The Environment and I
The Environment and I
What is the The Environment and I all about. Well its just me banging on about stuff that’s on my mind at this moment. Probably at a later date when I check this out I will think what the heck am I saying and quickly delete the post.
In the meantime, this is about as much as I have to offer regarding plant life in the garden on this cold Winter morning.
Hamamelis Arnolds Promise
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The Rhododendron bud, promise of what’s to come.
The Environment and I
The environmentalists, I suppose for me the story starts in my childhood in the 1950s. First of all, may I say I have nothing but admiration for those who behave in a sensible manner regarding the environment. I, like the majority of you, play a sensible part in recycling, I hate to be wasteful, and my gardening habits have changed to a degree which would morally be rather more acceptable than it once may have been.
In the early to mid-50s in the UK living standards, I think it would be accurate for me to say were rather Spartan. However, before I talk about how life was for me, consider how it was for my 90-year-old mother as a child back in the 20s and early 30s.
For the underprivileged, optimistically referred to as the working class, life for many was nothing less than tragic. My mother the eldest of six children tells me of times when there was no money for food or clothing. Without shoes, they were forced to get boots from a charity organisation, and on Winter days went to school in a thin Summer dress. Those who were lucky enough to have fathers at work would laugh at the unfortunate waifs.
When my mother was sixteen years old her own mother died, she would only ever tell us that it was of a broken heart. Mother was old enough to get work in the fish houses, her siblings were taken in to care. Mother strived for the rest of her life not to be beaten by the challenges which may befall her.
As for myself, in the 50s we were well enough cared for, there was very little money, but we got by. In the late 50s, our living room flooring of linoleum was lifted and a carpet was laid. Soon after we had our first television set, wow things were looking up.
Now the environmentalists of today, well I am talking now of those who take every possible opportunity to ram it down your throat. They were probably born between 1970 and 1985. They have never known what hardship is, everything was handed to them on a plate and possibly were spoiled little brats. Don’t they just love telling you how good they are and if you do not share their inflated enthusiasm you must be some shallow cretin who does not have the understanding which has been placed on their wonderful shoulders.
So yes, I have grown up with a materialistic attitude which I am not ashamed of and still love stuff.
Some serious gardening to do tomorrow, but first I really do have to go to the recycling depot.
Unisha, thank you, I am a sucker for people being nice to me. So even if your comment is just to get a link to your husbands or friends website, well, so what.
Great ! Thank you for the information. Here which you have said are so truth and valid points about the life cause individuals life are so har that no one can easily imagine in the world. I also grew up without a lot. But I never thought it as hard time cause I used think life is what we do we get it and I was happy in that. Some people who have got lots of things they show their sensitability that they are concern about us but they are not they were just showing us what they have to us.I wonder what is the problem of people in the word they just want to hurt us or anything else.
I love ur reading ur post it touch myy heart so deeply. Thank you.
moderation in all things is good with me Fer
I was born in 1985, I never really have to suffer any “hard times”, my family always had more than we need and we were taken care of properly, even a little spoiled. I think I might have a bit of a save the earth attitude but, I do love stuff too. I think the important thing is to know well the value of things and get the balance in what you can do and what feel comfortable doing.
Diana, thanks for the visit and for enquiring about Myra, she is still not very well but so much better than four weeks ago.
Thanks for the info, I had to google this one.
BTW if you are with wordpress you could use commentluv and replyme, as I wish I could.
There’s materialists and materialists. My father grew up thru the depression. Took his shiny new engineering degree from NZ to London in search of work. No joy. And so we four sisters were born in South Africa. I grew up in Camps Bay, not in hardship, but also not with the obvious wealth of most of our neighbours. My father’s depression mentality has coloured the lives of his four daughter, each in our own different way.
Anyway, I really came here to ask how Myra is? In the hope that her shingles are just a nasty memory??
Yes it really is Sue, I do have one Camellia Donation which does amazingly well, this is one of the more dwarf Rhododendrons of which I don’t have the name of.
Is that really a rhododendron – it looks just like my camellia! 🙂
Yes Laura, checking them recently I was astonished at the b— price.
