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Andy Griffith

St. Phatty

Active member
Oh man, I meant to include the wifey in that, really sorry to hear she passed my friend, I hope you have been keeping your head up and trying to enjoy life as much as possible, don't let misery become a good friend, misery sucks balls!

Oh yeah, the pipe going up and over in the pic if there for adding hangers to support plant weight, and also to run netting for things like cukes...

Does the sun degrade the plastic ?
 

VenerableHippie

Active member
I would say it was both like normal life and cartoonish. The things that went on in the background showing small town life were pretty close to real as was the depiction of Andy's home and family. What was cartoonish was Andy at work and especially Don Knotts and Gomer Pyle who eventually joined the military and started his own show. The thing to keep in mid though was that was only a fair depiction of rural life and more so in the mid west. Rural life in other parts of the country had similarities but also big differences and of course City life was nothing like Andy Griffith.

I kind of get the initial question too, life was in many ways more peaceful and enjoyable, more laid back and those days were a great time for young people growing up back then to go off and discover themselves which was represented by the whole hippie movement that happened around that time. Unfortunately it was not so great for non white people but that general time period brought about the civil rights movement which sought to make things more equal and more fair for everyone. Now if you were to ask someone that is a white supremist they would probably tell you "Hell yeah that was our peak of society" because white privilege was very much at play in those days and was more out in the open without anyone questioning it. Now if you were to ask a woman what she thought of that time period you would probably get mixed answers depending on the woman you asked. A lot of women probably miss the family values of those days especially if they have children and they probably miss how people were more neighborly but back then it was still a time of "A woman's place is in the home" and "Women should be kept barefoot and pregnant". Women has the right to vote by then but really not much else. The idea of a woman being career minded or being the main bread winner in a family had not yet emerged. There were a few exceptional woman, usually from powerful families that were able to achieve big things for a woman of that period but they were far and few between.

In a way it could be summed up like a well known book Charles Dickens wrote about the French Revolution called a "Tale of Two Cities" the quote goes as follows ""It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way"

Now see the funny thing about that quote is that it was appropriate about the time of the French Revolution and it was appropriate about the 50's and 60's in America and depending on who you speak to you might conclude it applies to today as well. It really boils down to a matter of perspective and what you're wanting out of life. Usually you'll find that younger people will side with the more modern times because that's all they've known, that's what they grew up in. Most young people these days would absolutely hate life back then there was no internet or computers for the average person, just the military and scientists. A computer with the capability of today's latest cellphones would take up the space of a whole home and cost millions to build and even then it wouldn't have all the functionality because back then programing was very primitive compared to today. Speaking of cellphones there were known of those, no laptops color television was the cutting edge of technology and not even the video game pong existed yet let alone anything like today's modern gaming consoles. Could you imagine a kid of today being happy in that environment? They would probably see it as utterly barbaric. Back then the only thing to do for fun were physical activities like riding a bike or fishing or skipping stones like you see depicted in the opening intro of the show. OF course there were many other activities but almost all outdoors and if they were all you knew or you have an open mind they were fun. If you wanted to be like today's kids and stay indoors the most entertaining thing to do was to watch tv, that is of course if your family was well enough off to own a tv. And since there were no cable companies yet and very few satellites all you had was tv broadcast thru the air by big antennas and at best that meant you had access to just 3 or 4 channels if you were lucky sometimes less if you were really rural. Also back in those days tv would go off air during the late night hours and come back on in the morning. I could go on I'm sure but I think you get the picture. Like I said before it's all a matter of perspective and who you talk to. Some will romanticize those days because of things that were abundant then but scarce now and others will see it exactly the opposite. Because after all....you have just crossed over to the, "Twilight Zone". 😮

In my not so humble opinion: this is a great post!

I also like it that the poster has enuf time and energy to treat the topic seriously.

