The way you treat your young will be the way they one day treat you

The phone calls this week centered on youth and age, and with the Old Men of the Mountain this is a common thread, as it is with anyone over 50. Youth does not consider age because they don’t think they will get old, but age considers youth because they know they won’t get any younger.

The OMOTM consider they were young once so they know where they are coming from on this one. Young people  think anyone over 30 is old and basically in the way.

Old people consider gangs of young people dangerous and don’t have a clue what is going on. It seems when old people get together and talk about when they were young they remember how they thought their parents knew nothing and old people were in the way.

However, now the OFs know differently — they really know differently.

When the young were quite young they depended completely on older people to take care of them. Now that the quite young have grown quite old they depend on the younger people to take care of them.

The Old Men of the Mountain spoken to today were not in the best of shape and cannot get around like they used to. In fact, some of them getting around and doing what they used to do was literally out of the question.

Fortunately, these OFs all had families with brothers and sisters, and they all had kids, and the kids were raised in the family atmosphere. Not just moms and dads, but aunts, uncles, and cousins, and grandmas and grandpas.

Now that the OFs need help (some just because they are creaky OFs, and others because of medical conditions) the kids are pitching in. The kids are basically doing this because of a strong bond with the parents; this is called love.

The kids do not know where this type of love is applied or what a relief it is to the OFs. The OFs say to themselves, “I guess changing those diapers is paying off.”

This continuation of love quite often is not verbally expressed but is shown with tender touches, soft words, and running kids here and there and seeing that they are protected.

It is too late that the OFs did not realize this when they were young and had youngsters, but for the young who are going to venture into young adulthood and start having young ones of their own it is not too late.

So remember how you treat your young ones because one day you will be sitting at the table as an Old Man (or Woman) of the Mountain, and doing routine things won’t be that easy.

Snowed under

All the OMOTM thought this has been a pretty tough winter so far. The snow has been on the ground for some time.

One OF mentioned that his kids have constructed quite a hill for sledding at their place for their kids and kids around the area. The OF said his 2-year-old granddaughter has a great time sledding down this hill.

The OF said he thinks some of these sleds reach 60 to 70 miles per hour! That deserves maybe a five or six hmmmmmm.

And on her little plastic sled, the little tyke must really be whipping down the hill. Of course, she can’t haul the sled back up to go back down; someone has to carry her and the sled to the top so she can do it all over again.

The son has his generator running about 20 lights down the hill so the kids can sled at night, and they have a bonfire going at the bottom so they can warm themselves. The OF relating the story was having as much fun telling about the sledding as if he were able to do it himself.

This reminded this scribe of when he and his brothers were young and the farmer on Cole Hill did the same thing for skiing.

This farmer had a Farmall “H” tractor running a simple rope tow to take the skiers to the top of the hill, and we would ski down on long wooden skis with wool socks in felt-lined winter barn boots, and simple spring binders on the skis and down the hill we would go.

As the scribe and the OF remembered, the only color ski was brown. They had hot chocolate in a little hut at the bottom too.

Sign of spring?

As the scribe and the OF talked, the OF mentioned that the bluebirds were back. The OF said he had a whole bunch of them in his yard.

The scribe said he thought the bluebirds didn’t go anywhere, and the OF said they did and the males come back first, about three to four weeks ahead of the females.

This was news to the scribe but, if this is supposed to be a harbinger of spring, those birds are in for one heck of a surprise.

The scribe mentioned to the OF that robins returning didn’t mean much to him because, as long as the scribe has lived where he does now, he has robins year round.

In talking to the OFs they not only would like the COVID thing to be over, but now they want the winter to be over also.

Winter seems to be getting to the scribe’s wife also. She found a note in a recent magazine that addresses some of her problems with this scribe.

She is asking “prayers for my husband, who, very tragically, got me nothing for our anniversary when I specifically told him I wanted nothing for our anniversary.” She believes most women will understand this dilemma.