By Hobie Morris

The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.

-Harriet Beecher Stowe

(Brookfield, NY) While a full time simple country man for the past 30 years, my entire life has been enjoyably tied to several hundred acres in the rural Brookfield hills that as a young lawyer my Father purchased a decade before I was born.

Although my adolescent years were spent in then hustling and bustling Utica the lure of the countryside was ever present and simply irresistible as it has continued to this day.

The “Musings” that follow will hopefully bring smiles of nostalgia to those who remember when.

Compared to today’s young people the passing years of my youth were like the calm waters in a sheltered harbor. What ripples there were barely ruffling its surface.

Before the mid-20th Century our lives appeared to move along at a precise, predictable and leisurely pace. There was a strong element of familiarity that seemed to characterize American life.

We knew, for example, a great deal about the lives of our next door neighbors, as well as the other families living on our street. These people were also our very good friends as well.

Families in those days often “grew up” together—retaining their same houses, telephone numbers and so on year after year. There seemed to be, in retrospect, a permanence and stability on our street, and similar streets, and communities all across America. Through the eyes of a young boy—and now one in “late adolescence”—these distant years appear wonderfully happy compared to the present, increasingly sad, chaotic, dangerous and dysfunctional America.

People did know plenty about each other including the make of their car (people usually had just one); jobs (many people worked all their working years for one employer); church attended (Catholics still religiously ate fish on Friday); schools (city kids had to get to school on their own—no free rides); their children (and who liked to play what and type of comic books they wanted to trade); favorite wash day; who was ‘friendly” and whose lawn to stay off of (Mr. and Mrs. Piper across the street, now long dead. I still have a latent guilt trip just thinking about stepping on what will always be “their” sacred lawn).

We knew all these things and much more, because we were close neighbors and were innately curious about our surroundings. Today, sadly, people seldom know their neighbors’ names or anything about them.

We cared and shared too.

If my Mother needed a pinch of salt, an egg or two, some sugar-or flour, off one of us would scoot next door to Harriet Dickens.’ That’s what neighbors were for. She, and others, we warmly welcomed to reciprocate in their time of need.

In those years one could almost set one’s watch by the exact time each morning when the man of the house left for work.

Men were still the overwhelming, traditional family “bread winners.” One job was sufficient to support his wife and children, as well as provide for a modest home, automobile and other basic necessities and yes, even a modest savings account. (Plastic money, installment-high interest-buying beyond one’s means was only red ink blips on the horizon).

Their wives, like Mrs. Dickens, Mrs. Benjamin, and my mother, remained at home doing the countless daily tasks necessary for a smooth running household.

When their young children returned home from school they were greeted by Mother, not by an empty household that is all too common today when it’s necessary for both parents to work one or more jobs simply to keep their heads above the constantly rising economic waters.

After a hasty snack the children were free to run out and play with neighborhood friends of their siblings.

Eventually Dad would arrive home from work, and soon it was suppertime. A loud call from the front porch, or back yard, brought the now “starving” playing children in. After hastily washing hands and face, it was time to sit down and “dig in.”

Supper usually united the entire family. As the dishes were passed, and eating began, the day’s experiences were eagerly shared and discussed.

After the meal it was time to settle down and do next day’s school homework, read a newspaper or book. If time permitted we’d sit in front of the radio listening to a favorite program before bed time. This “no nonsense” school week routine was vigorously enforced by concerned parents. Weekends, however, were much more flexible and generally more fun for the entire family.

For years the large cabinet size radio standing in our living room was our family’s sole “entertainment center.” Eventually it was rivaled by a 12-and-a-half inch Emerson black and white television set, one of the first sets on our street.

Familiarity was evidenced in many other ways in American life a half century ago.

If we pedaled our fat-tired bike over to the corner drugstore, always popular candy shop, 5 cent and 10 cent store, movie theater, or mom and pop grocery store—even the full service Sear’s gasoline station (4 gallons for a dollar)—we usually knew the men (and occasionally a woman) who worked in these establishments. They in turn would recognize our faces—if not our names. So many of these faces, voices, sights and sounds remained largely the same throughout my adolescent years.

Other examples of a much more permanent and stable society come to mind.

For years “Max” was our milkman. (Dairies delivered their products to customers’ homes in those times). I can still hear the familiar clinking of glass bottles rattling in his metal carrier as he briskly walked along our side driveway and opened the back door where he entered with a friendly announcement of “milkman.” He left his delivery on the steps outside the kitchen door—wonderfully rich and tasty Jersey milk—the neck of each bottle containing several inches of the thickest, most delicious cream imaginable. (Calorie counters were a tiny minority of the population in those more physically active years).

“Bert” was another familiar face in my safe harbor.

My Mother would telephone in a grocery order to Bert’s parents’ tiny grocery store located on a pie shaped piece of ground next to their small, modest home on Seward Avenue in a quiet residential area of my native city of Utica.