I want to say that I grew up roaming in Nature. My home was a mad house which I recognised all too clearly so OUTSIDE I used to go for as long as possible. Thus I grew up in a GREEN world with a BLUE sky and today I strive for the same things.

Think now of the children of this electronic age whose outside world is on a screen. An unreal world.

It is no wonder that such a world produces imbecilic notions such as those of Qanon and produces individuals like the Capitol rioters and IC Mag member McNoodle. Or even Trump is the new Jesus. Oh Jesus!

Breakfast is ready now ... goodbye (post 35)
 

Switcher56

Comfortably numb!
I just wanna know the answer to this question >>>> was life simpler back then ??? Btw Star Crash was born in ‘61

IMHO yes! There is so much hatred generated/fabriacated these days combined with artificial stimulation, no wonder the world is off their rocker. I can't speak for others, but we played/associated with "individuals" not ethnicity. As MLK clearly stated... judge a man by the strength of his character not the colour of their skin. Don't get me wrong, we had assholes even in those days but, it was few and far between compared to today... that unless you see and agree to/with my POV, your cancelled, which is total BS! It is akin of taking your ball and going home. Nothing more, nothing less!

original post...
I remember the sixties, I was born in '56. Yes people were more civilized with each other, and had more manners. You didn't dare tell a grown up to "fuck off", etc... Then again it was the dawn of the civil rights movement and, unfortunately although it got off the ground with some seriousness. Unfortunately, it was short lived. The "machine" ensured that it was not about to happen or take root and assassinated the lot.
Now! you clearly see the result of that decision, world wide. We are currently living on a chartered course of, me, myself and I! :tiphat:
 

HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
I want to say that I grew up roaming in Nature. My home was a mad house which I recognised all too clearly so OUTSIDE I used to go for as long as possible. Thus I grew up in a GREEN world with a BLUE sky and today I strive for the same things.

Remember how back in the day the instructions from our parents were that we had to be in by dark and that all us kids playing outside would stretch the definition of when dark actually began by as much as possible? Good Times. :biggrin:
 

HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
Oh man, I meant to include the wifey in that, really sorry to hear she passed my friend, I hope you have been keeping your head up and trying to enjoy life as much as possible, don't let misery become a good friend, misery sucks balls!

I hope the living situation is worked out soon, and you are able to grow on a small scale, hell man I am more than happy to put heads together with you and come up with ways to grow cheap, but still have good results.
I recently got into hydro and built a sort of NFT setup for a family member, it turned out well, but the veggies and all did too well, and the 4" PVC was getting clogged with roots, even 6" would eventually get bad, but we will probably step up to that... eventually get bad, but we will probably step up to that...
You can do a lot with some LED's now days, but I still prefer CFL's for more lumens, and nutes can be fairly cheap, hell for a while I used miracle grow, and it goes a LONG way..
If organic blood and bone meal are not too pricey, but things like worm castings and green sand, can add up..
Cheap soil and miracle grow will get you a little bud going...
I'd like to do a low budget thread some day, and get feedback from others, as well as share my knowledge of how to grow for cheap, because not all of us can afford high electric bills, and AN nutes of all kinds...
Oh yeah, the pipe going up and over in the pic if there for adding hangers to support plant weight, and also to run netting for things like cukes...

