The Coonridge Digest: End of economic woes in sight?

Greetings from the Ridge.

Wouldn’t it be grand to wake up some morning and read the headlines, "End of Economic Woes in Sight! Boom Times Predicted!"? Well, maybe someday, but for the moment it looks as if we’re in for a few rounds of belt-tightening. Trouble is, who knows how to do it?

"I’ve a notion," as my grandmother would say, that perhaps the answer is right under our noses…or at least right down the street.

Surely one of the greatest achievements of American education has been the birth, growth, and booming of community colleges…those institutions practically in our back yard where what used to be an expensive college education can now be obtained by almost anyone with the desire to get ahead. And they offer a range of courses so broad that few four-year schools can match their variety. So here’s my proposal: empty out the retirement homes, the elderly care facilities, raid the ranks of the Wal-Mart greeters, and put the senior citizens groups to good use. They’re the very college professors we need.

The "greatest generation," those who’ve lived through tough economic times are the folks best qualified to teach the rest of us how to survive when the Dow dips, the S&P sags, and cutbacks loom on the economic horizon. Put these older folks in charge of the classrooms with a curriculum something like…

Chicken-cutting 101.

Taffy Pulling 203.

Scrimping 220.

Jim Walton, the 23rd richest billionaire in the world and one of the heirs to daddy Sam’s fortune drives a 15-year-old Dodge Dakota pickup. His sister billionaire sister Alice drives a 2006 Ford pickup. There’s a lot to be learned from a father who survived the Depression. Ikea founder, billionaire Ingvar Kamprad drives a fifteen-year-old Volvo. He says if it runs fine, why take a chance on something else?

Thankfulness 401.

From what I’ve witnessed in our retirement facilities, this simple ability to be thankful may be an national asset that’s more valuable than vast petroleum reserves…and perhaps more endangered.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.

Note this is an upper-level course. The one defining trait of that Greatest Generation was not simply their ability to get by on less, but to be truly thankful for what they had. I can remember Grandma’s prayer.. "Lord make us truly grateful for these gifts we are about to receive." Gifts. Grandma had planted the beans, hoed the cucumbers, picked the corn, slaughtered, plucked, and fried the chicken, yet these were nothing more than gifts for which she was truly thankful. (Except fried potatoes. She told us that after living through the Depression she was never eating another fried potato.) Perhaps more than anything else, we need a spirit of true thankfulness to survive what may be tougher times to come. My Aunt Miriam had a cooking pot with a hole in it and still she refused to throw it away. A holey pot! We accused her of being able to find a use for used Kleenex. Although I can’t convince myself to go quite that far, it breaks the heart of any thinking person to drive down the street on garbage pickup day and see the sheer volume of waste materials (4.6 pounds per person per day, but statistics are boring, aren’t they?) that we toss out the front door. Maybe it’s time we have the folks from the local retirement home tell us how to scrimp a bit. Ever eaten chips made from potato peels? Delicious. What percentage of the clothes you own do you actually wear (more boring statistics: the average American wears 21%)? And in spite of that embarrassing figure, how many new clothes will you buy before Christmas? Remember the days when we used to pass our magazines around the neighborhood? Did you know that there’s practically nothing in your house that can’t be cleaned with either baking soda or Alka-Seltzer? Yes, but it’s so easy to just go buy something. Maybe not. Better sign up for this one. Add up the amount your family spends on cell phones, computer games, DVDs and other things that go ping in the night. These hardy souls who weathered the lean days of the 1930s could give us a pretty good schooling on the fine art of entertaining yourself on the cheap. If you’ve ever been in 21st century household when the electricity goes out, you’ve seen a panic to equal Wall Street in ’29. Dear Lord, what do we do! Nothing works! Here’s where we could take a page for the old timers’ books with the skills of reading a book, doing puzzles and games together, pulling a bit of taffy, and if you really want to take a chance, simply talking with each other. There’s no lady who came through the Great Depression who doesn’t know the innards and outards of cutting up a frying hen. If I thought we’d have any takers I’d call the course "Chicken Plucking 101" but that might stretch our 21st century sensibilities too far. At any rate, there’s more an economic advantage to cutting up your own chicken. How long since you’ve seen a chicken neck or a wishbone?