The importance of old things

[mtbc]

Last Sunday, I took my children to a transport museum which unexpectedly came with surprise bus trips, even a mystery tour. It is interesting to see how things were. Now I wonder if I will even ever own another car for which I need to know how to change gear, I don't think I've had to use a manual choke since the nineties. This morning, I was reminded of how my father and I did some applied mathematics with quite different approaches, he had not been taught to use complex numbers and matrices but would reach the same answer by other means. In the afternoon, I was reminded of part of the behaviour of the 6502 CPU's status register. Separately, I have often thought about how I had a childhood without Internet access, what a difference that makes, I had to use reference libraries for really quite basic information or even just to find the address of to whom to write to get the information.

Or, again going back further, I bought a couple of rather more historical books about English cuisine given how very much it changed since WWⅡ, now I even know how to bake a hedgehog. anna_wing recently posted about how people arranged to stay warm before central heating allowed them to heat their whole environment throughout, at least until Russia turns off the gas. In short, things change, and how we learn to live changes accordingly, and I can't help but wonder how very many how-to-live techniques are widely forgotten from one generation to another. I don't even know if children can tie shoelaces any more.

Part of me says that these past people's lives, skills, and experience matter and should be held close but perhaps that's a more emotional part. A more rational part of me wonders, why? Would it not be better for me to not distract myself with past ways, instead to look forward to what can be done henceforth with what we now have? Would there be any point in salting beef on Martinmas, or whatever? After civilization collapses, sure, but as a computer programmer I am probably rather screwed regardless of my timely beef-salting. Maybe it's related to grieving for my parents: on the one hand, I don't want to let go of the world that they knew, which of course is part of who they were, but, well, it's gone now, and no degree of wistfulness or gratitude will bring it, or them, back. I wonder if I should try to pay scant attention to remembered worlds and focus more completely on the world I find myself in now.

Comments

[anna_wing]

Salt-beef is delicious, and would be worth making at home at any time! Perhaps with more modern methods and equipment...slow-cookers and freezer bags and refrigeration are useful adjuncts to the basic process.

I like historical cook-books, just for the incidental information about the era and environment. Persephone Books has some nice ones.

[mtbc]

Thank you for the pointers, I'd not noticed that publisher before.

Incidentally, I indulged in cheap corned beef today (on a sandwich with tomato, Cheddar, mustard). I haven't much looked into the salt-beef process. I know some spices can be usefully preservative.

Incidental stuff about the environment: absolutely, I appreciate being able to imagine it, even a little, interesting about custom, practices, views, etc.

[thewayne]

I never drove a car with a manual choke. Manual transmission, no problem.

[mtbc]

I think maybe they lingered longer in the UK than the US, for some reason. Nothing special though, just remember to push it back in once the engine's warmed up!

One of the garages I used in Ohio liked that they could give me the stick-shift loaner while they worked on my car. (-:

[wpadmirer]

That's an interesting question. I know how to cook things in ways that no one does anymore because I was taught by my grandmother and mother. My math skills are from another age, and the new math that is taught seems unwieldy. I write and read cursive which is going away, and I think that's a tragedy because it's losing access to SO much history that was never in print. That fact that I can read a handwritten census document and young people can't read it seems ridiculous. So I think maybe I'm not ready to let go of the past. I use the computer. I write my manuscripts on a computer. I'm savvy with doing research on the internet, but it's sad to me that young people are losing some of the wonder and beauty of the past. (Not to mention the fabulous tastes of some of the food!)

[mtbc]

That's interesting about cursive, reminds me how my kids have difficulty with it too. (I taught my eldest how to write it and suggested they do a bit every week to retain the ability but, well, they didn't so they lost it.) I appreciated that my parents were quite old-fashioned in some ways, I got to see and experience a little more of these other small things than I might have otherwise.