No worries and no problem if you forgot to respond to any one particular thing, although I think you did get them all eventually? :biggrin: I realize I bunched a whole lot of stuff in there because it's been so long that I was away and I couldn't remember for sure what might have been the last life experience/crisis I might have shared online. I have been keeping my head up as best I can but at the same time there is not much motivation to get out of the house and do anything other then grocery store visits and doctors appointments. Some of that is due to less people in my life these days and I really don't feel the need to replace them with new friends or partners or pets. Then part of that too is finances are now so tight surviving on about $1100 per month that I just don't have money for any of those things that I used to go out for. I wouldn't mind going out for dinner now and then but it's just no fun if you don't have anyone to share it with and for what it generally costs for one decent meal I can usually feed myself for 3 or 4 meals. Then also part of it is health related, I have heart issues and on some days I can experience chest pains just walking from my bedroom out to my living room, it seems amazing to me that it was just a few years ago that I was walking 4-5 miles a day every day. Unfortunately the opioid crisis hit and our screwed up government decide to more or less treat anyone taking pain meds for chronic pain as being just a junkie. So I got cut off from my pain meds and marijuana never really solved my pain, so I wasn't able to continue my daily walks and my health went steadily downhill after that. Of course the government has no problem letting people take all the Tylenol and Advil they want for pain even though chronic use of either of those can lead to kidney issues in one case and liver issues in the other. What really gets me about all that though is you still hear people talking about the opioid crisis like it's just as bad as ever and yet how can it be when it's so hard to get any legal opiates anymore? That's a rhetorical question since I know that the answer is that by the over reaching way they tackled legal opioid use they pushed a whole lot of people out into the black market use. I like to say that there is actually two opioid crises the one that the government and media is still pushing and then the crisis of all the people who weren't abusing opioids but had legitimate chronic pain that now can't get any form of decent pain medication.

As for the living situation it's not looking too good for me at the moment, I'm basically facing losing my home which is fully paid for because I fell behind on my property taxes when my wife passed. I was putting aside money every month to cover that but when my wife passed we didn't have any insurance for funeral expenses and so I had to divert those funds to help my wife's family pay for her funeral and burial and then this past June when I couldn't pay off the back taxes in full they put my home up for what they call a tax sale. This is where people will bid on your property for the amount you owe in taxes and then if you can't pay them back in a set period of time (4 months in my state) the person who won the tax sale gets your property for just pennies on the dollar usually. Currently my home is worth $160K and the person who won the tax sale only had to come up with about $5000. If I can't pay that back plus interest by Oct. 15th I'm out on the street not long after and since I have such a limited income there's no chance of me getting an equity loan to cover that amount or a normal mortgage refinance and given what's been going on in the rental market about all I might be able to find is maybe a room for rent in someone else's home. So under those circumstances the idea of having an active grow is out of the question. I am looking into a possible solution thru a reverse mortgage but the most common reverse mortgage requires you to be 62 and I'm currently just 61. There are some companies that offer a special type of reverse mortgage for people that are 61 but so far all the ones I've looked into have found one reason or another as to why I won't qualify. There's still a few more to look into but it's getting harder and harder to stay optimistic.
 

PassionForMJ

Active member
I am totally in agreement on the opioid BS, I have my L5/S1's sub arachnoid space totally obliterated, so it hurts to walk, work, etc...
They have given me everything in the NSAID section, even meloxicam, they gave me gabopentin which is to help nerve pain, but for people with seizures, they finally gave me 50mg of Tramadol 3x a day, but that won't last unless I can get my pain management Dr. to give it to me, right now it is through my PCP and he won't prescribe it for long.
I had to pretty much beg for something in the opioid section, because nothing else was working..
I even got a spinal epidural of cortisone....

Damn my friend, I am really sorry life has gotten so bad for you, it sucks bad shit happens so often to good people...
For a long time I looked up to you and your grows, and always admired how much you put into them, the threads, and the smoke reports...
If the old OG was still around, and all the people that frequented our threads, I bet we'd have a gofund me and get the house paid for you in no time, there were so many good people....

I'd help if I could, I don't know if this girl I have been talking too on and off is going to come live with me or not, if not I could use a roommate, ha ha
I have a spare bedroom, and full bath, but of course all is connected, it is an old mid 70's trailer turned into a house kind of, it is nice considering though...
I hope something good happens for you soon my friend, your luck has to get better!
Do the best as you can to stay positive, too much in life wants to drag us down, please don't let it.
 

