25 Oct 2018 The ends of things

Posted at 6:25 AMh in Features by

by Vivian Lawson Hogue

There is always a sign of the ending of things, whether they are bad or good. As I write this, our tomato plants have succumbed to a blight, but they were plenty and delicious while we had them. The cicadas have left after most became summer delicacies to the blue jays. Dozens left their cast-off shells of outerwear found on fences, patios and brick houses, and I guessed they were flying around in their underwear. I wished I could tell them they could at least pick up after themselves. 

A subtle change in the sunlight happens in August due to the approaching September equinox when the sun is directly overhead and does a selfie when it is exactly on our planet’s equator. It transfers a little hope for fall and the mellowing end of the year. The despised squirrels knock the fat, green pecans off the tree that had promised this year we would have a crop. They munch loudly on what is left up there, surely delighted as shell pieces land in my hair. The caladiums have been beautiful, but only because I defended them against those squirrels, using every type of wire covering I could find. I will soon dig the bulbs up to save for another year, and next spring the fight will be renewed. In fact, it never ends.

Even our lives will end just as surely as we are born, but there is much to enjoy or experience in the middle. I recall how the world was before I began college in 1961, and clearly remember endings that occurred afterward as I advanced to another life level. No more hunting for four pennies so I could buy a postage stamp. However, the convenience of needing just one coin wasn’t balanced well against the fact I was paying another penny for that convenience.

Life expectancy was 70.1 years, and my 65-year-old parents paid no attention to that. In our community, our three drug-free colleges would have to deal with a growing factor of alcohol and drug use that interrupted some students’ desires beyond wanting knowledge and future employment. 

Feminism was a foreign word. I was appalled that protesting women would go bra-less, much less burn their underwear in front of the whole world. Still worse was the fact that most of us didn’t know what the protests addressed! 

So has personal and human decorum come to an end? I did not realize that we would one day see headlines with vulgar words and images attributed to women. I was disappointed that they would be printed in newspapers, as I still believed in paying my dime to read “all the news that’s fit to print,” as the New York Times used to say. 

“The Pill,” along with cultural alterations through music, movies and literature would change the world, and not in the way it was intended. Now we struggle to explain to our children the things they shouldn’t have to know until their ages are appropriate. Crowds of women, now seen and heard screaming obscenities because they are apparently unable to express themselves otherwise, have no use for being a “lady.” 

All good things come to an end, and for most we are powerless to stop their direction. Your favorite products disappear because of experimental marketing. Your favorite restaurant remodels, losing its former appeal. Your favorite outdoor scenery and travel ways are littered. As a former teacher, I can say that families are not together, and if they happen to be, they are self-distracted by technology. 

It’s hard changing centuries in the middle of your life! Things end that you enjoyed, and things begin that you wish would end but won’t! But there is still a remnant of us who have our memories of the only stoplight in town, the full-scale café meal for 75¢, blue jeans for $3, church services on Sundays and Wednesday nights with all stores closed on Sundays, movies for 50¢, the foot X-ray machine at Mr. Jumper’s shoe store, crossing the river on the Toad Suck Ferry and, ultimately, the closing of Massey Hardware. 

We couldn’t protest the end of those then, but we can certainly enjoy a long conversation about them now.

Vivian Lawson Hogue
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