So you think you can recycle?
Heh, you've never met my grandfather. Ed Begley, Jr. leaves a bigger carbon footprint than my grandfather does.
One of my earliest memories of visiting my grandparents included dinner. Not just the eating, mind you, but the after dinner ritual. Grandma did all the cooking and Mom and I would clear, wash and dry the dishes.
After I handed mom the dishes, I grabbed whatever trash was on the table and opened the garbage can. It was one of those circular cans with the foot petal. I'd step on the petal and the lid would raise. Magic! But, there wasn't a liner inside like at home. There were three milk cartons, the cardboard ones, completely open at the top.
"Uhm, mom, what do I do?"
"What do you mean?"
"There are three milk cartons. Which one do I put the trash into?"
"Just leave the trash on the table for grandpap."
"Really?"
At 4 I learned that my grandfather had his system, which he still employs today. I didn't know it at the time, but he was composting. He'd divide the waste into different categories and use it for various purposes. While everyone else in the neighborhood would put out two and three cans of trash, my grandfather would put out about a third of one can for his house. Nothing went to waste, everything was reused. The compost went into the garden for his tomato plants 'cause when you're Italian and retired, you grow tomatoes. Its mandatory or else they take the Italian away from you.
Well, fast-forward 30 years and this 92 year old won't grow tomatoes anymore, but he still puts out less trash in a year than most people do in a week. He reuses not just the plastic tray from a tv dinner, but stores them in their original box.
He uses two liter pop bottles as planters. The plants? He cut a piece off of tree from our house when we lived on Sunset Blvd. about 30 years ago. He lost his first cutting (it died when he left it outside and it was too cold) but he's worked that first plant he cultivated into about 8 smaller siblings around the house.
When he prints, he won't use the ream of paper mom bought him a few years ago. He uses the backs of pages that are either blank or almost blank. He'll use the back of bank statements, fliers that come in the mail, anything that he has a just a bit of usable space. For awhile there, he was cutting paper in half so he would only use half of the side without printing so the paper would go further. That tray on the printer doesn't work anymore. He has to feed all the paper through the manual feed at the top. And the thought of allowing us to buy him a new printer? Wouldn't even hear of it.
We got into a bit of a row because he asked us to pick up ink for him at Giant Eagle. There, they charge $6 for the off-brand ink. We went, as instructed, but they're out of the specific ink he needed. Lucky for us, or so we thought, it was on sale at Target for $9 and we picked it up. He was not happy with us. Now, keep in mind, he has no magenta for his printer. He'd rather print pictures that come out green (I've seen them, they're not pretty) than have us spend the extra $3 on ink. I told him mom & I both have jobs, we can afford it. He shrugged and walked away.
And lest you think this is a mandatory sort of thing, it isn't. The house is paid, his heating and cooling bills are low, he hasn't bought a car in probably 30 years and the only time he goes to the doctor is when its mandated by the state for his driver's license. He just won't waste anything.
This is a man who watched the depression from the front steps of his house, laid off from his work as a mechanic. He's so against any sort of waste the my mom and I have to sneak a bag of trash out of the house everyday. Seriously.
Mom bought the smallest package of butter you've ever seen to bake. (My grandfather only uses "spread"...no butter to be found in this house.) She made a cake for him today and when he asked about the glaze (he really liked it!), she confessed the butter purchase to him.
"But I have margarine."
"Dad, margarine doesn't work for baking. It separates and doesn't cook correctly."
"But I have it here. I bet it would work. You should use that."
"Dad, I swear, it won't work. They tell you not to use margarine for baking."
"Well, I have it and you should have used it."
Telling him that we froze the butter to use next year was of little solace to him. He was still opposed to the purchase. Yeah, I didn't tell him about my new pants, like mom told him about hers. I know better. That's why he likes me more.
One of my earliest memories of visiting my grandparents included dinner. Not just the eating, mind you, but the after dinner ritual. Grandma did all the cooking and Mom and I would clear, wash and dry the dishes.
After I handed mom the dishes, I grabbed whatever trash was on the table and opened the garbage can. It was one of those circular cans with the foot petal. I'd step on the petal and the lid would raise. Magic! But, there wasn't a liner inside like at home. There were three milk cartons, the cardboard ones, completely open at the top.
"Uhm, mom, what do I do?"
"What do you mean?"
"There are three milk cartons. Which one do I put the trash into?"
"Just leave the trash on the table for grandpap."
"Really?"
At 4 I learned that my grandfather had his system, which he still employs today. I didn't know it at the time, but he was composting. He'd divide the waste into different categories and use it for various purposes. While everyone else in the neighborhood would put out two and three cans of trash, my grandfather would put out about a third of one can for his house. Nothing went to waste, everything was reused. The compost went into the garden for his tomato plants 'cause when you're Italian and retired, you grow tomatoes. Its mandatory or else they take the Italian away from you.
Well, fast-forward 30 years and this 92 year old won't grow tomatoes anymore, but he still puts out less trash in a year than most people do in a week. He reuses not just the plastic tray from a tv dinner, but stores them in their original box.
He uses two liter pop bottles as planters. The plants? He cut a piece off of tree from our house when we lived on Sunset Blvd. about 30 years ago. He lost his first cutting (it died when he left it outside and it was too cold) but he's worked that first plant he cultivated into about 8 smaller siblings around the house.
When he prints, he won't use the ream of paper mom bought him a few years ago. He uses the backs of pages that are either blank or almost blank. He'll use the back of bank statements, fliers that come in the mail, anything that he has a just a bit of usable space. For awhile there, he was cutting paper in half so he would only use half of the side without printing so the paper would go further. That tray on the printer doesn't work anymore. He has to feed all the paper through the manual feed at the top. And the thought of allowing us to buy him a new printer? Wouldn't even hear of it.
We got into a bit of a row because he asked us to pick up ink for him at Giant Eagle. There, they charge $6 for the off-brand ink. We went, as instructed, but they're out of the specific ink he needed. Lucky for us, or so we thought, it was on sale at Target for $9 and we picked it up. He was not happy with us. Now, keep in mind, he has no magenta for his printer. He'd rather print pictures that come out green (I've seen them, they're not pretty) than have us spend the extra $3 on ink. I told him mom & I both have jobs, we can afford it. He shrugged and walked away.
And lest you think this is a mandatory sort of thing, it isn't. The house is paid, his heating and cooling bills are low, he hasn't bought a car in probably 30 years and the only time he goes to the doctor is when its mandated by the state for his driver's license. He just won't waste anything.
This is a man who watched the depression from the front steps of his house, laid off from his work as a mechanic. He's so against any sort of waste the my mom and I have to sneak a bag of trash out of the house everyday. Seriously.
Mom bought the smallest package of butter you've ever seen to bake. (My grandfather only uses "spread"...no butter to be found in this house.) She made a cake for him today and when he asked about the glaze (he really liked it!), she confessed the butter purchase to him.
"But I have margarine."
"Dad, margarine doesn't work for baking. It separates and doesn't cook correctly."
"But I have it here. I bet it would work. You should use that."
"Dad, I swear, it won't work. They tell you not to use margarine for baking."
"Well, I have it and you should have used it."
Telling him that we froze the butter to use next year was of little solace to him. He was still opposed to the purchase. Yeah, I didn't tell him about my new pants, like mom told him about hers. I know better. That's why he likes me more.
Labels: family
posted by jenna! at
5:22 PM
1 Comments:
Ahhh, yes....children of the great depression! My Great Aunt Rita used to save the wax paper from Saltines. She used it to wrap sandwiches for her kids' school lunches!
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