VenerableHippie

Active member
Remember how back in the day the instructions from our parents were that we had to be in by dark and that all us kids playing outside would stretch the definition of when dark actually began by as much as possible? Good Times. :biggrin:

That certainly was my experience! Hunger would drive me in before twilight ended.
 

Gry

Well-known member
Think in these times the issue with finances and housing is common to us all.
I think the largest difference between now and then, is that back then it felt like we lived in a
society that was designed to help the average guy out.
Now we live in a society that is designed to prey upon and take advantage of the average guy.
 

HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
That certainly was my experience! Hunger would drive me in before twilight ended.

Well yeah at times of the year when dinner time and sunset were close, then usually dinner being served was a good way to get us kids to come in. I was thinking more along the lines of in the summer when the sun didn't fully set until around 9pm. Dinner was usually about 6pm so that meant there were a few hours after dinner where we could run wild again. :jump:
 

HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
I am totally in agreement on the opioid BS, I have my L5/S1's sub arachnoid space totally obliterated, so it hurts to walk, work, etc...
They have given me everything in the NSAID section, even meloxicam, they gave me gabopentin which is to help nerve pain, but for people with seizures, they finally gave me 50mg of Tramadol 3x a day, but that won't last unless I can get my pain management Dr. to give it to me, right now it is through my PCP and he won't prescribe it for long.
I had to pretty much beg for something in the opioid section, because nothing else was working..
I even got a spinal epidural of cortisone....

Damn my friend, I am really sorry life has gotten so bad for you, it sucks bad shit happens so often to good people...
For a long time I looked up to you and your grows, and always admired how much you put into them, the threads, and the smoke reports...
If the old OG was still around, and all the people that frequented our threads, I bet we'd have a gofund me and get the house paid for you in no time, there were so many good people....

I'd help if I could, I don't know if this girl I have been talking too on and off is going to come live with me or not, if not I could use a roommate, ha ha
I have a spare bedroom, and full bath, but of course all is connected, it is an old mid 70's trailer turned into a house kind of, it is nice considering though...
I hope something good happens for you soon my friend, your luck has to get better!
Do the best as you can to stay positive, too much in life wants to drag us down, please don't let it.

