Thursday, July 15, 2010

What I Should Have Learned!

When you have a commute to work, you have time to think about things. So this morning, my thoughts took me to things I should have learned. Things I should have learned from my mother when I was a kid. Things I should have learned from my grand-mother-in-law after I married(way too young)and she had to finish raising me. Things I should have learned from reaching out to others who had information I could have used later in life.

My nephew is going through some difficulty, and has been on my mind a lot lately. I think one of the things I should have learned early on and something he is learning the hard way is that life(real life, not the board game)is the hardest game you will ever play. I've digressed.

Yesterday, I was out looking for some dill weed for my son who is the pickle maker in the family. The lady, who was gracious enough to give me some, even though I offered to pay for it, and I were talking about how Mrs. Rosie(my grandmother-in-law)used stems and whatever else she could get when making pickles. So this morning, on the way to work I was thinking about her and all she had to offer in the way of knowledge. Why didn't I ask more questions? Why didn't I pay closer attention when she was making pickles and chow chow, and canning vegetables? Looking back(and I know you are going to say 'Hind sight's 20,20')I should have been at her elbow and looking over her shoulder, taking notes and learning everything she had in her vast intelligent mind.

My mother taught me to sew, crochet and make a mean pan of biscuits. I was only 19 when she died, but why didn't I know how to churn, how to make butter. Why didn't I learn to quilt rather than sit and read a book. She and Mrs. Rosie were veritible fountains of knowledge, and I allowed all that knowledge to go to the grave with them when I could have had it in my head or in a notebook.

A lady from our church quilted beautiful quilts. I expressed a desire to learn to quilt, and she offered on more than one occasion to teach me. Did I take her up on that...you know I didn't.

So now I have to do what so many people who want to make things are having to do. I'm having to go to the internet. If there's something in particular I want to do, I google it and find out all the information I can. The ladies I've mentioned above would have imparted their knowledge and wisdom(a subject for another day)with love, love for the craft, love for the sharing, and love for me. However, google just spits it out. No love with that knowledge.

If you have an opportunity to learn something from someone who has been there and done that, don't pass it up. Learn all you can from older people. They are an absolute wealth of knowledge.

I hope you learn something new from someone else, not the internet. Pray that we have people who will teach us about life. Love one another.

3 comments:

Julia said...

i wish I had let my grandmother teach me to tat when she wanted to and I thought it looked boring.

Twisted Fencepost said...

I agree! I have had to learn on my own also. Because I was too busy to pay attention when it mattered. But because of that, I have learned over the years to pay attention. But now there's no one to pay attention to. Sad!

Vintage Chicken said...

I feel the same way... I was simply too young to know how dumb I was and I let one of my grandmothers take all of her wisdom to the grave!

Many times I've asked myself, Why oh Why wasn't I interested when I had the chance! :)

Luckily, my 'other' grandmother lived long enough for me to drain her brain as quickly as I could, I'm sure she had forgotten more about gardening and cooking than I could ever possible hope to know!

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