way. Yet I do feel less connected.

And then there is social media, certainly not personal or private, even when people seem to forget that and put all kinds of personal information on it for anyone to see. It always bothers me when people go on social media and talk about their vacation while they are away, letting the world know that their home is uninhabited and ripe for theivery. I only talk about vacations when we are back home.

Yes, technology has changed the way we do a lot of things. Sometimes that's positive and sometimes not. But it is here to stay, so we need to use it to bring us closer together rather than apart. Drop a note or a card to someone in the mail and make their day. Turn off your phones when you are visiting/dining. And invite folks to Sunday dinner for some chatter and laughter. We can have both personal and private contact as well as technology.

My mother's journal

I finally found my mom's journals and am amazed at how much detail she remembered from her childhood. It is fascinating to read about her family and her friends and activities. I wonder, as I read, where all those people ended up and if their children got the opportunity to know about them from their parents.

Life was different then. But in many ways her growing up was similar to mine. Both her father and mine were in and out of their family due to drink and women and other vices. Those cycles go on for generations sometimes, don't they? Sad.

But her journal doesn't hold much sadness about her childhood. It is filled with her adventures and games and dolls and friends. She and her sisters got into more trouble than I ever did. I was pretty dull by comparison! Maybe that is why I don't have as clear a memory of my childhood as she. I don't know that my recollections would be nearly as interesting as hers.

I'm not far along in reading yet. I've not gotten as far as her adulthood. That will be even more interesting because there will be things that I witnessed as well, although from a child's viewpoint. I have a feeling that her journal is going to get more attention than the novels I've been reading for a while.

While I'm tempted to search for the part about my birth and childhood, I still want to read what all led up to then. I don't want to miss any of it! I guess the thread about my birthday will wait.

The name's the thing.

Well, I'm officially 74 now. And all this thinking about my birth and life story had me thinking about my name. I was named for my mother's mother, my grandmother, Lucinda Hutchinson Houston Whitt. I've always known and appreciated that. My grandmother Lucinda, or "Mama Lou" as I called her, was a wonderful woman. She was strong and had come through a tough life to become a lovely, caring, Christian woman. I've always admired her.

My mom named me Lucinda Lou because she wanted to call me "Cinda Lou." So I ended up with double "Lu"s. But I don't remember anyone but her calling me "Cinda." Almost everyone called me "Cindy" until my late thirties when I insisted on being called "Lucinda." My dad often called me "Pesky" and my brother had several unpleasant nicknames for me: "Fatty", "Lulu" [for the cartoon character], "Elsie the Borden Cow".

And yesterday I was wondering if my grandmother ever had nicknames. I don't remember many people calling her Lucinda. Of course, I was a kid and didn't hear her called much besides "Mom", Mama Lou, or Louie. So I went back to read an article my great-aunt wrote about her parents and childhood in the hills, which would be the story of my grandmother as well. She said my grandmother Lucinda had been called Louie by her family for most of her life.

That story of their childhood is fascinating in its detail. It described the lives of her parents growing up in the hills of Vinton County, Ohio in the 1800's, a hard-scrabble life indeed. And they had a large family to support through all of the difficulties of that life. I certainly come from sturdy stock.

There is still a lot for me to learn about my own parents' lives and my birth into their family, so I'll be digging out my mother's journals in the near future.

Stay tuned! In the meantime, think about your parents' and grandparents' stories and appreciate them as the foundation of your life. Share if you like. I know I'd be interested, so others probably would be as well.