This little pincushion and needle holder I had found in a yard sale and it turned out to be a collector’s item that sold well on eBay.
It’s that time of year again, Yard Sale Season! Kicking off the Cinco de Mayo weekend in Bryn Mawr! Complete with Food Trucks, Raffles, and T-Shirts!
OK. That’s not the title of this blog. Now I’ll get to it. I read an interesting piece in a Facebook article that the Millenials and X-Geners are blaming the Boomer generations for their ruined futures. How Boomers were more about “feelings” than reality. Boomers ignored climate change, did nothing and bankrupted the futures of the generations after them. Well, there may well be some truth to that but as a Boomer myself but at the bottom of that generation and with some feelings of being cheated out of an old age outside of dire poverty, I do have a response. Rather than blaming today’s problems on the Boomer generation how about a little trip down memory lane.
*1950’s presented the big Communist scare. What did any of us know about communism except what our parents told us? I remembered being told that how would I like to have to share the family house with strangers who’ll just move in willy nilly and take what that please from me? We were dumb kids too little to understand and uninterested to believe anything else. The same can be said for kids today. Parents can tell them anything and they’ll just believe it, unless they are so mature beyond their years that they’ll actually do research to suss out the truth. Anything with the word “Social” was communistic and forbidden. Who’s responsible for this propaganda?
*1960’s was the turmoil years of the old mindsets. Many positive happenings that changed the world we live in today and it was the Boomer generations that put their necks out for it all: Revolution and Civil Rights are at the forefront. How much does anyone think would be going on for these actions today if they weren’t done back then? We’re still at it and Black Lives Matter proves that. I remember a nurse telling me back then she made nothing because nurses were expected to be “Angels of Mercy”. Nurses were all women then. There was also the rise of Coops and Communes. We don’t hear much about communes anymore but a few are still around. Natural foods was also emerging.
*1970’s I remember as the oil shortage scare and the “Throw Away Society”. I was still too young to own a car and didn’t even drive until the late 70’s, but I do remember the gas lines from watching the news and being told that there’s a limit of oil deposits and how they would be tapped out completely by 1990. All untrue! There was also talk about pollution and tapping out the natural resources of the world. We hadn’t heard of climate change back then. In fact I don’t remember even hearing about the ozone hole above Antartica until the 1990’s. I had heard a little about electric cars though, and some were actually produced but soon disappeared.
“Who Killed the Electric Car?” A film made in 2006 is an easy find on eBay or Amazon. It’s been awhile since I watched it so I don’t remember much, but I do remember it did talk about the oil crises of the 70’s and how that was soon forgotten after the gas lines ended. GM who produced those electric cars found ways of taking them back and destroying them. Now why do you think they did that? Did we forget that burning gas is polluting our world? Well. . . sort of. Not long after that pollution controls were introduced, the catalytic converter and elimination of leaded fuel had become law. Appeasing that crisis! Also during the 1970’s every household had a television. A sure way of propagating information to the masses, molding the mindsets, culture and ensuring a future of consumerism. 
Does our Throw Away Society have yet to reach it’s peak? This photo was taken only a couple of years ago at one of those new buildings near the University of Minnesota campus. Yes, this heap of rubbish came from Millenials and X-Geners who go deep into debt with student loans and blame the Boomer generations for all their woes. A few people do try to change things and recently began taking in the trash the wealthier ones had thoughtlessly tossed away and have opened a free store. I remember free stores in the 1970’s. Lately I’ve noticed eBay sales are slow and good used items are losing the interest of these new generations who think passing up a good used and well made piece of furniture such as a bookshelf for something new and cheap made out of chip board and will ruin as soon as something liquid is spilt on it. Alternative energy is still difficult for the average homeowner when it should be so cheap to be nearly free. Who’s responsible for this?
I can only hope that reusable energy doesn’t disappear and is forgotten like the electric car once was. Yesterday it was television that propagated the masses with pure Capitalistic B.S. Today it’s Social Media. Will the Millenials and the X-Geners be remembered future generations as the ones that blamed others for their problems and did nothing too? I would like to think not. In a positive light I see some changes for the average working person getting out from under oppressive working conditions such as Taxi companies that Uber and Lyft resolved. The price gouging hotels all cried foul on AirBnB’s during the Super Bowl. I had even heard the phrase, “Social Capitalism” once. I hope to hear more of that.
Road Trip Minnesota 