Watermelon Pickles & Times of Old

Ahhh....  the quietness of early morning and the baby sleeping!  :)  I've been wanting to write for the last two days and have not had a moment to sit, and in any case, what would I write about?  I just figured I'd come up with something in the midst of sitting here while my thoughts pool and my brain is clear.

Randomness...
Have you ever tried a Watermelon Pickle?  Have you even heard of them before?  If you're my age (a ripe 25) you probably haven't; I've just discovered them.  In our house, we try really hard not to waste any food and we recycle enough on most occasions that we could probably do with only having the garbage guys come twice a month and the recycling twice as often.  I'm incredibly compulsive when it comes to organization, to the point that everything in my fridge has a place and a date written on it when it comes in. 

(Picture from http://spiritualknitter.blogspot.com/2010/06/watermelon-pickles.html)
While I was at work a few weeks back, I was visiting with a fine lady in her golden years and she shared her wisdom of Watermelon Pickles.  Sadly enough, I had never heard of these little gems before.  Once again, I find that the years that separate our older generation from me and the others of my age, has deprived me of such joys as Watermelon Pickles.  I spend the majority of my time during the day with people above the age of 70, and luckily, I grew up with older parents.  So I am familiar with many of the things they enjoy talk about.  Canning seems to be a hot topic, along with religion (you'd be amazed at how important this is), hard work ethic, the mending and sewing of cloths, and cooking from scratch.  A special and unprecedented delivery of a warm loaf of zucchini bread, when I have it coming out of my ears, does wonders for the soul of an elderly person as well as for the person delivering it.  I'm not saying I do this often, I should do it more, but when I take the time to put a little more effort in, the joy I get back feels unlike anything else.
Furthermore, the massive amounts of stories, experience and wisdom that flows from these minds is incredible!  I find, sadly, that we as younger Americans are loosing some of the great know-how's of our past.  Canning seems to be a lost art, religion no longer a concern for some/most, "hard" and "work" don't seem to go in the same sentence together (let alone combined), home cooking involves a box of processed noodles and a packet of unidentifiable orange stuff that we call "cheese".  We just simply don't have the time or take the time to sit and absorb all of these precious little things from them.  It's so sad because we all could learn so much.  I often worry that if we ever recessed and became unequipped with all of the modern technology that makes living what it is today, how many of us would survive it and "live"?  (And by "live", I mean the word in reference to one's "quality of life")
The concept that I make all of my own baby food seems bizarre to those of my age, "Who does that?".  Yet when I bring it up to those individuals that are four times my age, it seems a way of life unspoken.  Cloth diapers?  They had nothing else!  I find, on most occasions, I have an easier time expressing my concerns about raising children with the elderly because my views are more similar to theirs than people of my own age. 

Ever since this Watermelon Pickle business, it's got me thinking. How much am I missing out from all of these years that separate me from those who have infinitely more wisdom than I do. We call ourselves a more "independent" nation, we are strong, we are intelligent, we are AMERICANS! Respect us! But yet, think about it, if our economy were to crash, we all lost our jobs, and pretty much everything stopped functioning, even our government, eventually everything else would crumble too. We'd no longer have jobs, no longer have any cash, and besides, what would cash matter, it would have no value at that point. We'd have to fend for ourselves, but how many of us "independent" Americans could actually "live" as we call it, today? I think I'll stick with times of past, continue to learn how to preserve my own food, learning about Watermelon Pickles, make my own bread and diaper my own children for the sake that I can be truly independent.

And for those of you individuals that continue with the ways of the past, good for you! Just don't forget to pass on all that knowledge to those younger than you and to your children, for this knowledge is absolutely priceless and is the cure for ignorance.