Thursday, January 20, 2011

An Ahhh! Moment and Flashback Friday Prompt

Medical technology has come a long way just in the time since I graduated from nursing school 25+ years ago. LASIK and laparoscopic surgeries. Advances in treatment for cancer, AIDS, and other illnesses. Widespread availability of defibrillators. In-vitro fertilization. Highly specialized care of premature babies, resulting in the tiniest babies surviving even when born as early as 21 weeks gestation.

Yet as wonderful as all of these are, two much simpler things were the source of my gratitude yesterday during my procedure.

Medicines that put you to sleep.

And blankets straight from the warmer.

Some things just can't be improved upon!


And now for this week's Flashback Friday prompt:




What new inventions or technology came out when you were growing up that you remember being amazed at? Were your parents "early adopters"--did they get the "latest and greatest" pretty quickly or did they stick with the "tried and true"? What are some things that you remember being a big deal when your family got them? (These may be items like stereos or kitchen equipment or bigger things such as carpet.) Were your folks prone to updating their furniture periodically or did they keep their old furniture forever? How was the way they were raised impact the way you were raised? And how did your upbringing influence the way you are today?

Here's an example to help your wheels start turning:

I've mentioned in the past that my dad's family was very poor when he was growing up. They were sharecroppers and had next to nothing. My dad never had any toys and played with sticks and rocks. When he was growing up, poor people put paper (usually newspaper) on their walls to cover the holes and bad spots and keep out the cold wind because they couldn't afford to have nice finished walls with textured and painted sheetrock. Consequently, we never had a single piece of wallpaper in our house, because to him, wallpaper equaled poverty. It didn't matter that the wallpaper was nice with pretty designs; he wanted it to be evident that his walls were nicely finished out and painted and weren't made of shoddy material.


Post your memories tomorrow on your blog and come back here to link up!



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5 comments:

STILLMAGNOLIA said...

My dads parents were sharecroppers and my grandmother took in ironing and sewed for the rich women in town. My moms parents worked in a cotton mill and made...get this...less than a dollar a week.

Jim said...

Oh you poor baby! I am glad they took good care of you. Also glad that you got to come home. It definitely is not fun when they keep you for some reason!

I copied our assignment for tomorrow. Now if I can get something on paper, no, on my blog, and the dogs don't eat it I'll be posting.

Dad share cropped 120 acres on halves. Good thing Grandpa was our landlord. We were still very poor though. That was probably good for us in the long run, we learned to appreciate what we have a lot more after that.
..

bp said...

You come up with the greatest questions!

Robin Lambright said...

You are so right, having that wonderful floaty blissful sleep wash over you and waking up under a toasty warm blanket...good feeling!

Don't ya wish we all had those blanket warmers in our homes!!!!!

R

bekahcubed said...

What a fascinating little anecdote about your dad! I'm excited to read this week's posts (even if my own will probably be a bit...modern to the rest of you!)