tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post7748482461943034730..comments2024-02-25T13:25:26.434-08:00Comments on Owl's Farm: Rethinking What It Means to Be PoorOwlfarmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15373358232893937182noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post-70459704835348828032013-05-18T21:42:20.641-07:002013-05-18T21:42:20.641-07:00Found the reference to Fr Bernard Druetto OFM most...Found the reference to Fr Bernard Druetto OFM most interesting. I lived and worked with him in the years from 1964 to mid 66. he was a fascinating man and truly a man for others. Wondering how your family came in contact with him. I was from Phila but made contact while in California. would welcome any stories you may have about father and would be pleased to share what I know. Frank carlin fxcarlin@gmail.comFxchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10666996045662611560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post-88539556803953289742013-05-18T21:41:41.594-07:002013-05-18T21:41:41.594-07:00Found the reference to Fr Bernard Druetto OFM most...Found the reference to Fr Bernard Druetto OFM most interesting. I lived and worked with him in the years from 1964 to mid 66. he was a fascinating man and truly a man for others. Wondering how your family came in contact with him. I was from Phila but made contact while in California. would welcome any stories you may have about father and would be pleased to share what I know. Frank carlin fxcarlin@gmail.comFxchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10666996045662611560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post-60718508605098666922008-01-12T15:26:00.000-08:002008-01-12T15:26:00.000-08:00I'm pretty sure that many people could share simil...I'm pretty sure that many people could share similar stories and contrasts. But modern life has done such a thorough job of creating dichotomies between city ways and country ways, past and present, and has so completely relegated true simplicity to the trash heaps of economic history, that I wouldn't be surprised if family histories are suffering as well.<BR/><BR/>Even as a teenager--when we're usually so wrapped up in ourselves that we think nothing else exists--I couldn't wait to get back to my grandmother's house in a tiny backwater California town. As in your case, there was a more aristocratic element to the family that could never understand why I didn't want to spend my spare time with them. But I was always drawn to the rural landscape and the simpler pace of what I still think of as "home." <BR/><BR/>I am, however, very much encouraged by your comments.Owlfarmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15373358232893937182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6343122535318547716.post-50823841397708402362008-01-12T05:12:00.000-08:002008-01-12T05:12:00.000-08:00Owl - In my own life, I have been early exposed to...Owl - In my own life, I have been early exposed to the pitting of two conceptions of living, one against the other, of valuing one mode of living and decrying the value of the contrasting one. My father came from a Hungarian peasant background; my mother, from upper class gentry. My mother reviled the very rich life of our peasant relatives, as being primitive, simplistic and undesirable. At a time when my own mother was reduced to long waits in lines to acquire foodstuffs, my grandmother went to her root cellar, her granary, her barns and sheds to take food for the day or week that she and her husband needed. her food was always plentiful while at the same time my mother scrabbled through lentils and beans coming from China to deparate the stones and gravel from the dried legumes.<BR/>I saw early on that what was considered to be an unsophisticated way of living was one of hard work and a source of independence and ultimately satisfaction. There was an aspect of voluntary living in how my paternal peasant relatives lived; of intelligent, dependent life on the sources that sustained them. At the same time, my mother's family scurried around amassing goods for status while being absolutely dependent on a strange mechanism for acquiring necessities that were always vulnerable to laws and methods of supply. Of the two types of relatives, by far were the country folk far more content, and as a child I envied their pace and character of life.<BR/>Those early observations have established in me a keen awareness of the flaws in our attitude toward what constitutes poverty and of how we choose to pursue fallacious ways of living and thinking. GEMGEMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11525848943689396086noreply@blogger.com