I have been very moved by a modern documentary someone suggested to me. It has made me realize how much what I have learned about this year in 1955 means for my future.
Though I have enjoyed my year of ‘pretending’ I don’t want to pretend away the future. What I began to love about 1955 on a very personal scale has left me wanting it more on an overall scale. I soon began to realize, it is not a particular time because of just the fashion and music, but the feeling. The community, the spirit of the time, of the old America that I now long for. I realize, too, that by 1955, that is when our current America of convenience and low cost was put before people and community. It was only just beginning with increased trucking in of products from all over not just local. From mass production increasing to a homogeneity. Yet, it was new then. We had choices and I feel that we have now lead ourselves down the wrong road.
The wonderful news of the whole thing is we can have a realistic vintage world in that we, today, have so many freedoms and choices, yet we allow ourselves to have those choices made FOR us by corporate America. I honestly believe now that if we can seriously choose to make a change with our money we can change our environment. Our towns and communities can grow and heal and get itself back from the Walmart and the Starbucks and the McDonalds. We have to make the choice however, but if we want to continue to HAVE the choice we MUST make it if not for ourselves for future generations. When there are only a few chains that provide everything there will be NO choice for the future generations. There COULD be a time when Wal Mart and a few similar stores are literally ALL we have to get our products from. Products that are NOT made in our country and when they are made in China and India, are made at the cost of young children's freedoms and health. We may have no say over the government choices in those countries, but we allow them to continue child labor by giving them someone to supply the products too. On top of all that, we take away from our own town.
Who cares if something costs a little more or a lot more! THEN we have to learn to do without or to use less! That is the MAIN GREEN solution, not more products that purport to be safer but fewer products made and spread out.
We have allowed our country and its people to be defined by our need to consume and shop, so we must use that same power to work towards the old America of unity and community mixed with our new freedoms and that can only be done through our shopping. By choosing the right places to shop or to encourage or help to start a local place. To do without sometimes. The fix to our economy is NOT to buy more things to spur it on, but to let that dead horse die. We have to change the very fabric of how we think and react with our wallets. The world economy, the green nature and health of our planet, the very health of our towns and the emotional health of one another HAS to be addressed and put BEFORE a new flat screen TV or a new iphone! When will it stop?
I love my journey to 1955 and part of my sadness of not having the world is turned away when I see that 1955 isn’t just a point in time, or a full skirt or a hat and gloves. It is about people and community. Some how along the way we lost sight of people and each other. Our country was founded to be a place for freedom from those who felt they had none. Now we are so easily passing that freedom over to large corporations that are literally run by a few people. Why do we want a company who has no real invested interest in us to grow and prosper. Do you think if our community suddenly lost it all and couldn’t shop at Wal mart and they saw the profits go in this area, they would pull together and help us? No they would pull out, but a local store run by the man you see on the street or whose daughter goes to your child's school would.
I want back what I think has become to mean Vintage to me and that main tenet, the main focus of that is personal pride and accountability. It is easy for someone to just roll their eyes and say, “Oh, well, it’s cheaper there” but they might as well just run downtown and through bricks through the windows of the local community and wipe out any real honest individuality from their children’s future. I only hope we have enough time to stop it and we are not too late.
I know this movie is not Vintage, but please, please watch it if you can. It really does show the change that the box stores are doing to us. It matters little if you are Republican or Democrat, Christian or Jew, our country was founded so we could all coincide and get along and help one another. Now even corporate America run channels on TV that help us to feel there is an actual Divide in the this country, but that is only so we can not see the real problem. The real divide in this country is between the people and community and the corporate machine that wants to take away our personal and community rights to have our own towns run our own way. Don’t fall for the smoke screens, really go out and look at your town, is it hurting? Think before you go to the local chain store and wonder could I buy it locally and if so try it and if not, wonder when last in your town you could go locally and wonder, how much longer before there are no more choices locally, only the big box store. Then you can see it for the monster it really is. It isn’t an evil entity, but its results and need to be ruled by profit and money is and does ultimately hurt our towns, ourselves and our future generations. Don’t teach your children to choose low price over people and community.
I am sorry if this is so impassioned, but I just really want our vintage world to be revived, and it can be for all not just those of us who might like vintage fashion or music, but so that individuality can grow.
Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean I am not going to continue my vintage project and am very seriously meaning to make next year 1956, but I feel as if I am a time-traveling reporter who needs to go back to ‘before it all began’ and report back to all of you so we can be reminded of why we do need to change. That our lives and the lives of our children and future generations CAN now what has been lost because they can have it back. The moral backbone of this country need not be a particular political party or religion but the very humanity of its people. We must come together and care for one another so that we don’t continue to become complacent and want the companies to make it easier for us to become slothful consumers who are ultimately empty and unhappy.
So here is the LINK to watch it on HULU. You will notice the ads in between seem even more conniving because of the content. PLEASE watch it if you can. It makes you think and that is what we need most to think. The homemaker was always the thinker, we have to be to do our job, yet that very job was made to look silly or unimportant. Now, I can see not only is it a very important job, but it’s main skill of thinking things through is one of the best lessons any of us can have. Have a great day, my fellow Apron Revolutionaries. We can make a difference, I know we can!
