NY-BUFFALO-EASTSIDE-L Archives

Archiver > NY-BUFFALO-EASTSIDE > 2008-07 > 1215005165


From: Sharon Centanne <>
Subject: Re: [NY-BUFFALO-EASTSIDE] NY Times June 29 on Buffalo recycler
Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:26:05 -0400
References: <200807012215.m61MFEpL016591@mail.rootsweb.com><03b701c8dc43$21d50fb0$23044b18@lassie>
In-Reply-To: <03b701c8dc43$21d50fb0$23044b18@lassie>


Recyling isn't new. It is just a new term for our recent generations.
Back in the Great Depression and before, it was called "making do". You
always saved the scraps of everything
and remade it into something else. Of course, there were no plastic
scraps. Instead of landfills,
there were junkyards, and folks would go there to get stuff other folks
didn't want, not just old
car parts like today.

Wood, cloth, metal, broth, all had more than one life as to get
everything new all the time was impossible! Stores were few and far
between and folks made most of their own things from scratch, especially
in rural areas. Flour sacks became dresses, old clothing became patches
and quilts and stuffing for pillows, or was madeover in a small version
for a child. Leftover food from a lunchtime farm dinner became the
makings of supper's "soup". Buildings torn down yielded scrap lumber to
build new buildings. My husband's boyhood home was built using scrap
lumber from a train station that was torn down in Gary, Indiana.

Sharon Centanne


LinDon wrote:

>I'm so glad someone brought up this topic of the Rag Man !
>I've long thought I'd been imagining it, because I never could find anyone
>else who remembers the man coming through shouting out 'Rags' -
>I can't recall the street; it was whenever I happened to be visiting at my
>grandparents' home that I heard/saw him, early '50s.
>
>Gee, he sounds like a man who was ahead of his time, with his own Recycling
>Method!
>: )Linda
>
>
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