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What happened to the wonderful green grocers?

2K views 19 replies 17 participants last post by  Meerkat 
#1 ·
If you're like me then you were born a baby boomer. Your family got milk & cheese delivered to your door, had the family doc make house calls, went to the butcher for your meat, the baker for your bread, nurtured your gardens with no poisons for your veggies, walked miles to elementary school with your sibs, had the knife/scissor sharpener guy ride down your street looking for a buck to feed his family( I could go on but why bother, this is the new world we live in. We cooked on an oil stove, heated our home with wood, hand washed and air dried our clothes, WE DIDN'T KNOW WE WERE POOR, we found out when we became spoiled with OIL. Now we know we were NEVER poor. We were rich, but somewhere along the lines we lost our agrarian roots. How did this happen? LOOK AROUND, nuf said, I'm off the soapbox.......
 
#2 ·
money needs

we found bigger,better, fancier, more bigger,more fancier, more better, more money. all it takes is more money to buy what we need. why homemade when it can be designer. Why make it when someone else can build it, make it, grow it, or do it. we work at jobs we hate to buy things we don't need. we spend time away from our families to earn money we spend on fancy vacations to be WITH our families. what was lost was our true needs, friends and family. when society realizes that, the world will change. maybe.
 
#3 ·
Leave it to Beaver

Funny you should make this post. We were just discussing this with some friends just the other day.

Let's step back in time.

First we had the great depression kicking off the 1930's. Every middle class american did whatever they could to provide for the NEEDS of their families. This included selling a bag of apples on the street corner if necessary.

Next we saw America's involvement in WWII. Everything was rationed. Victory gardens flourished out of neccesity. Families knew the had to use things until they wore out. Nothing was was thrown away.

At the end of WWII, there was a mass exit from the cities and suburbia was born. Families moved to the suburbs and chased "The American Dream". Everyone wanted the house in the burbs with the white picket fence, the station wagon, the fridgedaire, the built in swimming pool. Oh yes, the was living the American Dream. Fathers could no longer pay for this on a single income. Mama soon started entering the workforce to finance this American Dream.

We saw an explosion of credit, excessive commercialism, and the beginning of the lost of family values and morals in our country.

Throughout the 1950's, we saw the massive explosion of sub-divisions, the birth of the shopping malls, and everyone had to keep up with the Jones'. Status and image became more important than living the frugal live of the previous decades. Moral fiber began to degrade and the young of American began the journey of being misguided without the constant re-enforcement of morals and ethic from their parents.

In the 1960's we were launced into an unpopular war in Vietnam and our youger generation began to rebel in full force. We started becoming a nation of consumers rather than producers. We lost the rail system that build the rapid expansion west of the Mississippi River and everyone had to have at least one vehicle to get around. Shopping malls began to flourish and people began to find a new, trendy way to purchase goods.

In the 70's, the American Society was in termoil. The fabric of American standards began to erode away. Business became all about maximizing profits and rewarding shareholders rather than providing quality products and services. We saw rapid increasing in oil prices. Cost of goods began to rise significantly. Pop culture was driving the opions of the younger generation.

During the 80's, we saw massive loss of jobs in America as corporations began to realize that they could maximize profits by producing goods overseas. Financial institutions began to give credit to anyone how wanted it. Our business schools were more focused on continued growth and profiteering. Small farmers were being bought out by big business and we saw a radical shift on how food was produced in america. The local dairies began to disappear. Families began the quest for instant gratification and disposability. The first of many Big Box Stores was launched with the advent of WalMart. Small family businesses began to struggle due to consumer shift to the one stop shopping offered by the box stores.

During the 90's American began to see housing loan criteria being relaxed. More and more people were now able to buy their first home and settle into the American dream. Two income families were the rule rather than the exception. Pre-packed dinners and microwavable meals became the standard dinners fare. We began to see the lose of the middle class as more and more businesses began to produce products in 3rd world countries. Banks continued to offer credit and people began to use credit in mass to purchase those material goods to feed their wants rather than thier needs. We became a society that was all about getting ahead at any cost without concern to consequences. Service type jobs became popular because we shifted from producing to consuming and every felt they were entitled to all the good things in life that their credit line would allow them. People began eating more and more meals outside of the house. The media bombarded us with the populat messages of status and image and people wer on the quest to gain this staus and imagine even though it was well beyond they means.

As we entered the new centry, reckless spending became the norm. Big box stores exploded in suburbans all over America. The working class took a serious nose dive. Mom and pop shops dried up and closed their doors. Impoted goods far exceeded what we were producing in America. China began to enter their industrial revolution and began to own more and more of the Amrican debt. Community banks began to disappear as the big banks continued on their journey of making risky loans to countless American. Credit lines were skyroketing and people began to buy essentials on credit. Consumers were digging themselves deeper and deeper in debt without any way for getting out. People began to default on loans.

The cumulative effects of greed, instant gratification, and the quest for status and image lead to the recent massive finincial crisis as more and more Americans were losing their jobs, and had no means of paying their bills. Credit began to dry up, but the government came to the "rescue" by offering bailouts and social incentive they could not fund. They were taking care of the huddled masses on credit and this credit continues to grow.

As we progress through the 2010's, we will see a rapid exceleration of the downfall of American society. Goverment handouts will begin to dry up. People will continue to struggle to find jobs that no longer exist. Corporate greed will explode as business executives continue in their pursuit of getting their piece of the pie. Cost of goods will skyrocket and more Americans will enter the ranks of poverty with no way out of it.

