Generations

I'm reading one of the biographies on Thomas Jefferson and was really impressed by his concept (I'm paraphrasing) that what works well and feels right for one generation shouldn't be imposed on the next generation.

Right now I feel as if I'm right in the middle of a long chain of generations stretching back into the past and forward into the future. As the oldest child in my family, I was fortunate enough to have spent a lot of time with three of my grandparents, and was able to talk via phone with my other grandparent. All four of them had a tremendous influence on me. In some ways I learned more from them, or was impacted at deeper levels, by them than almost anyone else in my life. Their stories - the ones that they told me, and the ones that they kept hidden in the closet, became a part of my life experience, threads meshing together to form the fabric of who and what I am and will be.

Yet their experiences, their environment, their world view, was totally different. Their parents and grandparents grew up during the Civil War and the Reconstruction. My grandparents, during their early years, used steam locomotives, stage coaches, wagons, and horses for transportation. Going from Washington D.C. to New York was a major undertaking. When my paternal grandfather worked for the Department of the Interior he was assigned to an indian reservation in Montana. They took a train across the country, then a stage coach, and finally a wagon to get to his post. For cooking and heating, they used wood stoves. In fact, one of my aunts died as a three year old child when she accidently fell against a wood stove and was severely burned.

My parents and their siblings grew up during the Great Depression. Their motivation, their objectives, their hopes and desires, were totally different from their parents - naturally enough. It happens, generation after generation.

And the technology surrounding and enabling all of us, has changed and evolved generation after generation. When I visited Texas last December my sister and I swapped memories, and she happened to comment on how dark our grandmother always kept her apartment. It was almost like a cave. For us, as children, it seemed totally depressing. I really enjoyed the time I was able to spend with her, but always dreaded the evenings when she would close everything up and make me go to bed soon after the sun went down. Yet it must have seemed perfectly natural to her.

Why? I think the answer is simple enough. When my grandmother was a child household lighting was extremely expensive. Only the best homes had it, and they used gas. The house that my grandfather and grandmother bought in Anacostia had gas fixtures for lighting, but didn't have a bathroom - there was an outhouse in the backyard for that. From my grandmothers perspective, her view of the world, lighting was a luxury - something that you didn't use casually and never took for granted.

I suppose that many of my habits and preferences will be viewed the same way by my grandchildren and their children. That doesn't bother me at all. I don't have any nostalgia or ties to the past, nor any vested ego to defend. I welcome the change, and am really looking forward to seeing what the next generations come up with.