Sep 08, 2026
Barefoot on the back porch, I would spot our family cow lying in the field nearby and run to prod her up so I could stand in the warm spot her large body left behind. As the weather grew colder, I would learn to navigate the winter in handed down oversized shoes, stuffed with newspaper so they would stay on my feet. I didn’t know we were poor, so all this seemed quite normal.
From where I stood behind that crude old farmhouse, the warm earth tingling up my legs, I could see all the “plumbing” my world contained - the long, ornate pump handle of our backyard water supply, a small round galvanized tub beneath the spigot; a well worn path to the outhouse, the only place where one could find absolute privacy. And above the back porch steps, I could see Grandma’s wooden churn, birthplace of many pounds of butter and gallons of buttermilk.
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Later that day, that distant day in a pine board rural Georgia farmhouse, I would stand in a nine person line-up before the fireplace, turning front-side then back-side to the blazing heat. Bricks were heated on the hearth that would later be wrapped in newspaper and strategically placed in bed to warm our feet.
Twilight, my favorite time of day, with the softly glowing pools of coal oil lamplight that could be carried from room to room, the sound of crickets and frogs, summer time evenings when I fell asleep under the kitchen table. I remember the first light bulb I ever saw, hanging from the ceiling on a thin wire, glaringly offensive in its brightness, starkly revealing otherwise dark corners in a way that made the room seem smaller, and dirty. I didn’t like it, and Grandma would still do her sewing by kerosene lamplight.
I remember the “Majestic” piece of furniture that turned out to be the first radio I ever saw, where I had the mind blowing experience of hearing classical music for the first time (the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra) one morning when the house was empty and I broke the rules to play with the knobs. And, some time later, I remember the shiny white electric stove my uncles brought into the kitchen, which stood ignored next to the wood-stove my grandmother continued to use.
Early mornings I would get up to help my grandmother build a fire in that stove. She understood every inch of its technology, different degrees of heat for different dishes; here the water would boil, there to simmer, here for hoecakes, there to keep the coffee at exactly the right temperature; here, above the iron lids, the warming oven for the biscuits. Electric stoves could never do all that.
I remember the first telephone we had, a party line that was both convenient and difficult. When one of the people the line served was on a call, no one else could use the phone. This led to eavesdropping, gossip and arguments (maybe not so different from some uses of cell phones today).
I am deeply grateful for these childhood memories of a world that is quietly drifting into history, a world and a time that fewer and fewer of us can still remember. Decade after decade since early childhood (shortly before WW II) I have witnessed the rapid development of ever more “helpful”, and profitable, technology. Until today, it seems to me the profitable has overtaken the helpful to the point of harm.
By whatever quirk of historical timing, it has been my lot to witness the transfer of human energy from earth bound hands-on maintenance to a complex, tech consuming world of ever increasing insulation, manipulation and learned helplessness.
“Everything works. That is precisely what is uncanny; that it works and that the working drives on ever further to a broader functioning, and that the technology more and more rips and uproots humanity from the earth.” - Martin Heidegger
My grandparents had such a grasp on the technology of their daily lives that put them completely in charge. The wagon, the ice box, the water pump, the out-house, animals for labor, for milk or meat, food that grew out of the ground, coal oil lamps, laundry cauldrons over open fires; all these things that required their direct involvement and told them exactly where they stood from day to day.
Theirs was certainly not an easy existence, and one that many were happy to leave behind as the great American war machine of WW II, which had manufactured so many tanks and airplanes, turned its might to the peace-time production of refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and automobiles. The “daily drudgery of housework” was left behind. Then, the development of television brought an even greater emphasis to the promise of leisure time and progressive change in a brave new world of wonder.
I heard the sound of a jet aircraft for the first time in 1952, the same year my high school friends and I became proficient at taking apart and reassembling the engines of nineteen-thirties automobiles. I suppose our greasy hands were those of the last generation to work on purely American made automobiles. 1952 was also the year of one of my most profound, historic memories, of a time and a generation (heroes) coming out of a dark period and ready to be and do the best for their communities.
One of my high school classmates was an overweight youngster who drove a vintage Duesenberg to school. His father was a wealthy entrepreneur and statistician, a man who realized the value of collecting data on the rapidly growing population of tract home families. He understood that the habits and personal preferences of consumers in any given area would be of great value to corporations catering to the rapidly expanding marketplace of post-war America.
What makes this such a profound memory however, is the reaction of the people in my community, who insisted that such personal information on such a large scale should never be made available to politicians. That would be cheating. Political speeches would then be geared to what people wanted to hear, rather than the honest truth of the politician. How naive such purity seems now, as naive as the notion of keeping money out of politics through public finance of political campaigns. Oh, cynical me, but I do wonder: Was there perhaps a missed opportunity for an honest, transparent system of political elections; or was the root of all evil bound to have its way no matter what?
By the late-1950s the same-ness of mainstream culture had developed enough to arouse what was basically a Bohemian counter-culture. A resurgence of 1930s folk music, a sophisticated mix of classical music, cool jazz and chess games, classical literature (with correctly pronounced names of European composers, poets and philosophers); all that expressed our superior distaste for the rapidly growing American bourgeoisie.
While still in high school I had witnessed a marsh near where I lived, in Marin County, being filled in from the tearing down of an entire hill across the road. When tract house construction began on that filled in marsh, I got a job with the construction company and was instructed to go about with an iron bar looking for cracks in the ground to break up and stomp into smooth disappearance. At an amazing four dollars an hour, I had no moral objection at the time.
After Sputnik was launched in 1957 and Herb Cain launched the name “Beatnik” in 1958, those of us who spurned the mainstream conformist culture of commercial America congregated in places between Sausalito, North Beach and Big Sur. Over a period of time, I managed to live in all these places, and later in Monterey, Pacific Grove and Big Sur. From San Rafael High School, where I witnessed the post-war transition from the Depression of the 30s to a bright new world seeking a new definition, I lived an adventurous adolescence doing pretty much the same.
For some time during my early years I had the vague impression that somebody somewhere must be in charge, that a group of mature, thoughtful and powerful people were keeping it all together for the rest of us. It was during the late-50s and early-60s that I grew to realize what a complex crapshoot it was in which we all participated.
© Rabon Saip 2026
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Great piece Rabon. I look forward to Part 2 … and 3? …. And 4???
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