priorities

When attempting to think about globalization-the-race-to-the-bottom-the-new-economy, and simultaneously consider the idea of minimalism and simplifying, various thoughts float in (and by).


A friend of mine said once something like -- if you have a basement, stuff will accumulate in it, if you have an attic, same thing -- when you build a shed, or any type of out-building -- and he grinned, in his trademark flashin' fashion, and stated, "It'll fill up!"


There's a school of thought that says in the last forty or fifty years the size of the average American house has become larger, & it was a "plot" to trick the public into buying more stuff, to put in these big houses.  To -- "fill them up."


Mark J. Perry (prof. economics, Univ.-Michigan, Flint) says, "Today's new homes are 1,000 square feet larger than in 1973, and the living space per person has doubled over the last 40 years."


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I found it interesting to compare the interior décor in a sitcom which began in 1963



with the interior on a sitcom that started thirty-one years later, in 1994






(The 90s look does seem to say, "More -- stuff!!")


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JFK's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, held the philosophy that a home was shelter from the elements; furniture was to sit on, and to be child-impervious.  Fancy things were not his priority. 

His fortune was invested in his sons' opportunities for public service.  (This approach to life is kind of like what the Becoming Minimalist guy writes about -- doing, instead of piling up stuff.  Living -- [and investing and lobbying] -- with intention.)



------------------------ [excerpt] ----------------- As his starting salary at the Justice Department was only $5,334.57 a year, Bobby had insisted that Ethel find a house to rent for a budget of $500 a month, which was quite an adequate allowance for the time.  Bobby also tried to set a budget for other household expenses, but Ethel, like Jackie, sometimes had trouble making ends meet. 


As Red Fay relates, one night over dinner at Hyannis Port, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy berated all his family for their reckless spending, singling out Ethel in particular.  She fled the room in tears. 


When she reappeared, Jack reassured his sister-in-law.  "Ethel, don't worry," Jack joked.  "We've come to the conclusion that the only solution is to have Dad work harder."


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{excerpt:  Camelot at Dawn; photographs by Orlando Suero, text by Anne Garside}


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