I could really go off on the topic of Pain Management, when the opioid crisis hit my primary Care doctor had been the one giving me my pain meds but she was just a partner in a group practice and the main doctor who controlled the practice decided there would no longer be any treating of chronic pain done in their practice unless of course that treatment didn't involve pain meds. Now I don't really blame them because basically what happened is the government pressured the doctors so much you risked losing your license to practice medicine id you didn't specialize in Pain Management. So everyone in that practice was forced to go to pain management if they wanted to have any hope of continuing with narcotic pain meds. The first thing that struck me at Pain Management was that the initial screening for new patients felt about as caring as a visit to parole and probation. Before any treatment would happen you had to pee in a cup and these cups were designed to automatically test for about 9 different drugs. Those tests weren't very accurate though so any positives that came up would be sent off to a lab for more precise testing. Now that first visit for me was in February and the last time I had smoked any marijuana was just before Halloween. Now I've been thru probation drug testing in the past and marijuana never tested positive for longer then 60 days. Yet somehow, even though it had been 4 months since I last smoked I came up positive for Marijuana on the initial instant test and it was then confirmed by the precision test. So because of that instant test they refuse to give me any narcotics and put me on Meloxicam, Gabapentin and Flexerol none of which helped with my pain even a little bit. Now mind you I was not taking any of the high level narcotics like Percocet or Oxycontin, I was just taking Narco which is the generic of Vicodin (10/325 to be precise which is a mid range dosage). Fortunately I still had close to a full prescription of my usual pain meds so when the other stuff didn't do me any good I just continued to use my narcotic pain meds until they were used up but that was enough to cover me when I went back a month later for my 2nd visit and pee test. I had in the meantime strongly protested the finding of marijuana but they just blew it off as me being a typical drug abuser lying about my drug use. Anyway on the second visit because I was still taking the pain meds I already had from my own doctor I cam up positive for hydrocodone and they counted that as another strike against me because they expected me to just get rid of any pain meds from before them (although they never told me they expected that). Fortunately that time I didn't come up positive for marijuana. Anyway they told me that because I was dirty for marijuana the first time and dirty for hydrocodone the 2nd time they wouldn't give me anything but the Meloxicam, Gabapentin and Flexerol. I did go back a third time after another month in between because I was determined to come up clean, which I did but they basically said that they didn't know why I came back because they didn't trust me and therefore would never give me narcotics of any kind and that there was no need to come back to them for the stuff they were giving me I could just get that from my Primary doctor. So that's what I continued with even though it didn't help with the pain and so I was unable to continue with my daily walks. Because of that the 75lbs I had lost the year before from the walking came back and after a year I was now also diagnosed as being diabetic. Then a few months later my doctor finally got around to scheduling me for a colonoscopy and in that test they found that the Meloxicam was causing serious erosion in my digestive tract and so I was ordered off the Meloxicam. A few months after that my cardiologist did a routine stress test on me to check my heart health and from that it was determined that I needed a stent placed in one of my arteries on the surface of my heart. So as a result of being taken off the pain meds (which I had been on with no issue for 3 years) I gained weight, became diabetic and my heart health got worse and additional I developed new digestive issues from the Meloxicam forcing me to stop taking that (fortunately after stopping that the digestive issues cleared up a few months later). What started all of this was essentially testing positive for marijuana and since they insisted that was a valid positive I did some research and discovered it was possible to test dirty as much as four months later but only if they tweaked the parameters for the test so high that it would pick up even the slightest hint of marijuana. Which is possible because of marijuana being something that does get stored in fat cells. What this told me though was that they has set the test for marijuana even more sensitive then what Parole and Probation goes by. I confronted them about that on my third visit with the Pain Management Doctor and the response I got back was something to the effect of that he wasn't going to tell me how they did their tests because he felt I would probably use that as a way to cheat the tests. So obviously I gave up on them after that being thoroughly disgusted by the whole experience. The final chapter was yet to come though, about a year and a half later my state legalized medical marijuana and after that this doctor who seemed to feel marijuana use was a sign of serious drug abuse was now happily handing out scripts for medical marijuana. That change meant nothing to me though other then it being insult added to injury because I wasn't seeing that doctor by that point and even if I was, marijuana never really seemed to help me much more then Advil or Tylenol. Besides that it wasn't something my Medicare Part D would cover anyway so I wouldn't have been able to afford it even if it did help.

Well enough of the pain med blues, as for the home troubles, I've not given up all hope yet there are still a couple more Reverse Mortgage companies that might be able to help so I still have something to hold out hope for, if those fall thru though I really don't know what I'm going to do. I wish I had know things were going to be this way a few years ago when my Mom passed. She left me a decent enough inheritance that I was able to pay my mortgage off in full and that's what I did because I always thought that I would have no problem getting something like a $30K or $40K equity loan with me being able to put up a $160K home as collateral. Had I not paid off my mortgage then the escrow account included in the mortgage payment would have taken care of the property taxes although if I had spent my inheritance anywhere else I wouldn't have been able to help my wife's parents with the funeral expenses. I did try looking into the equity loan option but found that nobody would offer me anything lower then $50K and with it that high they felt I didn't have enough income to qualify for such a loan even though the value of my house was more then 3 times that. Man if only it were possible to go thru life with the knowledge you gain 10 or 20 years in the future. I tell you if I had that ability my life would have been so much better in so many ways. Alas that is the stuff of science fiction and/or fantasy.
 

HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
Think in these times the issue with finances and housing is common to us all.
I think the largest difference between now and then, is that back then it felt like we lived in a
society that was designed to help the average guy out.
Now we live in a society that is designed to prey upon and take advantage of the average guy.

