Morning all, I hope you are doing well. The sickness slog continues here but otherwise things are slowly marching on. So shall we go on with the morning prompt? I think we shall. Ready, set, write.
I like this one. It took me a while to get the feel of it. I think it is just going to be about the one person who enjoyed the benefits of moving and adapted becoming something different than those who came before. It just took me a while to get there. And of course because i wanted to get everything down before I forgot it, I condensed the idea to fit in the fifteen minutes. It will need to be pulled apart like taffy if I circle back to it.
Tuesday, August 2nd: The urban population boomed.
The urban population boomed. With the advances in technology, there simply wasn’t a need for them on the farms. As crews were laid off and machines with single operators became the norm, more and more of the farming families began to seek their fortunes in the cities.
Eric remembered when his family left. No one was thrilled with the move. They spent generations in the same small house with the same neighbors and the same routines. He was willing to bet that aside from a few small changes, his parents lived much as his great grandparents had lived. The move was daunting.
But there was no work, and despite their fears, he remembered packing up everything they owned and making the move. His older brothers complained about how cramped their new city quarters were, but as the youngest, Eric found them to be more of the same size. He had a small bed pushed into the corner of one room with two of his brothers while the eldest two shaded another room at the house in the country. In the new apartment, it was much the same.
He remembered pacing it off after hearing the complaints and found the room he now shared a pace and a half larger than the one they left behind. He thought about commenting on it, but nerves were ratcheted so tightly that he dared not open his mouth.
In the city his father and oldest two brothers found jobs relatively quickly. They took positions repairing machinery. With jobs secured, the tension started to ease, at least somewhat. They had food on the table and a roof over their heads. From what he gathered his parents were even able to put a little money by at the end of each month. It was something they hadn’t been able to do in the past year and he knew it, more than anything else added to the relief on his mother’s face. She was the saving sort. Whether it was beans and tomatoes put up in jars in the pantry from the summer glut or a few pennies in a jar, or actual cash in the bank, she was pleased to have something set by in case it was needed.
With his father and oldest brothers settled in jobs, they seemed to settle. There was talk of missing home, but it was his two middle brothers who found the most to complain about. They were in their last years of schooling and missed their friends and their routines. They told horror stories of their school days and how hard it was for them. They were reminded that they would soon be done with their mandatory education and be allowed to look for positions of their own, but their complaints remained, neither liking the changes. Eric found that after a small adjustment, he enjoyed the move to the city. With so many moving in from the country, the accents around him hardly differed. In addition he found the additional resources a benefit.
His mother chalked it up to him being young enough to be adaptable, but even then he knew it was more. He was too young to remember his eldest brothers in school, but the others had never enjoyed it and complained about going nearly as much as they had before the move. As time passed, Eric began to realize that it was their personalities rather than just their age that separated them.
In time the last of his brothers graduated and went off to work. Eventually the eldest ones began to marry and move out. After a time it was Eric left with his parents, an entire room all to himself. The world, at least for Eric, had changed by then. He rarely gave the farm a thought and found himself looking ahead, wanting things his brothers never understood.
Ten til Midnight 