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Getting Ready for Tomorrow (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-12 19:52:24
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Question in the video - please watch and comment if you can!

Files

Previews only

Cleaning Up The Cabin - Patreon Update Thursday Jan 12th

Main Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson New Streaming Platform With Extra Content - https://townsendsplus.com/ Retail Website - https://www.townsends.us/

Comments

BvD

Blessed with a suburban middle-class childhood, so nothing I was ever aware of on that front.

J Crichton

Love the videos Jon. I grew up not poor but hardly wealthy, we raced horses and farmed during the summer while my father was a logger during the winter. This was in northern Alberta in the 80s. I don't have a lot of memories of the time but I distinctly remember a can of Chef Boyardee pasta letters being a huge treat.

Philip Esteban

My mother used to stretch meals. We might have a "roast" or chicken once or twice per week, then soups, stews, or other Lebanese type mix with the leftovers.

Richard DeLotto

Born in 1952.. didn't do bad as a kid, but had to be REAL careful as a starving graduate student and later as an equally starving entrepreneur. Many of my grandparents recipes... well, I always laugh when I see $40 plates of polenta, risi et pisi and pasta fagioli at fancypants Italian joints.

xBlooddust

I always believed that we had a pretty average lifestyle when I was a kid. Turns out, after talking to friends when I grew older, we were actually in the upper range of low-class. I grew up with my brother and my mother - and she was an expert at saving money, that's why we had everything we needed even though we didn't have much.

James Sullivan

I definitely grew up fairly poor. I even remember my mom sewing our shirts on the sewing machine. We had one pair of shoes for school and they had to last the year. When it came to food, my mom and dad made sure there was enough to go around. It wasn't always fancy but mom was a great cook.

Tom Usher

We weren't poor but mom did have to stretch a dollar. My parents both grew up in the Depression and my dad was a city kid from Kerry Patch in North St. Louis, a poor section of town mostly populated by Irish families. So, we ate a lot like he did growing up. Neckbones, ox tails, collards and the like. Mom always bought the cheapest cuts she could find and cooked in the pressure cooker to make it taste great. Dad had a real talent on the pit so a lot of what we ate was, again, cheap cuts of meat like pork steaks that were slow cooked. Casseroles were a staple. It was the '60's and 70's, after all. Always enough for leftovers. My wife, even after 40 years of matrimonial bliss, cannot understand why I eat last night's supper for breakfast! My mom's side were first generation German in St. Louis and Italian farm girls from Stanton, MO. Consequently, nothing ever went to waste. I ate tongue, blood sausage, livers, kidneys and it seems like pretty much every other part of the animal, usually with a German recipe of some sort behind it. My grandpa hunted so we ate quite a bit of wild game, mostly duck, goose and rabbit. The single biggest thing I was always taught was to eat what's put on your plate, like it or not and don't waste food. Lessons from hard times that are almost forgotten today. 73, and keep doing what you're doing! KDØQKK

Hal Meng

I love the channel because I feel like you encourage us to be family. I grew up with grandparents who lived throught the great depress and thheire experience colored they way both my mother and father saw the world and passed those feelings on to me. Also the religious community i grew up in was into the idea that we all needed to be prepared to take care of ourselves for at least two years. I wouldn't say I grew up poor but we were definitely pinching every penny. I currently teach and practice gardening and home food preservation becaue of that background.

Aaron

I grew up in an economically stable household. Once I moved out, though, my situation was unstable for years, and I was both evicted and hungry. Years later, a lady friend was poking through my kitchen for the first time, and she suddenly asked me, "Why do you have so much pasta?" I didn't realize, until that moment, that it was not normal. Unconsciously, I wanted to be sure that I would never run out of food again.

Rebecca Stewart

I was lucky myself and never felt we wanted for anything, but my dad tells stories about getting creative with meals when he was young. Bread-butter-and-onion sandwiches were a favorite concoction.

