{"id":5668,"date":"2023-01-08T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5668"},"modified":"2023-01-08T14:04:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T19:04:21","slug":"when-is-enough-too-much","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/?page_id=5668","title":{"rendered":"“When is enough too much?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 \u201c<\/strong>When is enough, too much?\u201d<\/h3>\n

by Barry S. Wolfe<\/p>\n

Bacon Scrapins<\/em><\/strong> are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a<\/em> bacon scrapin<\/em><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Longevity of life does not guarantee wisdom. Its experiences do produce facial furrows from worries and the eye crinkles of laughter.<\/p>\n

When one gets a group of grandparents together, with conversation lubricated into a mellow flow by a couple of glasses of fine red each, the experiences behind the lines eventually get told. Different families produce various numbers of children, and thus of grandchildren, and thus of the experiences to be shared.<\/p>\n

There seems not to be a direct correlation between the apparent financial wealth of a family and the number of children produced. Although limited income sometimes motivates smaller families, the resourcefulness of coordinated effort can overcome the restraint of numbers.<\/p>\n

My mother was one of eight who survived. Two of the five girls had brothers who died in childbirth. My mom was a survivor, and that\u2019s how she lived her entire 92 years. My grandfather was a steam locomotive engineer, killed by a drunk driver while he was bicycling to work one evening. At a time in our history when there were no pensions, mothers\u2019 allowances, public health insurance, or grace periods for unpaid property taxes, death brings out the deepest resources of the living. No toys, just blankets of love.<\/p>\n

With nine mouths left behind to feed, my grandfather\u2019s chicken house, pear and apple trees, and city lot-sized garden were not all that they inherited. Others were his Scottish frugality, his make-it-yourself-with-scrounged-stuff resourcefulness, his no-nonsense approach to childish petulance, his disregard for weary excuses to avoid your share of the labours, and his enthusiasm for song and story to entertain, to teach, and ensure cohesion from the love of each other. My mother\u2019s soprano rang through our childhood home sharing the range of emotions from \u2018Amazing Grace\u2019<\/em> to \u2018Three Little Maids From School are We\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My wife and I had 2 children, my son has 3 and my daughter 1. There\u2019s no magic number.<\/p>\n

Our two children were fortunate to have an extended support group of family, god-parents, and close friends. Their anticipations toward the Christmas season had much greater expectations of gift wealth than their grandmother\u2019s. The playroom storage area was proof of previous celebrations. Their mother was insistent on the daily placement of all items back into their rightful spots before the kids moved on to other events.<\/p>\n

Each year, 5 \u2013 6 weeks prior to Christmas, we would get our 2 kids together in the playroom. We would ask them to pick their 5 favourite toys and games and place them on the floor. Each item had to be in perfect, as close to brand-new condition as possible. The boxes needed to be pristine, all the parts carefully arranged, and all surfaces perfectly sanitary. This was not a challenge as it was part of the living conditions in our home \u2013 a place for everything and everything in its place. (Except for dad\u2019s work desk which was a surface for piles in transition.)<\/p>\n

Then they would rank them from their favourite to the lesser. A lot of re-shuffling and swapping out from the shelves to the floor and back resulted.<\/p>\n

The next step was the hardest. After a short \u2018lessons from experiences\u2019 from dad about their grandmother\u2019s childhood, and the need to willingly share what we have, they knew what was coming. They were asked to pick the best 2 items, that some other child who is not as fortunate as them would enjoy, giving as gifts. We\u2019d all get in the car, drive to the Salvation Army and the kids would present the items as their donations.<\/p>\n

It’s understandable, with the changing requirements of this time, that these service groups will only accept items that are brand new and unopened. But as a grandfather, with his share of furrows and crinkles, I think we\u2019re missing an opportunity to teach the differences between essentials for life, basic needs, and wants. Our wants seem to have become our needs. We\u2019re missing an opportunity to teach about sharing \u2013 and the emotional comforts that can bring.<\/p>\n

The MCC New Hamburg Thrift Centre, 41 Heritage Drive, 519-662-2867, may be willing to accept valued gifts from children who have too much, for those who do not have enough.<\/p>\n

The Bacon Scrapins characters, locations and scenarios are the fictional product of the author\u2019s imagination – usually.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

You may email appropriate comments for the writer to thisiswilmot@gmail.com<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bacon Scrapins \u2013 \u201cWhen is enough, too much?\u201d by Barry S. Wolfe Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They\u2019re tasty, but the \u2018nutrition\u2019 needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin. Longevity of life does not guarantee wisdom. Its experiences do produce facial furrows from worries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4072,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5668","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5669,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5668\/revisions\/5669"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisiswilmot.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}