They only way, to get through this next decade is for people to see the danger signs of the times ahead. People will have to see the need to return to the simple times before the Great Depression and get back to the basics. That is exactly what we are doing today.
 
#4 ·
Ah, the older simple life. What a life it was Do any of you think that we would ever return to the simpler lifestyle ? No, because most of what we and our parents knew back then is lost or will soon be lost forever. I grew up on a farm in the 50's and when we were not busy enough on our own, we were "loaned" out to the neighbors to help them with their farm or ranch. Video games, tv, cell phones ? Not hardly. We entertained ourselves by building forts, sword fights, which buy the way , never heard of anyone getting an eye poked out. Playing like that , teaches you how to think and do, where the video games only occupy your brain and time. Wasted time and brain space.

But will people try and return to the older but better lifestyle ? Prehaps a few , but most will only talk about it and even fewer will even attempt it.
 
#5 ·
What happened, I think, is we bought into the bill of goods sold to us that money is what's important.

That's why that Doc doesn't make house calls. He believes it's more important to stack up patients at his clinic so he can make more money. He doesn't get paid for driving to a patients house.

Funny thing is: it's not rocket science. Anybody that feels anything at all knows already what's important and it damn sure isn't money.
 
#7 ·
Do any of you think that we would ever return to the simpler lifestyle ?
Yes indeed, we are doing exactly that these days. The simple life.

When we share our stories with folks we know they marvel at what we are doing.

Just went to a retirement of an old friend and his mother told us that he was sharing our story with her. She said that he told her that we were the happiest people he knew. She said she admired what we were doing and wished more people would follow our footsteps. She grew up in the Great Depression and knew exactly why we were doing what we were doing.

Bit by bit, we ARE infuencing others to convert to the simple life, it is very difficult for most folks to make this transition, but if they even make one simple change to their lifestyle, then we have made some progress.

We LIVE the example and people do see our genuine happiness in life. That is about all we can do.
 
#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
interesting that this is posted on a forum, on the internet... something nobody on here would use/need in their "idealized" world...

think about that
I think for the time being they can coexist, but, when the grid goes down or the gooberment decides to track you or supply more propaganda or whatever other use they may choose it will potentially be a problem. I see the internet in the same fashion as radio, cb, ham, or any other form of communication. Ask those overseas about when communications were jammed prior to attacks.

Who funded Facebook for instance? Are you using it? Some links of interest.


A bit over the top maybe but who knows? I guess it depends on what your idea of "idealized" is. We have several tools at our disposal and I am sure some will come and go for the time being. Tons of information on the web but how accurate we can only guess. I expect after SHTF that few libraries will exist other than the individual one people maintain. I doubt the net will be as we know it now. :dunno:
 
#12 ·
one of the problems is that, no matter what form our communications take,
the Gvmn't, can, and under "the right circumstances" listen in. Basically, we 'The People' have no rights. Just disguised privileges that can be taken from us, at the drop of an improper phrase.
 
#13 ·
Who said anything about living without the internet? That's not going to happen is it? Where did you hear that?
Losing the internet is a very real threat....
Obama Surrendering Internet to Foreign Powers

As for living without the internet, really? It isn't a necessity. Amish and Mennonites live without it. Just like TV, it is a luxury and a distraction from what is really important in life. Yes, it is nice to have, but it is not required.

When TSHF or any kind of civil unrest, the first thing the government is going to do is shut down the internet. Don't be fooled.
 
#18 ·
I miss those times.
Me, too, and I never lived in them. I just read books (and books and books and books and...well, you get the idea) about those times (histories), written during those times (I think anything written after 1950 is probably not worth reading - the older the book,the better) about other things (biographies, mysteries, romances), etc. and I yearned for those days even though all I knew about them came from books.

I have always been a little out of step with my generation as a result. In college, we took several personality tests (Myers-Briggs, etc.), and my score on one of them gave the teacher quite a turn. She said that I was too young to be that category (don't remember the details - but it was something about being inflexible - black is black, white is white, and a person who doesn't keep their word once never gets trusted a second time...).

Then she asked me if I was a recent immigrant to the U.S. I guess in her mind, the only way I could have learned to be so hung up on right vs. wrong is if I only recently came to this country.

I guess I got a little off topic, but what I'm trying to say is that I mostly learned to be that way from the books I read about a time in history when a man's word was his bond, and written contracts were not necessary to get a job done. "Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay."
 
#19 ·
Losing the internet is a very real threat....
Obama Surrendering Internet to Foreign Powers

As for living without the internet, really? It isn't a necessity. Amish and Mennonites live without it. Just like TV, it is a luxury and a distraction from what is really important in life. Yes, it is nice to have, but it is not required.

When TSHF or any kind of civil unrest, the first thing the government is going to do is shut down the internet. Don't be fooled.
Hmm ... most of the Mennonites that I know all have the internet, in fact, I am one of them.
 
#20 ·
The fact is we lost our morals and values.We handed over our young to the immorals and they turned them against our values,culture and made them self loathing little miscreates on the most part.
Self respect and pride in who we are is gone.You could see it dying when most of our young was holding candles crying for most radical,socilaist president in our history.All the while their parents and grandparents were joining Tea Parties.ironic,huh?
The reason that the corporations CEOs got away with destroying our economy is because we raised these imbisiles to be the greedy little urchins they are.Mommy had to have it all,so daddy left .Roles reversed .

I can tell you much about the people of the 50s.I can tell you that o child would have been taught about sex in a public setting by a radical immoral person.The men of the house would have went into that den and protected his children from these perverts pusging agendas on our kids.
 
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