Where did you grow up Kay?
I Remember...
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Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
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Actually, Kitchener Transit (now part of Grand River Transit) was pretty good in my youth. That's why we got away with only one car (but needed it because Dad had to have one for work sometimes). We were walking distance to all our schools from primary to high and then could take the bus for university. Mom took the bus to work and to occasional appointments.
ninj
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@KayTheCurler seem to recall you grew up in postwar UK. Is that right? There wasn't the quick economic recovery there, so that in part could have accounted for some of the hardship. I have a good friend who moved here from England in the early '60's, and I think that's why. They had a chance of buying a house.
ninj
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My friend from England has lovely cursive handwriting that she was taught in school. Neater and more intricate.
KayTheCurler
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On the first big rehousing project designed to reduce the slums of London, England. It was called Becontree and included parts of Dagenham and Barking, Essex. It was about 5 miles square. Back in the day it was quite a decent place to be. compared to the slums! Most things were easy to get to - schools, stores, churches, health services, entertainment venues, parks and transport. As you will have gathered though, the housing was pretty basic but affordable.
Mendalla
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Which, really, is what is probably needed to resolve the housing crisis today. Less 4 bedroom 3 bathroom semi-mansions and more basic bungalows or townhouses.
KayTheCurler
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I was born in 1945. Didn't really think life was terribly hard for the most part except for my parents making it so. I was taught Italic style writing at school, still prefer it to Cursive. I moved a single woman to Saskatoon in 1967 and still rejoicing. Arrived with $100!
KayTheCurler
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Actually, they were row houses, you know, all joined together, but each house had a front and back garden. No back alleys. In my childhood there were few apartments or four bedroom homes, but later some flats were built that I was glad we didn't have to live in!
Mendalla
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Which is what I meant by a townhouse. I lived in a nice little two-bedroom townhouse for my last three years in Hamilton. Would be tight for a family of more than three (you could maybe do four in a pinch if the kids shared the second bedroom) but workable.
KayTheCurler
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We did five in a two bedroom. My brother slept wherever he was told! With us girls when we were young. In a large closet for a while. His favourite spot was a shed in the back yard as a teen.
Mendalla
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I could see a teen boy going for that.
BetteTheRed
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The uncle of mine who just died (funeral was yesterday), lived his 93 (almost) years in a "council house" in Liverpool. Attached row housing, pocket handkerchief sized front garden, but a decently deep back yard. 3 bedrooms, a full bath upstairs, a sink and toilet downstairs (used to be a separate little building, but many years ago, was joined to the kitchen with a narrow corridor). It was a family home for a couple and 4 kids (the boy got his own room, the three girls shared a room).
My Dad's family came from England to Guelph....had a family and ended up in Belmont outside of London, in a sort of shack with a loft full of hay for sleeping. When I visited when I was a kid, the loft was still there and cook stove( for heat).....a whole subdivision was built around the home (shack), before he and his wife died. He would never sell.
The boys in the family all went to university on scholarships...it was the only way they could go. Two ministers, one teacher and unfortunately one alcoholic....the sisters married and didn't pursue education.
Totally amazes me how they pulled themselves up and out of such poverty....but kids are more resilient than we give credit to sometimes in these days.
The boys in the family all went to university on scholarships...it was the only way they could go. Two ministers, one teacher and unfortunately one alcoholic....the sisters married and didn't pursue education.
Totally amazes me how they pulled themselves up and out of such poverty....but kids are more resilient than we give credit to sometimes in these days.
Mendalla
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Been there. Mom had cousins out that way and they hosted her family's reunion at least once. They were farmers, IIRC. And have passed it a few times going places since I moved here myself.
Mom and Dad were both white collar workers (Mom had been a secretary before having kids and returned to that in the eighties, Dad worked for what later became CRA so was a unionized civil servant) so we were not too badly off. But the neighbourhood was pretty mixed growing up. We had neighbours who were everything from a fairly well-heeled banker to contractors (e.g. the brick layer I mentioned, who was a German immigrant to Canada after the war, and my brother's friend's family, who were plumbers and gasfitters). I babysat for an exec from a local radio station who lived across the street from us.
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How many of the powerfully wealthy will cooperate with such a monstrous concept to overcome their sense of grasp ... maybe up for grabs? They took it because it was there and believed it their rite of passage ... just because!
Mendalla
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If they think it is a monstrous concept, then they need to check their privilege and reconsider.
Imagine straw people checking anything ... little more than nothing that concerns them ... and little concerns them up there! Up what is my question ... and I've sat in on some really high level industrial discussions that were based on one-way straws ... the foundations of humanity are forbidden to draw on them.
My biggest opponents are fiends that hate any sharing, taxing, or otherwise. I say shut all life down for prodigal reason ... a sort of compost operation ... and see if economics of crude people will succeed or succumb to failure ... the descent of hoo manity is almost guaranteed ... thus I look forward to the abstract; there has to be something out there even if it is not a pain in the unseen mule.
They tell me the working psyche is like that very dark donkey ... Walter Brennan sang of such fluid events ... can't see it? Part of the un observable or obscure?
Inky to say least ... as legitimate writ! What are the chances ...
At this moment straw matters are being drawn out in the US House ... not that foreign to divided concerns in Canada ... because of individualized isolationists! Thus free autonomy as the freedom fighters ... and often without responsibility as loyalty rules impinge.
There is little response to the great mass of common folk! That lack or responsibility can lead to a vast collapse ... mainly because of powerful polity ... in the idea that the other person is a threat ... defining insecurity in a large way! We are thus a divined folk ... bifurcation that denies diabolic nature?
The global concern needs to get it together ... the game of life is however in opposition as some dead matter is demanded in the winning process ... the prodigal son wasted himself in this regard for romantic purposes ... a love to Dei 4? The upcoming part of the trinity ... sprouts, spore?
Protocol demands a thin line separating nuts and those bolting ... and before you know it they're out there ... beyond me! Yet many I know tell me they know improbable things considering what they haven't experienced ...
It begins to appear that all is corrupt as the old saying goes; "evil is within us!" Few can control excess desire ... because of deficient parts ... thus some of us search; even in the words logged and journals made up! Creation by fixation in the edifice ... hard stuff! Not much flows but the time we've been given ...
Again; "so it goes!"
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Mendalla
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Anyhow, this is under "Fun Stuff" so we should back off the politics.
On the car front, there was the near-total absence of the SUV. A few people in our neighbourhood had early ones like 80s era Chevy Blazer and Ford Bronco but generally family cars were big sedans (we usually had a Chevy, either a Bel Air or a Caprice Classic) or sometimes station wagons (which have now largely been killed off by the SUV). A few folks had smaller cars, usually as a second car (e.g. my German neighbours had a Beetle).
On the car front, there was the near-total absence of the SUV. A few people in our neighbourhood had early ones like 80s era Chevy Blazer and Ford Bronco but generally family cars were big sedans (we usually had a Chevy, either a Bel Air or a Caprice Classic) or sometimes station wagons (which have now largely been killed off by the SUV). A few folks had smaller cars, usually as a second car (e.g. my German neighbours had a Beetle).