Stop the world and let the historians off

I have just had the complete displeasure of sitting in a traffic jam for almost one hour. No, there was no sad tale at the end of the traffic jam of a car accident. This was just normal Saturday morning traffic apparently. So there I sat, in the traffic jam. Squashed like jam between all the traffic. That’s why it’s called a Traffic Jam. And that’s why it’s NOT called a gridlock, thank you very much for nothing Ben Elton.

So while I had an hour to breathe in noxious fumes and listen to a radio station that hires people who know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, or so they tell us as they bombard us with inane conversation and non-witty quips about political innuendoes they’d be too young to understand let alone commentate on, between playing music that we are told is good … I got to thinking...Where did my world go?

Once there were trees and quiet country lanes and innocuous little buildings with innocuous little fireplaces and wood heaps out the back with the occasional snake and the more frequent redback on the toilet seat. They were non-invasive little people who inhabited those little buildings and they went about their lives quietly and with purpose and with a mattock close by in case the snake got under the toilet seat. They decorated their little houses with non threatening colours and tended little vegetable patches without chemicals and sweet smelling flower gardens with horse and cow and sheep poo straight from the horses rear end and not from a packet. They tipped their hat when a lady walked by. They spoke politely and they dressed modestly. They made their own entertainment or enjoyed the entertainments made by others when invited only. They cared for the land. They cared for people. And now….

As I sat in the car watching the world around me I was assaulted by colour. Red, yellow, bright green, dark green, orange, flourescent blue, purple, hot pink, cold pink, baby pink, white with black, black with white. I saw not one simple wooden structure nor one subdued colour scheme of the enterprises lining the sides of the roads. There was no escape on the footpaths either. The footpath and gutters beside the road were littered with road signs. Go this way, go that way, don’t go this way, never go that way, go over there, go under, go over, stop going, start going, go at this speed,don’t go at that speed, if you do go there or go at that speed you will cause this or that or the other to happen, go around, go through…oh just go away!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But if that wasn’t enough I then saw monsters a little further back from the footpath. Monsters beckoning the mindless throng to go IN. There was a giant blue gorilla in the guise of King Kong, two yellow and red Gumby like figures that were inflated and waving their arms like they were being attacked by a swarm of wasps as their gaping mouths tried to swallow their bulging eyeballs. There were flashing lights saying Save, Buy, Rent, No Deposit, No Interest, Special, Runout Sale, Last Days. There were big bearded pirates and Southern gentlemen cutouts and clowns and big balls and even a hot air balloon. They all screamed from their designated cannon galley. I couldn’t understand why these were supposed to entice people in. I just wanted to run away.

But then I saw what made me want to just stop the world and get right off. I saw a billboard. With a giant picture on it. Of … bacon. I don’t know what else to say to describe that. A giant picture of a rasher of bacon. And underneath that picture were some words which I can’t remember fully because my mind glazed over and I lost the ability to reason when I read two of the words... Carmelized onions

Yes, you read that right, and even my spellcheck is having an issue with it. Not car-a-mel-ised, which is what it actually is meant to say, but carmelized. Now, I ask you….

SINCE WHEN DID FRIED ONION BECOME CARMELIZED ONION AND HOW THE HELL DID IT LOSE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ON THE WAY?

It’s an onion for gods sake and it’s fried in some oily substance until it goes brown and tastes lovely. FRIED ONIONS TASTE JUST AS GOOD AS ANY STUPID SOUNDING CARMELIZED ONION DOES. Believe it or not!

I think I lost consciousness for a moment. It didn’t matter, the traffic JAM was still holding me tight between it’s layers of horror. I tried some deep breathing but my slack jaw hindered my lungs gaining full capacity. I think I snored. Can you imagine what your forebears would make of this? Where did their world go? Where did that peace, quiet, tranquility and reason go? It certainly isn’t along the road I just travelled, and yet, once long ago, it was. We’ve bastardised it in the same way we’ve bastardised the language.

Maybe that’s why we genealogists like family history so much. We love to see old images, read old language, connect with that quieter, less invasive time and learn to know people who didn’t need all this absolute rubbish around them to understand where their place in the world was. They had reality and I’m afraid it is sorely missing in today’s world.

Stop the world and let the historians off at the next dirt floored, non airconditioned corner store. We just want to grab a bacon and onion roll and a jar of jam for our bread tomorrow.