In reading over the stories Dad has written it really makes me realize how different his childhood was from mine. And then how different mine was from my kids.
Dad's family had 10 children. I have five siblings and only two children. Our families seem to be getting smaller.
Dad's family was very poor. I don't know how old I was before I figured out that we were probably pretty poor also when I was growing up. It mostly wasn't something I thought about. I don't think there were as many status symbols back then to separate the haves from the have nots.
Actually I thought we were very well off because we never went hungry. We lived on a farm and our freezer was always full of beef, sometimes there was also pork. Chicken, hot dogs and bologna were really treats. I'm guessing Mom wasn't spending money on prepackaged food when we already had beef in the freezer.
Sometimes we might have steak for dinner (lunch) and roast for supper. We did eat a lot of hamburger in various mixtures. If we ate such good meals there was no need to worry about being poor.
I did learn how to comparison shop and shop the sale items from Mom. If non perishables were on sale, buy several. If the price was really good, then buy a lot! I've been known to have 16 bottles of shampoo in the cupboard. It was on sale and I had coupons that took off enough after doubled that the bottle was free. So I would buy as many bottles as I had coupons. Same with clothes detergent - 13 bottles is my highest!
I learned from Mom to buy a product when it was on sale whether the supply was low or not. That way if it didn't go on sale again for quite some time, no problem, we're stocked up. Mom kept the pantry full. I suppose a lot of that had to do with living so far in the country. We could of weathered a major blizzard for weeks and never worried about running out of food. The pantry would of gotten pretty bare though.
I tend to do the same thing. Keep the cupboards stocked with sale items.
We didn't get treats too often as kids. Mom cut candy bars in either halves or quarters. A bottle (glass if it was Pepsi) or can (if it was Shasta or Peer) of pop was split in half. But we seldom got pop, maybe Mom bought some on sale a couple of times a year. I do remember having Pepsi sometimes around July 4th. Pepsi isn't usually my drink of choice but when I do drink it, it now comes from a can or plastic bottle. The "fizz" just isn't the same as that first drink when it's out of a glass bottle.
Dad would sometimes buy us a bottle of pop or some candy if we went with him to the Co-op in either Sequin or Grinnell. That was probably the reason we went! But you couldn't count on getting that treat, only sometimes would he buy it.
Now, none of that seems like a treat because it's everywhere.
But ice water is still my favorite drink. That's about all we drank growing up. No, actually we drank it straight from the tap and it was cold. Well water is so much better than "town" water. But I've lived in town so long, I've adjusted.