Today is our 9th wedding anniversary and my mother (some of you may know her as the "Spa Bath Grandma") sent a note wishing us a happy anniversary. Such a great perspective on the way times have changed. Enjoy!
I actually remember our 5th anniversary in 1975. We had two kids. Your brother was 3and you were 1. I thought FIVE years was such a long time! It was a different time, for sure. Imagine a house without a computer or even a calculator that I can recall. Daddy had an adding machine that had to be plugged in (no battery powered objects). I didn't even have a desk!
We had one black and white TV with 5 channels and without a remote control. On-off-on-off. Those were the days! Life was easy. My washing machine was my friend instead of a mortal enemy that was over-engineered, over-tested and under-useful! Our refrigerator was still new at age 4 and it lasted another 30 years! Not one living refrigerator today will live to say that. Our dishwasher lasted until our room addition -- over 30 years later.
That was the year I got my FIRST VISA credit card. I didn't know how to use it. It had my full name and address on it.
My previous card was from Marshall Field's -- and only good at that store, of course.
No email. My dearest friend was in Australia and I had to send overseas mail on onion skin paper to reduce the weight and save pennies. Even our words had to be carefully chosen as the number of pages had to be limited. I waited up to 6 weeks and even longer at times for a reply. I didn't hear about the birth of her first child until he was 6 or 8 weeks old. I didn't see a photo for months.
I also was an at-home Mom for that short time, and I remember grabbing magazines by the handful and sitting in the back yard and reading them for hours. Life moved at a slower pace. I took your brother to the car wash for an outing. He was afraid of it, but dared to drive through it with me.
Friends came over for lunch and dinner, and I cooked actual recipes from scratch. We had no Panera, no fast food stores, except McDonalds, which was no where near our home. We had time to set the table every night.
Ahhh...things were not so tough. Life was gentler.
Happy anniversary -- I hope you are nurturing fond memories of happy times for a long time.
Love,
Mom
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I love this more than you know! My mom is CONSTANTLY reminding me that they only had one car and my dad had to take it to the city to work. We lived in Skokie, but not near the train. She would take us to the grocery store everyday because that was all she could manage with a 3 year old and a baby. No pools- sprinklers. There was also no handicapped accessible ANYTHING so she had to shlep everything up flights of stairs and imagine that in the middle of summer. Somehow we all managed to eat dinner and the house was clean.
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