Tomorrow at 5:30 a.m. we're driving to our childhood home to visit our mother, who once looked something like this. (The photo isn't her, rather a young seamstress in Puerto Rico in 1941, but captures the vibe.) We often talk with Mom about the family history: her childhood on a New England farm, 200+ acres on a windswept hilltop overlooking the New Hampshire White Mountains, but not enough land to afford hired help, so she and kin began sugaring at 4 a.m. and worked the fields and cows until nearly midnight.
It's amazing that some of us in the Western world, in just a single generation, have come so far removed from agriculture and self-sustained living. She canned meat, for Pete's sake, and we can't get by one day without a trip to Stop & Shop. Her mother cooked pies in a cast-iron wood-fired stove; we microwave frozen pizza while texting into Twitter. The strangest thing is this woman, now in her 70s, still has 20 friends from her childhood who come by to visit. Social media once focused more on social, and less on media.
Wonder how our Facebook crowd will keep in touch come 2048.
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