Antonio Rodrigues

I was lucky enough to grow in a very good family environment. However, I remember we were culturaly programmed to never let anything go to waste. We shut the lights off when we left the room, we brushed our teeth with a glass of water, we always had leftovers in tupperware containers in the fridge, we used a bread toaster if we ate two or three day old bread... it was cultural and natural. Nowadays, living in a rich society, with cheap throwaway culture, we would just be considered an modern ecological minded family. I grew up in Portugal during the 70's and we were spared to WW2 sufferings and destruction, but were still subjected to rationing, just like most countries in Europe (including countries much richer than ours like the UK, France, the Netherlands, Belgium) and these habits seem to have stuck for a generation.

Domenico Bettinelli

We weren't poor, my dad had a decent blue collar job and we lived in the suburbs, but my mom sometimes had to create some make-do meals to feed five kids. There were some dinners that included pimento spread on celery sticks as a "fancy" appetizer or lunch sandwiches of canned brown bread and peanut butter.

Duston Williams

Grew up in the 80s and the only way we consistently got food was from the church down the street or neighbors that felt sorry for us. My dad worked hard as a machinist but consistently putting food on the table was a challenge.

Carl Victorius

I grew up in the 60's and early 70's. My parents stretched the food budget. We ate out once a year on my mom's birthday and a treat was getting burgers at Geno's about 3 times a year. I never lacked for food but mom always made use of every leftover and we drank powdered milk. My dad was a German emigrant so mom made some strange meals to please him. The most memorable difference between then and now is the time people spent cooking back then, preserving, canning, baking, and making a dollar stretch. That seems to be a behavior lost to time. BTW - the Favorite Fire Clips video doesn't seem to get a lot of views but it's still one of my favorites.

George Page (Jaji)

Government cheese and peanut butter were familiar while I was growing up, and my grandfather's farming background taught us a lot. The most important things I learned were to make do with whatever you had on hand but also to share both with our family and other no matter how little we had to stretch around.

Katie Alosi

We were very poor growing up. Then again, it was worse when I was a single mom. Getting all of us fed every day was a scary struggle. The kids ate before me, of course. Now, luckily, I am not in that situation, but I know it is only one layoff or catastrophe away. It is best to have some skills in that area.

Edward Wittkofski

I grew up in the 1960’s. We were a family of six with a foster daughter/sister. My father was a clergyman and my mom took care of the family. I was the youngest. We had to do a lot of creative things, for instance 1 lb of ground beef supported the whole family. We save our heels of bread and crushed them for breadcrumbs. Very little was wasted without finding its way into some form of leftover meal. Forget many snacks. Our common snacks were ice water and popcorn; on special occasions we would get butter for it. The amazing thing is that siblings grew up and left the home for college or careers, life got materially better. Finally, my mother was able to join the workforce, and the last two at home had a completely different experience. It seems to me that this was not unlike the early American experience, though the mother might have brought in work to do at home if she was interested. But soon there was grandmothering to see to!

Cindy Klenk (Highlands Recording Arts LLC)
>>99487997

.... .. !! Mom and dad both grew up during the depression, later dad was US Army Airforce (8th in 1944, flying out of the UK) Like you said people who grew up during the depression KNEW how to stretch a buck! After the war, dad remained with the Air Force, and then went with the US Post office, he retired as a supervisor. Let me tell you we ate a LOT of hamburger and a lot of potatoes. Also mom made a lot of stew and we had SOS on more than one occasion! like you we weren't poor but not rich either - being a daughter of a civil servant, I learned mom and dads frugality and ways - that stuck to this very day. I have really funny pressure cooker stories! BTW, on another subject, I remember my first novice QSO, I think it was Chicago land - I was living in Detroit, and of course it was CW. (I can still pound brass) - I listened to "Titanic" in her own words the other night, and copied about 90 percent in my head. - As a novice it was BC-348 receiver and an ARC-5 transmitter (converted to use crystal control! Those were the days! I must confess I drove my mom and dad to distraction! half the time I was making a cake and the other half of the time I was putting holes in the cake pans to use as chassis! I pestered dad incessantly to take me to Lima Ohio to go to Fair Radio Sales and come back with an overloaded trunk, from my allowance! I got an ART-13 going one time! - I got out of amateur radio as an Advanced, when all the cussing started on 40 meters, SSB, and no one was building anything any more - just plugging stuff in. Well.... anyway alrighty then! This isn't 18th century chit chat so I'll close the QSO - God Bless '73 and 88's de (ex) WB7CZA Post Script: Both side of my family are from the same part of Germany (Baden) my grandparents left after WW I.

