Remember the nick-name we all shared for the local pharmacy and consumables store? We called it the ‘Five and Ten,’ which referred to the coinage commonly used in those stores. Nickles and Dimes were what were used for small necessary purchases. Those days are long ago now, and we simply call them by the name associated with whatever corporate chain operates them. We might say we were going down to the corner to hit the Walgreens or the CVS, neither of which have anything that could be purchased for a handful of dull silver coins. Without a wheelbarrow, anyway.
If you could still dredge up memories of using the term “Five-and-Ten,” you are already aware of the change. It has impacted the entire crew at the Writer’s Section here at Refuge Farm. A major change has already occurred in the way we speak and the language we use to describe it. We naturally recall the words and what they meant long ago, and would be comfortable using them with those in our peer group. But we would also know that those time travelers with whom we live would need a translation. For them the change has happened, even as our time survives as a vestige we carry around as a term of reference for a society that has already changed.
It makes a difference, since the reality of today is viewed through the frame of reference of times past. The savage conflict in progress in Ukraine? We view it through the terms of the Soviet Union we opposed in our professional lives a generation ago. Strong and relentless. The idea that the Russians are searching for weapons in North Korea for their fight against a former entity of the Soviet Empire is one of those challenges to understand the news. We Boomers will always interpret what we see and hear through the filter of what we learned long ago.
Since the change has already occurred, there is that uncomfortable gap between today’s truth and the yesterday we carry along with us.
Marlow’s piece this morning hit us that way. The passing of the generations is a constant for all of us in the species. His recollection of the preparation, ceremony and participants is moving, since it reflects the similarity we all feel in our cohort about the passing of old times in terms we share. And for the generation or two who now live in a world that reflects their times and the values necessary to survive in them.
The Writer’s read Marlow’s words and they rang true to our generation. There was an echo of this in the 2012 departure of our folks. Loma laughed at parts of it, since they recalled some moments only time travelers of the same vintage share. He gestured in the still clear air under gray Piedmont skies. “I was the oldest kid in our family, and the arrangement was that I would serve as Executor of the parental estate when the time came. My sister was at war with things and decided to have her own ceremony in a place called Bellaire, a battered little brick river town in Ohio that represented travel the way it was, on boats and by trains that ran along the banks of the rivers.
There were naturally ancient complications our sister understood. Our generation never met Mike, our Grandad. He was the last full Irishman in the family and had a rascal legacy we cherished in the stories from Mom and Grandma.
The passing of one generation does not come without complications in the timing confronting newer ones. Sister had decided on a grander and more inclusive plan that would honor her understanding of old relationships. She considered an inurnment on the Catholic side of the cemetery on the bluff above the brown Ohio was appropriate to re-unify the members of the family sundered by death eighty years ago.
As Executor, I was committed to executing the “last wishes” as I understood them, which was joint burial with Dad, extended family in attendance with a proper stone in the old family plot in Pennsylvania. So, to accommodate her just family desire there was a required co-mingling of ashes on the balcony of the unit in which I lived to ship half the gray stuff off to the Midwest. In my private ceremony, Dad was no problem, and he complied with the Plan.”
He paused for a moment, looking across the green lower pastures of The Farm. “Mom was the wise contrarian, summoning a fresh gusset of wind to arrive as I raised the scoop between urns. She gently left her earthly presence where she wished, from the patio through the porch door, across the couches and coffee table. I didn’t mention it to the buyer when I sold the place a couple years later, but it did strike me with some poignant memories. So did my sister’s death last year. Time really is all we have, isn’t it?”
– Vic
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