When I was growing up no present giving occasion passed without the required thank you notes at the end of the celebration. The joy of finding out what was under the Christmas tree or inside the birthday wrapping paper was followed by the knowledge that I was going to have to write a note to the giver of that gift. At six this was a hard burden, but I hope I progressed over the years to truly being thankful as I wrote those missives.

Aging seems to involve a constant examining of long held beliefs in light of the changes that time brings. I think back to my time in college, where females could not wear pants to class, there was such a thing as married student’s housing, and girls’ dorm rooms were off limits to all males except family members. In addition there were curfew hours (for the girls only) that put them in the dorms by ten during the week and midnight on the weekends.

Those that are my age are often puzzled at what goes on with younger generations today.  As a group we often shake our heads and secretly, and often not so secretly, long for what we think were the ‘good old days.’  But the fact is that along with the accumulation of knowledge and living that comes with a lifetime of ups and downs, also comes a subtle fog that settles over the past. 

I can see my grandmother in her Sunday church clothes tending to the mid-day Sunday dinner.  She has an apron on over her dressy suit, something which she took from a hook on the back of the pantry door every time she ventured into the kitchen to work.

Even the word is old.  Or how about that even more ancient word ….. deportment?  Those two words were part of my youth, but are seldom heard these days.

I seem to learn a great deal about modern life in the toy store.  On a recent visit to the American Girl store with my granddaughter, I saw this year’s featured doll who is a farm girl.  It made me realize that the farm and farm life are mostly ancient history today.  I was not raised on a farm, but in my childhood I could at least reach back and touch one through my grandparents.  My generation may be the last one in which farm life is actually a part of the family, and not an idealized past.

All of you young people out there had better wake up, and begin keeping an eye on us old codgers.  We are running away with the farm, and you seem to be totally unaware of it. 

We are always being encouraged to look at the big picture, however, I recently found a great deal of comfort in looking at the small picture instead.

I am sometimes amazed that my generation ever made it to adulthood.  We certainly lived a dangerous life by today’s standards.   We rode around on our bicycles without helmets, we slid around in the back of station wagons without seat belts as our parental drivers turned corners, and we chased after trucks spraying for mosquitoes, letting the white chemical fog emerging from the back of the truck engulf us. 

Growing up in the fifties I yearned to be on some sort of a team.  If there were girls participating in any kind of athletics other than riding horses, I did not know them.  To whet my appetite there were the school sponsored sports days in which we could participate in such Olympic-level events as the three-legged race, or the egg on a spoon race, or the ever popular tug of war. 

The only Victoria I was on semi-familiar terms with until recent years was a queen who, if she had any secrets, were not the ones that were on display during a recent visit I made to the store with a younger family member. 

There are a few places in the world that now make me feel old, and one of them is the checkout lane at my local grocery store.