I guess this is kind of the same thing but the way it has always felt to me was that in the past I didn't have quite enough going for me to take advantage of financial options and then by the time where I get to where it would have been enough in the past it's like they've moved the goal posts. Or to use another analogy I feel like Charlie Brown running up to finally kick that football and just when I think it's going to happen, Lucy yanks it away again. :lightning:
 

Gry

Well-known member
Lived on military bases as a kid, and back then,
AC was not something provided to enlisted men.
Everyone had open windows.
Was obvious, we lived in a very pressurised society.
 

Switcher56

Comfortably numb!
Think in these times the issue with finances and housing is common to us all.
I think the largest difference between now and then, is that back then it felt like we lived in a
society that was designed to help the average guy out.
Now we live in a society that is designed to prey upon and take advantage of the average guy.

Because the thread has derailed somewhat, I am drafting a reply offline to start a new thread, trying to bring the topic back in line, that addresses all the points of your summation.
+10 :tiphat: :joint:
 

PassionForMJ

Active member
Because the thread has derailed somewhat, I am drafting a reply offline to start a new thread, trying to bring the topic back in line, that addresses all the points of your summation.
+10 :tiphat: :joint:

Sorry about that.
I did not mean to get you guys off track..

Any way we can tie heath care / pain management to the original thread somehow?
I need to read page 1 to get an understanding of what this thread is about.
 

PassionForMJ

Active member
Ahhh ok.....

Yeah I think society seemed better back then, that ir I was just so young that I was nieve to what was really going on.
The news did not try as hard to show you ever bad story they could find, they actually posted a few good feeling stories...
Back then My Great Grandparents whom raised me, my Mom, and Grandmother were alive, so society seems good because my surrounding world was great, being filled with awesome family...
 

HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
Shouldn't it be the thread starter who decides if the thread has gotten so far off topic that it needs a whole new thread to be started? I do accept some blame for it getting so far off track but it was as said me and PassionFor MJ had been out of touch for a long time and he didn't have access to PM's yet to use for more personalized discussion. Actually I'll take a lot of the blame because in catching PassionForMJ up on things it caused me to touch based on a few topics I have very strong feelings about and when that happens I can easily spin off in a whole new direction of conversation, so my apologies for that.

So kind of getting back to the topic Andy Griffith was a reasonably accurate depiction of small town rural life and many of the other shows of that era were reasonably accurate depictions of suburban life or city life depending on what show you were watching. Most of the shows of that time did have a fair amount of comedy mixed in which made it somewhat fanciful but it was a time where many people still couldn't afford TV sets or were just starting to own them. Things were so new and fresh in terms of programming that even showing fairly normal every day life was interesting enough for people because it was still a fairly new experience. As time went on though and more channel options started popping up things began to change and shows started to require more of a fantasy aspect to them to attract people or a sci-fi edge, so you started to get shows like I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Addams Family, The Monsters, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Partridge Family, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman etc. That eventually became more of the standard and it just kept getting more and more like that as time went on. At one point around the 70's you started to see more realistic shows popping up again but usually with some slant targeting specific groups so you got things like The Courtship Of Eddie's Father, Eight is Enough, The Brady Bunch, Archie's Place, The Jefferson's, etc. Then it would go off more in the fanciful direction again and you would get shows like Mork and Mindy, Alf, etc. Then you might find things get on a more nostalgic track and you would get stuff like Happy Days or Laverne and Shirley. This was kind of an age where when some network would find something that worked all the other networks would come up with similar programing.
 

VenerableHippie

Active member
Because the thread has derailed somewhat, I am drafting a reply offline to start a new thread, trying to bring the topic back in line, that addresses all the points of your summation.
+10 :tiphat: :joint:

But in those days the economy was oriented to the returned serviceman. The gleam of massive profit was in the eye of the commercial world. They had realised what was possiblel ... for them. Now it's our turn to realise what they had in mind.
 
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