A series of essays.....
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| CLASSIC STYLES REMAIN POPULAR FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION |
.....as seen through my eyes!
Fashion and trends are repeated and revived all of the time and we bear witness to this fact every day, in one way or another.
In my closet resides a classic wool suit that my beautiful Aunt Lou modeled for a prominent South Bend, Indiana woman's boutique, Frances Shop, back in the early Nineteen-sixties. This stunning, tailored suit is as beautiful today as the memories of Aunt Lou are in my heart.
Finally, our 'disposable' society is beginning to wake-up! Reduce - Reuse - Recycle are powerful words that are reaching out to so many of us today. And, without getting all "Green" or "Planet Earth" on you......yet, I'm so impressed that they have! The nice part is that the process is becoming 'second nature' to most of us.
Prefixes are key morphemes in English vocabulary that begin words. Let's take the prefix re- for example, which means 'back' or 'again and again,' and apply it to our every day lifestyle, beginning with the three re- words mentioned above.
By reducing our direct and indirect energy usage, we end up reducing the carbon footprint of our life. Carbon footprint equates to the actual amount of carbon, or CO2, that is required by each one of us in the process of creating the energy we use, to the goods and services we buy and use. Buy your goods locally, if possible and, always remember that Mom was right. Don't waste food. Garbage in our landfills produces methane. If we pay attention to our consumption and waste habits, we can find many opportunities to conserve.
A growing percentage of us reuse our paper, plastic or 'tote' bags to bring groceries home from the store. This, in itself, is a huge step towards recycling. Separating paper, plastic, aluminum, and glass and placing them in designated bins to be picked-up each week is the first step to processing used materials into new, useful products. This helps us reduce the use of raw materials that would have been used, uses less energy, and is a great way of controlling air, water and land pollution.
Why, like so many other great ideas, has it taken so long for recycling our waste products to take effect?
Closed mindedness, red tape, laziness, and money (who's going to pay for it?) are reasons that come to mind.
Continuing the theme that 'everything old is new again,' I take you back to 1968 when Stewart Brand launched an innovative publication called The Whole Earth Catalog. This catalog was groundbreaking, enlightening and a large part of the '60's counterculture that defined rugged individualism and back-to-the-land movements before personal computers and desk-top publishing.
An Open Culture publication describes the Catalog as essentially, "a paper-based database offering thousands of hacks, tips, tools, suggestions, and possibilities for optimizing your life."
Founder Stewart Brand, in his 1968 CATALOG article, "We are as gods" said, "At a time when the New Left was calling for grass-roots political power, Whole Earth eschewed politics and pushed grassroots direct power—tools and skills." It pushed science, intellectual endeavor, and new technology as well as old. As a result, when the most empowering tool of the century came along—personal computers, Whole Earth was in the thick of the development from the beginning.
According to Open Culture, Steve Jobs, while speaking to Stanford graduates in 2005, described it as one of the 'Bibles' of his generation, made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras, it was sort of like Google in paperback form. It was idealistic and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
These are powerful words, "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." Intense sentiments coupled with a philosophy of life that many of my generation believe has allowed us to remain free-thinkers with young ideas for so many years.
As a writer and avid social media fan, I am happy to be a part of several Public Groups on Facebook that embrace modern storytelling while pulling up and utilizing as much historical information as possible. They include Passages to the Past - Historical Fiction and Historical Novel Society. Each serve as forums for the discussion of historical fiction, history and writing, reading, and publishing historical fiction. Many published, non-published, and totally amazing writers comprise these groups and offer understanding and sage advice to fellow writers and lovers of historical fiction. Another way of merging the past with present day!
However, my favorite re- word happens to be....repurpose. For me, this is an art form that tugs and pulls at my heart because it deftly defines the phrase, 'Everything Old Is New Again.'
Being a true 'Romanticist,' I proudly display my Grandmother's apple cookie jar in my own kitchen. This is the same jar that my brothers and I, along with each of our cousins, would delightfully dip into just after giving Grandma a huge hug and a kiss! Always freshly baked, we all knew her cookies were lovingly placed in that jar for our immediate consumption.
My enjoyable obsession with the 'old' began with the refurbishing of a camel-back steamer trunk when I was in high school and led to acquiring several different antique pieces for our Victorian home located in Eaton Rapids, Michigan. I discovered life within the various grains of wood comprising each piece and marveled at the craftsmanship defined by the hands and hearts of their creators.
Recently, while renovating our Master Bath and kitchen, Dan and I made every concession we could to repurpose items we already owned. We not only saved money in doing so, but the excessive amount of pride we experience upon entering each room feels so good and taps directly into my sentimental mindset.
A masterfully constructed Lane dresser and mirror set serve as the main components of our new Master Bath. With a hat of colorful granite and glass, and displaying shiny chrome buttons of bling, this soldier stands at attention beneath the same mirror that has reflected its beauty and service to others for so many years.
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| LANE DRESSER WITH MIRROR AND PAINTED DRESSER WITH ADDED SHELVING |
Not wanting to dispose of the dresser that we had purchased to use as the changing table and storage for our newborn daughter many years ago, I washed it down in a sea of white paint while Dan helped it to stand proud and tall atop handmade shelving. We inserted baskets onto the shelves to create a convenient storage space. Perfect!
Reconfiguring and refinishing our old kitchen cabinets adds two more re- words into the mix and saved us money while greatly reducing our carbon footprint at the same time. Creativity, imagination, and good taste are certainly the keys to the art of repurposing. The cool part is that anyone can do it.
Here are other re- words worth incorporating into our lives that may help us reconsider our past and place the new world of waste and depletion into proper perspective: Rediscover - Review - Redo - Reinvent - Revisit.
Reclaim: To restore and bring ourselves back to a right or proper course. Understanding this word promotes the due diligence required to bring back a more positive and wholesome way of life. Our future absolutely depends on it.
Copyright © 2016 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved
