Have you noticed how nothing seems to hold up or last like it used to? It covers the entire gambit from household appliances to underwear. In the case of appliances, repair costs seem to necessitate replacement rather than a repair. An example would be flat screen televisions. If one breaks down, it is simply more economical to discard it and start all over.
In the case of underwear, material keeps becoming cheaper and cheaper. And it is not limited to underwear. Shirts can be purchased these days that will shrink up to half their original size after the first washing.
Speaking of shirts, my late mother taught me a lot about buying shirts when I was just a boy. Back in the 50’s and 60’s our family swore by the Sear, Roebuck & Company. The “Sear- Roebuck” catalog was a fixture in our household.
Every winter “Sears” featured a heavy duty, flannel shirt called “Field Master.” I recall the price being $7.95. After Christmas the shirts “went on sale” for $5.95. We stocked up! They lasted for many winters.
Thus began my appreciation for quality flannel. I know it will soon be summer, but I am a flannel shirt man. The last few cool mornings I have brought them out again. I’ve instructed my family, when my time comes, to bury me in a flannel shirt, jeans, and a pair of old boots. I figure if I’m going to have to lie there until the Lord returns, I might as well be comfortable.
Speaking of boots, have you noticed these new shoes everybody seems to be wearing these days? I’m not going to mention the brand (or brands) because I refuse to advertise them. They look like they are made of paper-machae! Comfortable? I’m sure. Will they last? Not a chance.
Back to the Sears-Roebuck catalog. After raising boys and having grandchildren, I am very familiar with “booster seats.” When my brothers, my sister and I needed a lift for “sitting up” at the table we were perched on a stack of Sears-Roebuck catalogs – three inches thick and never to be thrown away.
Early in my work career, I was employed by the State of Tennessee in the Department of Agriculture. My job entailed grading feeder pigs and feeder cattle in livestock markets across the state. One of the feeder pig sales took place in Pulaski, TN. A key person in the feeder pig grading process was the pig “sizer.” That’s the person who sorted the pigs by weight before they were graded and weighed. In Pulaski, he was an old, black gentleman called “Old Folks.”
Old Folks told of how things were “back in the day.”
“Why,” he’d say. “I remember when you could buy ‘dem heavy, denim shirts for 50 cents! And ‘overhauls’? They was jest a dollar. And they would wear like iron. You know, the denim in them overhauls was so stiff, you could stand ‘em in the corner!”
I remember that kind of denim. When you wore a new pair of blue jeans on the first day of school in the fall, they would chap your legs just behind your knees.
But alas, heavy denim jeans went out when stonewashed jeans came along. Seems the younger generation wanted jeans that appeared to have been worn when they hadn’t been worn at all.
When our eldest son, J. Brim, was a little boy, he hated green vegetables. As we sat at the supper table one evening, insisting he finish his portion of green peas, he began to cry.
As he shook his head back and forth, he said, through his tears, “They just don’t make mamas and daddies like they used to!”
Nor anything else, I suppose.
Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall
