First posted July 2007
On Friday night Mr. Fixit and I went out on a date.First we drove downtown to a summertime cruise night: a couple of the streets were closed off, and the car buffs were showing off their Mustangs and BelAirs. Since the show was downtown instead of out at the Knights of Columbus hall or the A&W, there was a mixture of life-on-the-street (good, bad and ugly) and the nostalgic-boomer crowd (good, bad, and beer-bellied). We toured around, listening to "Sweet Little Sixteen," and remembering how we used to do this more often before we had Squirrelings. Mr. Fixit spotted a friend's former Corvette (he recognized the stereo that he, Mr. Fixit, had installed years ago). There was lots of chrome, lots of turquoise.
Then we walked over to an eco-hippie cafe--Mr. Fixit says they serve hemp and flax tarts. Actually what we had was fair trade coffee and some kind of lemon bars (I suspect they were gluten-free as well as sugar-free, but they were fairly tasty nonetheless). We sat there, watching a few chrome-laden latecomers driving by, and looking at the things for sale in the cafe: handmade purses and dreamcatcher-type jewelery, herbal lotions, and books about saving the earth by riding bicycles.
I wondered, not for the first time, where we fit into either or both of these scenarios.
Sometimes we kind of wish we lived in the age of chrome: things may not have been simpler then, but they didn't fall apart as fast. The Treehouse is a 1960 raised bungalow, it still has a turquoise bathtub with pink tiles, and Grandpa's toolbox is still in the basement. We have family chips-and-ping-pong parties in the garage on weekend afternoons--that's what makes us happy.
We've had our slightly-crunchy period, but I don't think I'd want to live in a loft and pull little Raven and Moonchild around in a bike trailer. The last (and only) time I went on a protest was over twenty years ago, and that was under duress. We don't spray our lawn, but that's not out of any particular ideology other than thinking that dandelions in the grass smell nicer than chemicals. We've tried out the new kind of lightbulbs, but when the one over the sink started to fizzle and smoke, Mr. Fixit reinstalled the old bulb (which gives better light anyway).
On the other hand, the Squirrelings were born at home, and we homeschool--that's enough for some people to think we're on the crunchy end of things. We don't buy much at big malls or monster supermarkets, and get annoyed by upscale-trendy makeovers to our usual shopping places. (Renovations to a small local mall took out Liquidation World and a family-run coffee shop, and replaced them with Ugly-Home-Things-You-Don't-Need and a Thai restaurant.) If we can support a small business instead of a big box store, we do. If we can hang onto something and fix it, we do. (Grandpa's tools and Mr. Fixit's soldering iron.) Maybe we're still a little crunchy.
But that's what Grandma and Grandpa were doing fifty years ago in the Age of Chrome. Well, not homeschooling, but the other things.
So what does that make us then? Just odd? Or just old?
