This is my post for #memoirmonday week 14 How is life different today compared to when you were a child? hosted by @ericvancewalton
The above photo is of my brother who was 2 years older than me and my Dad. One thing that is different now is a woman can find out what sex their child will be, back then they had to wait until after the child was born Jimbo was my Mom's first child but he was my Dad's third. Another thing was women did not have baby showers like they have today, people would bring a gift after the baby was born but not have the party with games beforehand.
I was one year old and living with only a generator for electricity, we did not get electricity from the power company until I was 7 or 8 years old. With never having it, I did not know what I was missing. Dad used the generator to run electricity in the Bar he owned. It was a struggle to get him up on Saturday mornings to start the generator so we could watch cartoons. We had a black and white TV, I remember when we got our first colored TV but I do not know what age I was. The TV had 3 channels and went off the air every night. We had an antenna that had to be turned to get a different channel. One child would turn the antenna while one stood at the window and one at the TV. The one at the TV would yell better or worse to the one at the window and the one at the window would yell the same to the one turning the antenna. Also, there was no remote control, we had to get up and walk over to the TV to change the channel.
Me and my brother in a boat. Children did not have to wear life jackets like they are required to wear nowadays. When we were in a car we did not have to be in a car seat or when older we did not have to wear a seatbelt. No one had to wear seatbelts.
We would run behind the mosquito truck that was pumping out a thick white fog of DDT and no one thought it was harmful, it was so thick that we could not see each other while in it. I think every kid in Florida did this. Today the mosquito trucks spray a fine clear mist.
We ate sea turtles, today they will lock you up if you even look at one wrong. We ate gators, now you have to enter a lottery to get a permit so you can go with a paid gator hunter. There is no more going out on your own to get one to eat, of course, the lottery will cost you and you have to pay the guide.
After watching the big female turtles lay their eggs, we would ride them back to the edge of the ocean, today this will also get you locked up.
Most people in my area had beach buggies that they rode on the beach, sometime in the 1960s they banned them from the beach in my area.
The schools were segregated, white kids went to one school and black kids went to another school. I remember when we were told to go to each other's school, the black kids did not want us in their school and we did not want them in ours, because of this many fights broke out, and my Dad took us out of public school. Girls had to wear dresses to school. I am on the left in front of the boy with the white shoes.
It is hard to believe that because of the color of your skin, you did not have the same rights as members of my family, Black people could not use a white restroom, they could not drink from the same water fountain, or even vote.
The Confederate flag did not stand for racism, it was the Southern flag, and that is all it meant, if you were black or white you were proud to be from the South and fly the flag.
You did not have to have a license to catch a fish or to sell one, now you do and now we have to fill out trip tickets on where the fish was caught, what the air temp and water temp were, how long we fished, the size of the fish, how many pounds, our license number and our boat number. There is no more gillnetting of fish, which is what my town was built from.The picture is of my husband setting his net.
There was no closed season or size limit on snook, people did not eat them until they learned to skin them, the skin is full of iodine. Now they are closed to commercial fishermen, we can not have one on our boat even when the season is open. The sports can keep one a day but it has to be between 28 and 32 inches, a 4 inch slot.
Last year they made redfish catch and release only, when I was a child there was no size limit, and like snook, the commercial fisherman could keep them, but not now.
There are now size limits and closed seasons on just about all fish,
The river had huge oyster beds, clams filled the bottom, it was full of life, and it had seagrass flats and mangrove swamps where juvenile fish stayed until they were big enough to venture out into the open river. Man diked off the mangrove swamps to build mosquito impoundments. There were rock bottom coves that also helped the small fish, they were filled in so roads could be built over them. The river was a brackish water lagoon, not really a river, an inlet was dug changing the salinity. The last thing they did killed the river, they stopped the fresh water from flowing into it, saying it was polluted, it might have been but it was not hurting the river. When they stopped the freshwater the river became saltier than the ocean water and huge algae blooms were created, killing thousands of fish, birds, manatees, dolphins and the seagrass. My theory is the State of Florida needs the freshwater for all of these new developments that are being built, they treat the water and sell it back to the homeowners. I know for a fact that at first, they were creating the algae blooms. They would hold the freshwater back until the salinity in the river became high, then they would release it all at once and the blooms would form killing the fish. People would see the river being clear then seeing all of this red water and the state got the news to report how the freshwater was polluted and killing the river. It is like having a saltwater fishtank and dumping a bunch of freshwater in it, the same thing will happen and your fish will die. They did the same thing in Miami in the 1930s, Biscayne Bay was full of life and seagrass like here, they built dikes and stopped the freshwater, there is no seagrass left in Biscayne Bay, when I talk about seagrass I am talking about what we called mullet grass, it grew long and thick and was a good hiding place for fish, it only grows in brackish water. Sorry about getting on a rant about the river but it is a huge difference now.
One of the biggest things that has changed and I think it is my generation's fault is family get togethers. Every Sunday Dad would load us in the car and make the drive to Grandma's house, once there we would play with our cousins outside while the grown ups visited in the house, and we would have Sunday dinner with her. I took my kids to visit with my mom or Dad but we did not have dinner and it was not once a week, sometimes it was not even once a month. It was a huge part of my childhood that I enjoyed and now wish I would have done the same.
Of course, we had no internet, no cell phones, and no cable TV. We did not have air conditioners in our home. We played outside, kids were not allowed to stay in the house all day, and when we were thirsty, we drank from the water hose.
photos are mine