Cryptidmom3

My family fell firmly in middle class but my parents jobs still fluctuated and depended on public funds so there were times when we lived through strikes. We did many of the things others had listed, canned our own foods, ate cheaply, etc. I didn't realize many of my favorite foods were what other kids considered poor food until I was at college. We always had water instead of soda, very rarely had takeout, no birthday parties. My mom had a special way of approaching things to make them seem fun and a learning opportunity that many times i didn't realize it was a cost savings until I looked back as an adult. My Dad was more straight forward and told us it he couldn't afford A but he could give us B instead, I appreciate both perspectives now with my own family.

Cindy Klenk (Highlands Recording Arts LLC)
>>99488490

I think we were blessed growing up with parents (in your case - grandparents) who lived during the depression. Frugality, making do, thinking before spending... as well as learning to can and such. I really want to try making a cask of salt pork (NOT 200 pounds of course, NOR with an entire hogs head staring up at me! Ha) I want to make ships bread - hard tack but I don't have a musket butt to break it up! Also intrigued with Stock fish! PU! I'm going to give a try at mushroom catsup. Jon has created a home and a safe haven for us here - regardless of how mad the world becomes, we can come here, and find sanity, good cheer and good people.

Sonjia Leyva

I grew up in the 1970s the only child of a single mother. At the time, I didn't think we were poor, but we were. We lived with my grandmother until I was 3, then we shared a single apartment (no bedrooms) until I was five or six, then we moved into a 1 bedroom (I got the bedroom). Mom would make a casserole on Sunday, and we'd have that for a few days, then it was soup & grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner the rest of the week. I always had simple, homemade lunches and cereal for breakfast. Eating the in the cafeteria was a rare luxury. To this day, I can't stand tuna casserole or wasting food. We rarely went out to eat or to the movies. I don't think I really became in a stable economic state until I got married at 30. We've had some rough times, but nothing like when I was a kid. Growing up with a great-grandmother who survived the depression and both world wars helped - that 'make do' attitude works!

Cindy Klenk (Highlands Recording Arts LLC)
>>99489688

You just made me smile! Dad would make onion sandwiches too! Wow! I miss my mom and dad who both passed 2011 - 2012 - and memories like dad sitting at the kitchen table making an onion sandwich, Just bread, butter, an onion - and I would say daddy! How can you eat that! Dad said they were great and would offer me some, which I declined :-D

Hal Meng
>>99488490

I have made mushroo catsup, and it was pretty darn good. You wouldn't need a musket butt to break up the hard tack if you get the crew at Townsends to forge you a blscksmiths hammer.

Brigit Zent

My family--5 kids in northern Indiana--definitely did. Especially when my dad worked on the B&O railroad and in the early stages of his electrician training. DIdn't really improve until he was promoted to a supervisor position at the old Jeep plant in South Bend. I remember meals like elbow macaroni with only butter (margarine, not butter! LOL), hamburger meals of one sort or another. Eating out was a big deal and didn't happen often--and when it did it was never a very fancy place. My mom sewed almost all our clothes--lots of hand-me downs....I even wore my brother's jeans when not in school Things changed when Dad got promoted and for a while my mom worked at a plant in Bremen once we hit Jr. High. By the time I graduated in 1978 things were much better and we were finally solidly middle class. But we ate a lot of "cheap" food up until that time. Dad had a HUGE garden, which helped a lot. We canned 40+ jars of green beans every summer, for instance!

