Not quite a native Ripley Countian - she attended only her last year of high school in Doniphan though she taught in the R-1 system for 32 years - Teresa (Pearson) Lee delights in surprising readers and herself with anecdotal observations of life in general. Maybe you can blame her St.Louis roots for a quirky humor and some slightly-askewed opinions, but never doubt she writes from the heart.

The 'Instant' Paradox

Posted Saturday, June 29, 2024, at 7:57 AM

Before the June page of the 2024 calendar is flipped, I will have been on the earth seven decades plus. What a trip! When I was born:

*Television programming was black and white and didn’t offer shows 24/7. Family time around the set on Saturday nights was special - complete with popcorn and RC Cola. What did we watch? Why, Lawrence Welk and Wrestling, of course!

*At our house the radio was played a lot. Mom could sing along to all kinds of music…country/western, show tunes and big band melodies. We kids had a record player, too. We wore out “76 Trombones.”

*’Instant’ products were probably around then - it WAS the middle of the twentieth century - but I don’t remember having much that was instant at our house unless it was a jar of coffee. Most of the time my parents drank what they percolated on the stove. Pop tarts weren’t even a thing the decade I showed up, nor were home microwave ovens. Oh wait! We had Ovaltine and before I was ten, we had Tang!

*Most I knew had phones but they hung on a wall or sat on a table, with a huge phone book nearby. Mom kept an address book, too, with handwritten addresses and phone numbers of family and friends far and near. When I attended college, we had hall phones in the dorms. Throngs of students shared. How did we ever manage?

*Communication was another aspect of the mid-1900’s that wasn’t instant. (I should edit that out…mid-twentieth century sounds less ancient). We used the USPS to send letters, then waited days or weeks for a reply. I ran across one recently from Mom to a grandmother. She had stayed home from work because my brother and sister had bad colds. There were beans on the stove for supper, and we were preparing to move so Dad could open a corner store.

I could fill a whole newspaper with the changes I’ve experienced. The majority of them would be in the last 24 years. Who knows the sorts of changes I’ll see while I’m still around! However, I will continue to enjoy Friday nights/Sunday afternoons around the television (it IS nice being able to pick when to watch what) and anticipate teatime - and enjoy the company - while the tea is steeping.

An instant life doesn’t leave enough time for savoring much of it. As a present to myself, I will seek to do less to enjoy more.