Good Midwestern Common Sense
“Make Do or Do Without. Use it up or Throw it out.”
I grew up with those words. In the Midwest, parents, siblings, school mates, friend’s parents – everyone pushed us to be:
- Resourceful!
- Creative
- Independent Thinkers
- Hard Workers
- Compassionate about others’ struggles
- Kind
- Truth Tellers
- Thoughtful
- Respectful
- Appreciative
- Grateful for our education
- Frugal (relatively)
It’s been 40 years since our Dad uprooted us and moved us from South Dakota to California. I was a High School Senior that year, and bored out of my skull because they were doing in 12th grade what I had done my freshman year. I was probably causing trouble (class clown) so they gave me a special project working with Down’s Syndrome kids. They are mobile love machines. It was an amazing experience for me. My first experience of absolute, unconditional love.
Midwesterners recognize each other. That may not mean we all love each other, but we know one when we see one. We’re the ones who are nice even when we don’t feel like it. We generally have a penchant for holding onto things until they are completely worn to the bone. We’ve been raised with common sense and actually expect other people to have it, too! And we are taken aback when accused of having hidden agendas. Looking you in the eye and actually telling you what we think is pretty much what you can expect — at least from South Dakota folks that I know.
Of course there are exceptions. As you read this you are ticking them off in your head. I can think of a few, too. But I just figger they must have been dropped on their heads as babies, or they aren’t really from this planet. Or they only SAY they were raised in the Midwest.
This “use it up or throw it out” mentality has come back to bite me in the past year. I hold onto things until there ain’t a shred left to them. Unfortunately, everything decided to hit the last shred in the last 10 months. To wit:
- Minivan – 10 years old, 134,000 miles. Died in November. Had to get a cute little Nissan Versa, which I LOVE! Got it used, 2 yrs old with very little mileage, for a great price. Who knew how much I’d love it? And it gets 34 mpg! YAY
- Mac Laptop – 7 years old, probably has 90,000 miles on it – since it goes on every trip with me. Had to get a new one. Found a refurbished one for a great price and got it up and running.
- Mac Tower G4 – 10 years old, Only about 5,000 miles on it. It mostly sat on a desk in Hawaii or in Phoenix. Loved that computer. If it needed anything new, I just unlocked the side and boom – I was inside the computer and ready to go. It had two hard drives, and in retrospect, was slow as molasses. Amazing what one can get used to. It now lives in South Dakota with my little sister, and I found a refurbished Mac Mini. Who knew how fast computers had gotten in the last decade!
- Next to die – my office / house phone. – 7 years old. It just decided to not recharge it’s batteries one morning. Found a very cool phone with more features, including it YELLS OUT the name of the caller! That takes a little getting used to, but if someone calls in the middle of the night, I wait to see if it’s a wrong number before lumbering out of bed to get it.
- And then: My cell phone died. Of course it did. Why not join all the other electronics in that big recycling bin in the sky. My Treo 650, it turns out, was 4 years old. I had no idea that much time had passed.
- Today my big ol’ workhorse printer died. Sigh. That puppy was 6 years old and has sent out thousands of missives over the years.
- To add to all that, my delightful assistant Liz decided that Hawaii sounded so good (after all these years of regaling her with my Hawaii stories) that she moved there.
So not only do I not know how things work, I can’t find anything either.
My frugality, as well as my penchant for taking good care of things has saved money. That’s the plus for the ol’ Midwestern ethic. But as I look at the speed and functions of all these updated tools, I wonder if I saved that money at the expense of time and functionality. The downside of all this is I’m suddenly on a learning curve of massive proportions. I feel like a kid in kindergarten confronted with newfangled ideas and toys.
So – if I miss your email, text, or phone message. Don’t get yer knickers in a twist. I’m pedaling as fast as I can!
Happy September!
Beth
© 2009 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.
