THIS OLD HOUSE, WASTED
THIS OLD HOUSE
After my aunt’s funeral I went to look at the Long Island house in which I grew up. It would have been the first time I saw it in three years, when my now 94 year old father moved out.
It was the right place, but the wrong house.
Someone paid $400,000 for that house, which my dad had purchased for $5000 after World War II. My Dad had built the garage. He had built my bedroom, as well as his own. A master gardener, he had turned the front yard into a display of his green thumb.
My parents burned their mortgage when they paid it off.
Then that someone proceeded to tear it down and build another one, bigger and from a appraisers standpoint, probably better.
Shrug it off as sentimental panging for childhood.
But then again, how much time and money was spent? What was done with all of the old house: now junk to be burned and recycled? How much resources were used to improve the neighborhood? Is this economic growth? It may make economic cents, but does it make economic sense?
Nobody fixes a camera any more. Throw it out for the latest model. Same with the computer I’m typing on. Why should I stick with an XP when I can jump Vistas though Windows Seven to heaven?
And what about the car I am driving, a regular 2000 Plymouth Voyager clunker, the one with over 150,000 miles on it, that I could have traded in for $4500, curtesy of Uncle Sam. It would have helped the economy and the environment to send a perfectly good car to a junkyard. Sure it would have made economic sense for me, if I had gotten it together to do so before I spent a couple of grand replacing the transmission. But does it help the environment to build a car that still has a few more years left in it or to dispose of all the parts that can’t be sold for scrap?
Can a throwaway society really remain competitive with societies that reuse every thing they have? This old house seemed to be stable, and didn’t raise such questions. This new house will only last as long as the latest fashion, and raises too many.
I’m now living in a house that was built during the Civil War, with a foundation of stone. I hope we can say the same for our nation.
After my aunt’s funeral I went to look at the Long Island house in which I grew up. It would have been the first time I saw it in three years, when my now 94 year old father moved out.
It was the right place, but the wrong house.
Someone paid $400,000 for that house, which my dad had purchased for $5000 after World War II. My Dad had built the garage. He had built my bedroom, as well as his own. A master gardener, he had turned the front yard into a display of his green thumb.
My parents burned their mortgage when they paid it off.
Then that someone proceeded to tear it down and build another one, bigger and from a appraisers standpoint, probably better.
Shrug it off as sentimental panging for childhood.
But then again, how much time and money was spent? What was done with all of the old house: now junk to be burned and recycled? How much resources were used to improve the neighborhood? Is this economic growth? It may make economic cents, but does it make economic sense?
Nobody fixes a camera any more. Throw it out for the latest model. Same with the computer I’m typing on. Why should I stick with an XP when I can jump Vistas though Windows Seven to heaven?
And what about the car I am driving, a regular 2000 Plymouth Voyager clunker, the one with over 150,000 miles on it, that I could have traded in for $4500, curtesy of Uncle Sam. It would have helped the economy and the environment to send a perfectly good car to a junkyard. Sure it would have made economic sense for me, if I had gotten it together to do so before I spent a couple of grand replacing the transmission. But does it help the environment to build a car that still has a few more years left in it or to dispose of all the parts that can’t be sold for scrap?
Can a throwaway society really remain competitive with societies that reuse every thing they have? This old house seemed to be stable, and didn’t raise such questions. This new house will only last as long as the latest fashion, and raises too many.
I’m now living in a house that was built during the Civil War, with a foundation of stone. I hope we can say the same for our nation.
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© 2012 Created by Bob Herdlein.
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