Eliza, thanks for featuring my post, as for the environment, I think I was indulging myself. Sticking to my plants from now on.
Hey Alistair! The latest issue of How to Find Great Plants is here and your paper bark maple post is featured. Thanks so much for participating, I hope you will again next month. Here’s the issue:
http://www.appalachianfeet.com/2011/02/01/how-to-find-great-plants-issue-3/
I’m off to go aggravate you with some environmentalism and repurposed stuff. 😉
(Sorry, couldn’t resist… I hope you never take my minimalism as a criticism of people who enjoy some material comforts. I think everyone deserves to enjoy what they have). 🙂
Hi Alistair – your wonderful Witchhazel makes me realise what I am missing but they are so pricey. As a child of your era, cost evaluation is never far away. Funnily my children joke and say I invented recycling as they remember how adept I was at finding new uses for old things. Environmentalists bore me mostly – like teaching a grandmother how to suck eggs 😉
Yes Larry it is only on reflection that one realises times were hard, one thing we did have though was freedom from political correctness. Oh! could that be something else to bitch about
Soren, thank you for taking the time to give such a detailed comment, however for those born within these years it was not my intention to tar them all with the same brush. After all I have many faults of my own.
Dear Edith, Yes even as I was writing these words I realised that I could be stabbing myself in the foot.
Hello Donna, thank you for your detailed comment, I did of course mean it in the same sense that we may say, youths of today are drug taking yobs, I do of course know that the majority are decent and aspiring to a good future that their parents would be proud of.
I hope I am not a lone commenter, here. You have made very valid points but hit a group of individuals really hard. I am not so sure all those born during these years are quite that spoiled. Remember that those years also had a lot of excess of materialism that could be attributed to the parents, not the kids. Sure there was the oil embargo at this time and a short lived awareness or our oil dependence, where cars shrunk but they quickly returned to huge and heavy gas guzzling SUVs. There were tree huggers, but also big development and clear cutting. A lot happened in these years that was not so environmentally correct, and it was good to have a voice speak for the environment. But, I think many of these individuals ended up back on the establishment rolls, now quite as a church mouse, but still having the same philosophical principles. I hope you take my comment not as a criticism, but that not all were as anti-bourgeois and superior as you might suggest. I enjoyed your post and do agree many of us have not experienced hardship, but I do not think you need to a experience less to appreciate more.
Dear Alistair, I detect real passion in what you write here today.I often think that the question for the current generation is not ‘Can I have it all?’ but ‘Do I have what I need?’ If the answer to the second question is yes, then the rest is luxury and should be enjoyed or forsaken as such.
The promise in your gardenis palpable…not long now!!
I sympathise with your entry to a great degree.
I was born in 1978; I never lacked anything in my life and even when the recent “financial crisis” arrived I was well set up to get through it. I would love to save the world, but I’m not sure I’m the person to do that; rather, I prefer to just aim for not making it a worse place. I turn the lights out when I leave a room, I don’t leave the water running while I brush my teeth and I generally do what my mother taught me, resource-wise. And I try to teach these things to my husband. (And to some extent enforce them as the basic rules for our summer house when people borrow it.)
However, I AM a creature of comfort. I don’t mind keeping a low temperature in my flat, but I DO buy imported food and have about the equivalent of a mature tree in books lining my sitting room. I don’t mind short showers as long as I can have my laptop and my phone. It’s all a matter of priorities to me; I save wherever I can without loosing comfort, and then I hope it will all be all right. (And trust me; I do tend to have no more than one light bulb on at a time, but on the other hand my bedroom chandelier is designed for 420W in total, though with energy-preserving bulbs that’s down to 35W. Oh, the dichotomy of being an environmentally conscious hedonist!)
Apologies for the long comment… (The long, self-centered comment…)
I grew up without a lot as well… never thought of them as hard times though… I’ve always felt life is what you make it and am concerned about others trying to force their sensibilities on us… sometimes wonder what the real issues are if you know what I mean… enjoyed your post… Larry