Philip Clum

When I was a kid in the 1960s I would say we were poor. We didn’t own a house, my dad worked 2 jobs but we still had financial issues. My parents constantly informed us that we just didn’t have the money for things that weren’t a necessity. Being the youngest of 5 and having 2 brothers, my wardrobe was almost entirely hand-me-downs. I don’t ever remember going hungry but we ate simple fare and a limited menu. Some of it probably not the healthiest. Eating out really didn’t happen unless it was an occasional burger at the local Carrols.

RG de Stolfe

Several times! In the 70s as a kid, we often had grilled cheese and tomato soup. Also, my parents would buy oleo and not butter because it was cheaper (but very nasty!) In college, many times I would doctor up ramen with seasonings and frozen peas and corn. Over the years since, I’ve come up with many creative ways to use rice, pasta, and canned soups! But I also try to be careful to include produce like onions, carrots, celery, and frozen vegetables.

Melinda - Stone Times

My dad owned a hardware and garden store down the street from our house. We were a family of six and my mom had been a teacher, but quit to be home with us. I remember her saying that when you own a business, everyone gets paid before you do. Many a night we had peas and cornbread for supper. If we had meat, it was sausage or ground meat. But several customers would bring in the bounty of their gardens from time to time and we would shell peas or beans on the living room floor. I didn’t realize until adulthood that we were “poor.”

Tom Usher
>>99487997

SOS! My dad was a Korea Marine and he definitely loved his SOS. I still make it every once in awhile. I've never been able to master CW, though not for a lack of trying. I wanted to get my ticket back in the '70's when I worked at Radio Shack but didn't until after the code requirement was removed. We're still building things though a lot of the hobby has switched over to networking now. The lids that were on 40 don't seem to be as bad as they were but I always figure I can turn the VFO. Good to hear from you and maybe someday I'll hear you on the air. However, like you said, this ain't no 18th century conversation! 73!

Martin Morehouse

We raised our own cows and goats, for our family of fourteen. One cow a year went in the freezer, wrapped in white butcher paper. One sister was listening to a neighbor talking about being sick of "hotdogs again, for dinner", and my sister replied, "I know, I'm tired of steak all the time." Of course the steak was from our thistle-fed cows, and it was usually in the form of greasy hamburger. I had to move out before I discovered that grease wasn't gravy.

Matthew Zaleski

I grew up in a middle class household but we bordered on poor because there were 9 of us kids. Looking back I now see that there were things mom and dad did to stretch their money, like lots of casseroles, plenty of veggies grown in a garden, our own apple and pear trees whilst living in a city. I have fond memories of childhood; you don't need a lot of stuff to be happy.

Heather Torrey

Yes. When I was young we ate a lot of cheese on white bread sandwiches, tuna casserole, canned veg, and inexpensive cereal. I thought it was great without realizing it was necessary. Leftovers were reused and mom would eat the last bits when they were too little to be a "side dish" anymore. When my son was little, he and I were similarly stretched thin and it didn't feel as exciting.

Rose McGuinn

My family did experience times when we had to pinch pennies and get creatively frugal with our use of groceries. I learned a lot from both parents and grandparents about this - they'd already lived thru the Depression era and knew a lot. My dad would bake us some bread and my mom would make her own soups. They tried to keep it nutritious for us all even when times were a bit tough.

Sami Hunter

Yes! Sugar on butter toast was a luxury food! And now I take the bones home from family dinners to make and can stock for us to have. I love this channel because my Poppop once said I wouldn’t survive with a ham bone strapped to my back. Between your team, and a few others, I have relearned many skills lost to capitalism!