By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 26, 2019 — Most of us have everyday habits, some good, some bad.
Some of those habits go back to childhood, and can be beneficial to us now.
For instance, back in the late 1930s, when the Rural Electrification Administration was beginning to loan the funds for the wiring of rural America, many of those first homes merely had “lights,” to provide illumination for a single room. The varied Electric Membership Co-ops soon got around to selling their customers on additional ways to use electricity, in machines useful for the home, pumps (for wells), washing machines, refrigerators and radios.
But many a rural home at the beginning only had a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, and the homeowner felt good about not having to light a kerosene lamp for illumination at night.
Those early EMC-homeowners recognized one aspect of this new gizmo: the more you had the “lights” on, the more it cost them each month. Remember, this was during the days of the Depression, and every cent was important.
So came a question that sticks with me until today, “Did you turn off the lights when you left your room?” These days although those “lights” are not as precious in cost as they once were, it’s hard for me to leave a room with the lamp on, or leaving the television playing, or switching off an electric heater…..all whether at home or in an office.
These habits are deeply ingrained into me. Bet many of you, at least those of you who are older, find yourself in the similar habits. You may have even taught your children these habits. Nothing wrong with that.
Now another admonition, one again dating back to earlier hard times.
“Did you clean your plate?”
Food was costly once (and even today). Watchful parents wanted you to eat enough and to eat correctly, but also didn’t want anyone wasting food. Especially, if you had been the one who put the food on your plate when it was being passed around, your parents might have said: “You took (that much) food out, so you are supposed to eat it. If you don’t want that much food, don’t put so much on your plate.”
Today I still find it difficult not to eat everything on my plate. It’s not so much about wasting food, as it is a habit.
What particularly rubs me the wrong way is when you are at a meeting where people go through a buffet line, and serve themselves……then eat only half the food THEY put on their plate. Why did they load up their plate, just to see it wasted? That’s unreasonable.
One more that bugs me: when people call you on your landline telephone, and tell you: “Call me back on this number.” You see, they assume that you answered on a cell phone, or even a land line telephone displaying their number. But every phone doesn’t have that feature. (I even have one phone with a rotary dial. You can bet that one doesn’t have equipment to tell me the incoming number.)
Yes, today’s I’ve been venting. You probably have some similar items that bug you, probably instilled you when you were a child.
- Have a comment? Send to elliott@brack.net
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