Playing with Matches

A book that I am reading reminded me to "the way it used to be".  This age of recycling is not totally new for in the 1950s we recycled soda pop bottles. They were worth 2 cents each!  When we bought pop, we took the empties back.

Now the idea of separating paper from cans from bottles would have been weird in Haskell. There was no trash pick-up of any kind.  One of my chores as a 9 year old was to take out the trash in the brown supermarket sacks to our 50 gallon drum of a trash can near the back of the property. I was also given a box of kitchen matches to burn it! Yes, a Nine year old can be responsible to not let things get out of hand.  After all this was not a "chore". In the sacks would be milk carton boxes, cereal boxes, and misc. other things.  I enjoyed setting them on fire and watching the fire get intense.

Scrap food did not exist. We had two pigs (my Brothers' FFA livestock) who got the "slop". and my dog, Rex, got leftover bones and gravy and bread scraps. No he did not choke. He relished every bit.

We mixed air pollution with the idea of not making land fills any bigger.  

In the 1950s we did not throw away the food we do today. My folks planned everything so that if it was cooked, it was consumed.

We have gained much in the 21st Century, but we have lost a lot too.

It is Fall and I remember the days when we could burn the leaves in our yards. The smell was tremendous. Not saying we should return.  WE have gained so much that the smell of burning leaves is sma-a-a-ll.