Waste

Waste not, want not--a saying that seems to have originated in the late eighteenth century. It's a saying whose impact most of us, I would think, are truly understanding these viral-lockdown days.

Let's go back to my youth a moment...

When I was a kid, it was routine for drivers to toss out their windows the refuse they'd accumulated: waste from a stop at a drive-in restaurant, a tissue you'd just used to blow your nose, a finished cigarette or cigar. I still remember my dad's knocking the ashes from his pipe out onto the highway.

Then came the late 60s and 70s and Earth Day, the years of environmental awareness, and a series of TV commercials about not littering, including the famous one I'll link to in a moment, one that shows tears on the face of a Native American. (Link to commercial.)

And people--well, most of them--stopped using the side of the road as a garbage dump. Of course, any observant person today can see that not everyone has stopped the practice.

My parents, in other ways, were not wasteful, not at all. They had come through the Great Depression, through the rationing of World War II (I still have some ration coupons my mother never redeemed. I was going to scan them to show you, but ... can't find them right at the moment.) Image below is from Google.

My mother, I'm sure, learned most of this from her parents. When Mom's mother died in May 1978, I was on strike--Aurora City Schools. But I flew out to Columbia, Missouri, where my grandparents had retired, and helped Mom do some of the cleaning of their place. The refrigerator and freezer were jammed with leftovers.

Later, as my mother was nearing the end of her own life, my brothers and I would keep her occupied in the living room; then one of us would go clean out the refrigerator/freezer, which generally contained enough leftovers (many of which had, uh, changed colors) to supply her during, oh, a virus lockdown. Once when I was doing the cleaning, I could hear her call, Danny, what are you doing?

Uh, nothing, Mom. (A lie I'd perfected in adolescence.)

Joyce and I have been pretty frugal throughout our marriage. Especially in our early years (we were married late in 1969). We had very little money, so we routinely saved and ate leftovers. As our financial situation improved somewhat, we became a bit more wasteful--not horribly, shamefully so. But more so than we are right now, that's for sure! And more so than we ought to have been.

Now, we try not to waste a damn thing. We freeze-and-eat-later. We make ugly stews of leftovers. And early this morning, for example, down in the kitchen, I found that our roll of paper towels was about done--all that was left was that tight little piece that clings to the roll and defies you to remove it without destroying it. I often don't bother.

This morning, I bothered.

I gently, gently, gently removed the final piece--intact--and laid it aside to use later today. Then put on a new roll.

And the clouds then opened, and I saw the smiling faces of my mother and grandmother.