A short time later Bert’s car pulled in our driveway. Up went the trunk and out came a cardboard box containing our order. In lean times unpaid grocery bills were gladly carried over to the next month or two without interest. Today Bert, his parents and store are all long gone. Only a tiny pie shaped piece of mowed lawn remains.

Business practices were considerably less formal, and much more personal, in those days. There was a greater element of trust and flexibility. A firm handshake was considered as valid as any contractual paper. One’s good reputation in a community was something to be protected as carefully as the crown jewels of a Head of State.

Other once familiar faces, sights, smells and sounds are still vivid in my memory over a half century later.

The ice man; knife and lawn mower sharpener (no affordable power mower existed in those days, just the hand pushed reel, that had to be occasionally sharpened); a wide variety of door to door sales people; the tinkling bell announcing the good humored ice cream man was coming down the street with his tasty treats on a hot summer’s evening; the fresh produce man with his truck of morning picked sweet corn, honey dew melons, and juicy mouth-watering vine ripened red tomatoes and much, much more.

For children with seemingly bottomless pits for stomachs the arrival, in front of our home, of the Hathaway Bakery truck, with its friendly, uniformed driver, mightily challenged our already weakened will power.

The driver would come to our house with a large carrier heaping over with wonderfully fragrant loaves of freshly baked bread, pies, rolls, cookies, pastries, do nuts with even more back in pull-out trays in the truck. I can still taste the incomparable red raspberry jelly filled white confectionary sugar coated buns!

Times were different in other respects as well.

People seldom, if ever, locked doors—either houses, autos, or much of anything else. People were robbed, and lost their cars, but people had an overwhelming faith that these cases were isolated aberrations and not the rule of society ..as it seems to be today—where we fear much more than -we trust.

Parents, especially, didn’t live in constant fear for the safety of their children as they do in many areas of America today. Kids could safely go and come from school. In school violence was unheard of. They could play on the street, in vacant lots, up at a playground without fear. Crimes against children no doubt occurred from time to time but were never publicized as they are today.

Children got injured and sick, of course, and some -would die from diseases— like polio—that have now been eradicated. Kids were tempted by vices like cigarettes and alcohol, but societal and parental disapproval was still extremely important in molding adolescent behavior and other activities. Cursing was my -worst vice and -was not too gently remedied by a good mouth washing with a bar of Ivory soap. Accidents -were fairly plentiful—cut fingers, scraped knees—sundry bumps and bruises of very active children.

(A young playmate trying to grab the back handle of the Hathaway Bakery truck to bum a ride to the next stop, lost his grip, fell on the pavement and fractured his skull. The boy survived and live learned a good lesson.)

Medical care was easily affordable for those with or without insurance. Sick in bed? Mom would call Dr. Pres Clark up in New Hartford. His office -was in the basement of his home. No clinic, no specialists—just Dr. Clark and his magical black bag. He was his own phone answerer, receptionist and nurse. And he often made house calls! Need medicine that Dr. Clark didn’t carry? A Call up to Randall’s Pharmacy and your order was soon ready to be picked up. Cost? A few dollars for the pills and way less than $10. For Dr. Clark’s home visit.

Growing up in those years I never knew a divorced person, illegitimate child or a couple living together outside the marriage institution. Parents knew otherwise, but did not discuss these taboo conditions -within earshot of their children. Today these conditions permeate our society destroying in their wake a societal stability that at one time cemented our nation together. Seemingly this once accepted stricter code of behavior has been tossed in the

dustbin of today’s “do my own thing” attitude. As we grew older, of course, we grew to know more about human frailties and problems they could lead to. Compared to today’s generation -we -were terribly uninformed and naive. But, in retrospect, I am thankful our parents (and society) spared us the particulars of this darker side of human nature. We were allowed to grow up as innocent children—leaving the scourge of instant, adolescent adults— some seemingly just out of diapers—to much later generations.

Beyond our city street was the surrounding countryside. During my childhood years it was the last bastion of traditionalism and conservatism in this nation. Its life still regulated by seasonal cycles, the elements of water, light, sun and temperatures and the indispensable human element of the hard working toiler of the soil and his time tested ways of working and living in harmony with Mother Earth.

As in the urban America the powerful winds of change were beginning to tear down these traditional ways in rural America. A process that continues to this day.

Compared to America of 50 years ago, today’s country has an almost revolutionary new look to it. For better or worse these new conditions -will challenge all of us in innumerable ways that will test our -will and resolve— and quite possibly the very future of this nation in the 21st Century.

But this should not prevent us from occasionally turning back the pages of our history to a simpler and more understandable time when we were a far happier and contented nation and our future as bright as the newly risen sun.

But then again these are only the “looking back smiles” of a simple country man.

Hobie Morris is a Brookfield resident and simple country man.