Recycle

Our grand mothers were practical women — Suzy’s Grandma Danny and my grandmother Linnie washed aluminum foil after they cooked with it and then reused it. “Waste not, want not” was a way of life. Recycling was not something they did for the environment, it was how they lived. Bacon grease was saved and cooked with again, newspapers were saved and tied up with string, rainwater was caught in barrels and used to water the plants. I suspect everyone of you can give hundreds of examples of recycling in the name not wasting we learned from our grandmothers.

Lifestyles have changed and we recycle usually because our grandchildren call us to task if we don’t. We never really consider the possibility that there won’t be more of something. We can always go online and have it delivered, whatever it is.

Danny and Linnie were teaching us a valuable lesson. For you see, when it comes to life there comes a time when there is no more. Grandma Danny and Linnie now live on only in our memories, in the few scrapbooks, and in the Bibles they left behind. What we care most about — people — go away and never return. So while they are here, care for them, love them, fix them when they are broken and heal them when they are sick. Recycle those around you over and over again.

Happy Thanksgiving.