Six Words: Pardon, Depression, Shy, Pattern, Hard, Fish
Pardon me for sharing a depressing story, but I’ll try to end it on an upbeat note. Like many of you, my parents were teens and young adults during the Great Depression. I know that it was hard on them and that established patterns that influenced them for the rest of their lives, and those patterns influenced their children’s lives, mine and my sister’s, as well. I heard very little about their lives during the depression. I don’t know if it was because they were shy about how they and their families survived. I never fished for details, but now I wish that I had.
Those depression era patterns that, somewhat watered down, carried over to my sister and me, have not carried over to my children and certainly not to my grandchildren. Turning off lights when they’re not needed is an obvious difference. And they don’t even have to flip a switch to turn off a light. They would only have to say: “Alexa, turn off the kitchen light.” But I guess I shouldn’t talk. Alexa automatically turns on lights in my bedroom at sunset, and when I want them off – you know what comes next. It is me that says, “Alexa, turn off the lights.”