Our Throw-Away Society

        Some things you keep. 
Like warm coats and bald husbands. 
They're good for you, reliable, and  practical, and so sublime, that to throw them away would make the garbage man a thief. 
So you hang on, 
because something old is sometimes better 
than something new, 
and what you know is often better 
than a stranger.

    These are my thoughts....
they make me sound old, old and tame, 
and dull at a time when everybody else is risky and racy and flashing all that's new and improved in their lives. 
New spouses, new careers, new thighs, new lips.  The world is dizzy with trade-ins. 
I could keep track,  but I don't think I want to.

        I grew up in the fifties with practical parents - a mother who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then re-used it. 
A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.  They weren't poor, my parents, they were just satisfied. 
Their marriage was good, their dreams focused.  Their best friends lived barely a wave away.

        I can see them now, Fifties couples in Bermuda shorts and Banlon sweaters, lawnmower in one hand, tools in the other. 
The tools were for fixing things - a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, 
the hem in a dress. 

Things you keep. 

It was a way of life, 
and sometimes it made me crazy.
All that re-fixing, re-heating, re-newing.....
I wanted just once to be  wasteful. 
Waste meant affluence. 
Throwing things away meant 
there'd always be more.

        But then my father died, and on that clear autumn night, in the chill of the hospital room, 
I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any "more." 
Sometimes what you care about most gets all used up and goes away, never to return.

        So, while you have it, it's best to love it and care for it, and fix it when it's broken, 
and heal  it when it's sick.
        That's true for marriage. and old cars. and children with bad report cards. 
and dogs with bad hips. 
You keep them because they're worth it, 
because you're worth it.

        Some things you keep.............

                                          Author Unknown