Back in the Day...

Today, one of the first day's I've had off in quite awhile, I spent back in time. No, not time travel, but a day spent with the older generations of my family. For my history class, I am required to interview 3 people for my final paper. The topic of discussion in this paper is completely up to me, but the 3 people must be able to talk about it in some way. I think I learned more today then the entire semester of my history class in general. The day started out at 11 when I went to visit my 90 year old great-grandma. She may be old, but she has a lot of life to be learned from. She read some entries from a diary she had kept discussing events in her life and little miscellaneous information that might be passed on to someone when she's gone. As we were sitting at lunch, she noticed a man changing the gas prices on the sign. From 3.48 to 3.47 it went. And of course we talked about how it was easily obtainable to fill up a car for less than a dollar, but nobody could even afford a car, so they didn't worry about it then. After lunch, my grandma (her daughter) met up with us after work. And by 3pm, I felt like I was living in the most spoiled, disrespectful, shocking generation of the history of the world.

By the time I got to my grandpa, I knew what to expect. "Kids never find out the value of a dollar. They have gotten so spoiled. When I was young, I mowed yards at the age of 8 or 9, I had two paper routes, and I caught chickens until about 1 in the morning. Kids today expect the money that we had to work so hard for." The sad part is that each of my grandparents....were correct. Thankfully, I was raised having to have a job right when I turned 15, and had to pay my mom for any money I ever borrowed. To this day, I'm still in debt with her, but I know in the end it'll be worth it. Because unlike most of the spoiled kids today, I know that I need to save money if I want to do anything or get anything. It's life and it's going to happen sooner or later. I'm glad I was assigned this paper for history. I'm glad that I got to hear what life was back in the day, before the people passed on and were buried with all of their memories, experiences, and knowledge. And in today, I've realized that I need to spend as much time with those people around me that can teach me more about life before their life is gone. They have lived through much much more than our generation could ever fathom. It's quite incredible.