Vintage Redefined

1920s Matag Washing Machine

    I was married June 8, 1963 and we moved into an upstairs apartment in a small rural Minnesota town.  There was no bathtub or shower, which for my husband was no big deal.  His family home had no running water and an outhouse, fully operational with delicate pink peach wrappers for tissue in the late summer months, Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs for the other seasons.

His mother had a modern Matag washer which she set up in the kitchen, water from the well was carried in to fill the washer and tubs, then an elecrtic "hot plug" was inserted to heat the water to an unthinkable degree requiring a "laundry stick" to remove the hot clean clothes so they could be fed through the wringer.

My first washer was the one pictured here.  And it purred like a top!  Bought it at a yard sale and was thrilled to pieces with it. That was until the wringers began to melt into my new sheets and I learned that there were no replacement wringers available.  Drats!

Well, after all it was over 40 years old.  Truly vintage!

Fast forward to the New Millennium.  I have been learning the "new definition" of vintage far too often and with greater fury each time.  In 2000 I had a brand spanking new GE microwave complete with lights and fan installed above my stove.  I was working full time and going to college, so was home to use it only occasionally.  In 2005 it stopped heating.  I called for repair and was told the parts and labor would be about $50 less than a new microwave.  I was livid! And told the company just how I felt only to be told that microwaves are built to "last 5 - 7 years.'  I replied, "fine, this the last one I will own!"  So today my microwave continues to hold court above the range and is the perfect place to store my cookbooks.  From time to time a new guest will be here and open it up to heat water for tea or make microwave oatmeal ... then the poor souls are held captive while I tell my story of guaranteed obsolescence.

Fast forward to this week when I took my top-of-the-line 2006 Apple laptop computer into the Genius Bar to see why it got so hot and since then part of the keys do not work.  It took less than 90 seconds to learn that my computer is considered "vintage" - that their current diagnostic tools are too advanced to address issues with this computer, they do not carry parts, etc., so I would need to take it to company that services computers or consider getting a separate external keyboard or perhaps it is time to upgrade.  Grurrahhhhh!  I was polite, after all, the technician did not design it to be obsolete in 6 years.  I left snarling and growling at corporate America behind my smile.

It is clear to me that what used to be vintage at 30 or 40 years now is vintage in 5 or 6 years.  Call it technology upgrades or what ever you like, it is ridiculous that anything is obsolete so quickly and expediently for the manufacturer and another cost for the consumer.

Well, I can't store my cookbooks in the computer and I can only image the cost to repair it, so my son bought and delivered a wireless keyboard and mouse.  I works just fine thank you very very much!  And it makes me wonder if I will replace this computer when it does fail completely.  I am so weary of spending hard earned money to repair or replace stuff!  I might, when this computer fully fails, just go back to pen and paper, go to the library to do research and use a wee little computer tablet for blogging or simply go back to writing in still more journals and add to those aready piled up on the bookshelves.  Who knows for sure.  What I do know for sure is that I am vintage and at my age that makes sense.  And I am  proud of it!