Old-fashioned skills

[larkheye]

Recently I have noticed that many of my daily activities involve manual skills I learned as a child, before I earned any university degrees or had a career. My parents and grandparents lived through several wars and the Great Depression, and all of them were very self-reliant and used to making do with what they had.

I grow fruit and vegetables, bake bread and pastries, make and mend clothes, and paint and repair things around the house. I learned how to do all of these things by following my grandparents around, long before I ever entered a classroom.

Do you use many skills that you would call old-fashioned? How did you learn them?

 

[G R]

Good topic Larkheye.

My old-fashioned skills deal mainly with outdoor work, and they tie in with what you pointed out as making due with what you have. I have the money to buy certain machinery and power tools that would make yard clean-up, planting and other such activities much easier physically, but I choose to make due with manual tools and manual labor. (Except that 25 foot tree that had to be cut down.....chainsaws have their place) It's how things were when we were growing up because we never had a lot. This also ties in with my ethics that tell me hard, physical work pays off in the end. It is it's own reward.You gain skills by doing things yourself. This mindset is how people who do not have a lot and HAVE to work hard, validate what they do.

Besides, how can you call letting machinery do all the work for you "hard" work and, more importantly, how can you call it a skill?