How the Depression Taught Grandma to be Green

This past fall, an anniversary has come and gone that I have heard little fanfare about. Black Thursday. Not the famed best shopping day of the year, where retailers open at 4 am and sale catalogs weigh 5 pounds a piece. But the infamous anniversary of that fateful day that took us into the Great Depression.
I am not a political analyst touting the cautions and comparisons to our times and those that lead up to that dark day. I really pay no mind to the issues that flood the internet linking the Depression to present day concerns. However, there is one thing that caught my attention as I sat down to write my “Green Christmas Tips “article for the www.repurposed4you.com newsletter. I couldn’t get this thought out of my head. Did Grandma start going green in the 1930’s and no one noticed?
The Great Depression was a terrible time in our history, full of homelessness, joblessness and poverty. To my amazing discovery, it was also a time of being frugal, being thrifty and going green. The environment wasn’t the issue. Al Gore wasn’t standing on his 100% post-consumer recycled soap box warning of doom and gloom. It wasn’t an option to reuse items. There weren’t green stores, green art and green articles teaching us how to be more green. There wasn’t this type of save the earth mentality that made people change their ways. But instead the Great Depression was a time of conservation based out of necessity.
"Repair, reuse, make do, and don't throw anything away" was a motto during the Great Depression. Look how far we have come. Look how gone to the other extreme. Is it only the” tree huggers” and the “environmentalists” that see the usefulness in that phrase today. That slogan could easily be on any Eco Friendly Website and no one would know that it was regularly tossed around in homes 70 plus years ago.
Their green behavior is clear; their environmentally sound practices are shown through their resourcefulness. These lessons that they taught their kids have since gotten lost in an age of waste. Grandma became the nutty one for reusing cloth ribbon on her packages and neatly folding her gift wrap and saving it for the following holiday. And we became so superior for showing her how we can mindlessly discard anything that isn’t shiny and new any longer. Remember, Grandma was the one who wore dresses and sometimes even undergarments made out of feed bags and flour sacks because her mom wouldn’t toss out the colorful cotton. Our grandparents were taught that once socks could not be patched any longer they could be tied to the end of a long handle to become a mop. Glass jelly jars became everyday drinking glasses, geese would have their bellies plucked for the family to have a softer bed and oh, those beautiful handmade quilts and rugs made from worn out clothing. Everything outdoors became the kid’s entertainment. The garden was their grocery store. There was no thought to how much pesticide was on the produce or how much fuel it took to ship it across the country to your local neighborhood market. The electricity was limited to illumining the house at night, if that, and not for mindless hours of television, video games and lighting rooms we aren’t even in. They composted. They recycled. They did the things everyday that we pat ourselves on the back for; Repurposing, Reusing and Recycling. They were the first environmentalists, without even knowing it.
Every “Going Green” Holiday article you will read this season will tell you to start folding your paper to save it for next year like it is a new concept. Remember, Grandma still does this now. This is not a new concept. Grandma may have had this one right. And you never know she might just be right about her bee hive making a come back too.

Wonky

"You Spin me right round baby right round like a record baby right round, round round" was the song that all the records gathered around the jukebox in the Turnsville Soda Shop to listen to.But it was not always that happy, oh no a long long time ago it was far worse.

One day a little record, let's call him Wonky, learned how to turn on a turn table and play music at the same time. What a multi-tasker! Anywhoo,Wonky wanted to do something special for his girlfriend because it was their fourth anniversary together. So he went to Google and typed in green gifts. After all he remembers her saying she loved the color green. Well he found Repurposed4you.com (repurposed treasures for you and your home) for you that had qwerty keys on it and he bought it for the low low price of eight ninety-five. He wanted to do more for her since she was quote "extra special" so he found a pop-up about the beautiful, extravagant, (and any other positive adjetives you could think of) Island of the Spinners. So he bought the package including air fare.

Once they arrived, they went to check into the hotel and then they took a romantic stroll around the beach, but to Wonky and Wonkette's (Wonky's girlfriend) surprise it was 105 degrees outside. And all the records that were sunbathing . . . . . melted.

Wonky and Wonkette rolled quickly back to the hotel and floored it right to their room. Wonky unhesitantly picked up the phone and called Audrey from repurposed4you.com. She said that she would be right over. She said that there was no hope for the melted records except (here is where the story turns around) she could make them into bowls.

So we named the bowls after the brave record that acted to save the environment. And they lived happily ever after. And by the way Wonkette loved her qwerty keys.



This is a narrative story because records can not type or dial numbers on a phone.

Repurposed4you.com Saves And Salvages One Keyboard At A Time

Repurposed4you.com is saving old junked up keyboards and turning them into magnificent magnets. Why do they do this you ask? Did your grandparents ever tell you the story of KeyLand? Well it's a magical story and you blog readers are going to hear it if you read on(which you should).


In KeyLand all the little keys live a happy life. Their day starts out by going to typing lessons. They go to chorus and learn about key notes. Then they go to Study Hall and dream about going out with the mouse next door. Then comes reading. The "A" key gets an A+. They grow up they go and hang out with the wrong doers like "F" and "D". And that's when everything goes to crap in KeyLand.


All they do is grow up to be plugged into a computer and get pressed on everyday. The Keyberts are discarded when the new styles arrive. There is no more use for them. The relationship of the keyboard and laptop gets oblitereated and for the laptop, the plug is pulled. The poor keys get wound up in the trecherous Waste Stream.


Repurposed4you.com feels bad for those keys and the keys get repurposed. The Keyberts get Extreme Makeover Keybert Edition. They get to become magnets and instead going out with the mouse, they are sticking to the refridgerator. So that is the story of the Keyberts and KeyLand. And Remember when you think of keyboards think of repurposed4you.com.