Sunday, May 8, 2011

Shopping

Our Friend Johann Planting his Vegetable Garden in May
Saturday Shoppers

Our Cherry Lane Shopping Center Yesterday
I may have told you this before, but we are so old, things were done very differently in our childhood days, not only because of World War Two. My mother used to shop for groceries on the telephone.( I was allowed to add a few bottles of pop to the weekly order). The groceries were delivered to our door in a van. We didn't have a car. We didn't have plastic bags or shopping trolleys. They weren't invented yet. We grew a lot of our own food in an "allotment." Now look! We don't walk to the shops, we arrive in splendor in a four-wheel drive SUV, polluting the air with our fumes. We use our cars as an extension of our living-rooms, sitting around in parking lots with our feet on the dashboard, sipping coffee, reading a book, and admiring the view, some of us in a no-parking zone (they always have the best scenery), whilst the engine idles to keep us warm, or cool, depending on the month. No, I must admit, I am on the wrong track. The main problem with our World we should be addressing is that there are too many people, and there will be more and more exponentially as time goes on, so we will all starve to death, die of thirst, or of overheating, or freezing cold. Thank goodness we won't live to see it, which is a most selfish thing to say, but it is true.

4 comments:

Friko said...

Golly, that does all sound very selfish. Is the SUV really necessary for two old people? (you said it first) Or are you not talking about yourselves when you talk about the lifestyle? I sincerely hope not.

When I was little I went to the market with my mother, and we carried the shopping home in bags, netbags and shopping bags meant for the purpose. Now we drive to a supermarket once or twice a month (we live in the country without proper shops) and buy a lot of groceries in one go. Our car is a modest, midsize car and we certainly never sit in it with the motor running.

I would admit though that I too am glad that I won't live to see the worst consequences of this generation's excesses.

Come to think of it, my parents said the same thing. And so it goes . . . . .

I really dislike these carparks in your pictures, we have them too, of course.

Angela Häring-Christen said...

In 40 Jahren kann vieles passieren.
Eine meiner Töchter studiert Rechtswissenschaft. Meine Tochter weiss nicht ob sie Kinder will, weil es so viele Menschen gibt.
Menschen mit guter Bildung oder mit Arbeit haben weniger Kinder als Menschen mit tiefer Bildung oder ohne Arbeit. (Statistik: stimmt nicht immer)
Schweizer haben zu wenig Kinder. Wir haben viele Kinder von Ausländer, die in der Schweiz leben.

Die Zukunft macht manchmal Angst.

Liebe Grüsse
Angela

Unknown said...

Pessimism well expressed. And yet it is true. The white race is committing the destructive sin of not reproducing and so other races will soon take their turn; suffer the consequences of their own numbers and live hard lives. Again, I must reiterate that I am darn glad to be old. We were so fortunate to have lived in Canada during most of the century of discovery and destruction. Now we just celebrate each day.

H said...

We walked to the shops too and carried groeries back in a 'shopping bag'. The small collection of shops just up the road had a Co-op, two butchers, chemist, draper, baker, greengrocer and hardware store. The Co-op (after many changes of hand) is there again, and the chemist and hardware have survived. The rest of the shops are now take aways, a bookies and a massage/beauty parlour; not exactly the staples of life!