The Way We Were, By Necessity

There have been many changes in how we buy and keep our food over the decades of my life, although there has been a gradual return by some consumers to the use of fewer preservatives in certain foods. I thought I'd jot down a few things to let younger folks read how things were, and to perhaps give their parents and grandparents a chance to say, "Yep, that's what we did back then." It's nice to look back, at times, to things from the past, as long as we remember to return to the present and look to the future.

Back when I was a kid, bread went stale within a day or two, and it would get moldy, even faster in warm weather. Not much air conditioning back then, as not only were the air conditioning units themselves expensive, but the amount of electricity the units used could have caused a horse to drop dead, if a horse could have read the electric bill. There were supermarkets back then, but not as many as there were a little later, and they were generally not as large as those of more modern times. There were many little "mom and pop" grocery stores in most places, and in cities, there were apt to be a couple of these stores, if not more, within a short walking distance across city neighborhoods. Most had deli cases with various lunch meats (also called "cold cuts") and cheeses, which they would slice to order for you, and some even would grind meat for you, or cut up pork for pork chops. Separate butcher shops were common back then too, and you could get fresh cut meats of just about any type, as well as sausages and smoked meats. The southern part of my neighborhood had a large Polish and (western) Ukrainian population, and one family store there made their own kielbasa, which drew in people from all over. Further, depending upon your state or local area, many bars sold basic food products like bread and milk, and also that great staple food of childhood, candy! With the money value so different back then compared to now, there was a section in each candy display case with "penny candy," as the term was. Little grocery stores and bars put your candy into little brown paper bags, and if your were lucky enough to have a dime, you could get one of these small bags pretty much filled up. My paternal grandfather once gave me a DOLLAR! I was the richest kid on the block; well, for a little while, at least. Most candy bars were like about 3 cents to 5 cents. Whether you called it soda or pop, some was a nickel a bottle, but others were 6 or 7 cents. The famous Coca-Cola bottles were 6 1/2 ounces, if I remember right, but some other brands were maybe 7 or 8 ounces. Beverage companies then increased the size of the bottles to 12 ounces, and even to 16 ounces, if my memory is right, but of course, the price was a bit more. There was a penny deposit on the bottles, as they were returnable glass bottles, although again, some companies later began using non-returnable bottles. We kids would go through the neighborhood looking for discarded bottles to take in so we could get candy from the pennies we got back for returning those bottles. Maybe some of you remember, but I don't recall soda/pop in cans (12 ounces) until somewhat later, especially so in the 1970s, when their use became common.

Besides bread being sold in stores, bakery trucks came through the neighborhoods selling various kinds of bread, pies, cakes and other baked goods (ah, I guess that's why they called them bakery trucks). Customers could order special baked goods when they were produced and the driver might tell people, "Thursday, they're making apricot sweet rolls. Do you want to place an order?" They naturally could only fit so many items on a truck, so he took orders for these specialty items. Often the deliveryman would ring a bell to let people know he was in their neighborhood.

Milk was not always homogenized back then, so it separated and you had to shake the bottle before using it. Milk also spoiled within a few days, so just like with bread, trucks traveled through neighborhoods and rural areas to deliver milk and dairy products. Other trucks had produce, and the driver would yell out the various fruits and vegetables he had on sale on that day. If I remember right, there was a truck with fish, and because of religious beliefs, many people ate fish on Fridays in those times, a practice which even carried over to other folks who just got used to eating fish on Fridays, even though they didn't hold those religious beliefs. The practice was so prevalent, neighborhood bars did a banner business on Fridays by having a fish fry. And, just as you may have seen in movies about the "Old West," bars still had spittoons all around the barrooms, as tobacco chewing was still a common practice. Bars also had "back rooms" with tables where ladies and families could sit, as it wasn't considered "proper" by many people for women or children to sit in the main barroom in those days. Bars even had side or rear entrances so that ladies wouldn't have to be seen entering through the front door, which usually was on a main street, as this would likely lead to neighborhood gossip among some people, and perhaps even a condemnation to Hell by some self righteous religious zealots.      

Ice cream and popsicle trucks were around back then, a business which continues to this day. Some trucks only sold frozen products like popsicles, ice cream sandwiches or fudge bars, but others sold ice cream cones, sundaes, milkshakes and banana splits, with the ice cream dispensed right in front of the customers from machines inside the trucks. Of course, you could also go to a pharmacy, often simply referred to in the U.S. as, "drug stores," to get some ice cream, as they had "soda fountains" in those days. Oh, and they too had candy display cases with penny candy and candy bars. We had a food truck, actually more of a van or RV from more recent times, run by "Harold," a man in our neighborhood. I can't remember everything, but I believe he sold many early morning items like: doughnuts, pastries, coffee, tea and hot chocolate, and he may well have sold sandwiches and lunch items too, I just can't remember. Of course, this part of the food business has really expanded in more recent times, as trucks selling all sorts of fresh, refrigerated or frozen products are big business nowadays, with many specialty foods now being sold, including pizza, a food item that was growing in popularity when I was a kid, but at that time, pizza shops hadn't sprung up on many street corners, as yet, but they were around, just not in anywhere near the numbers we have today; and off hand, I don't recall any national pizza chains at that time; at least, not in my area. Certainly pizza's popularity stemmed from soldiers who had served in World War Two in Italy, which gave Italian-Americans a good way to go into business, especially in cities with Italian neighborhoods, particularly in the eastern half of the U.S. But it didn't take long for the popular, delicious and easily eaten food to spread all over the country.

As the years passed, more and more supermarkets were opened all over, putting a bit of a crimp in some family owned grocery stores and butcher shops. Preservatives were added to many foods, air conditioning and refrigeration became more widely used, and the need for things such as milk and bread delivery declined to the point where most were just unnecessary, although some hung on for awhile, and some might still be in existence in places? Improved roads and highways made rural deliveries largely unnecessary too, and I'm not sure the last time I heard, "Peaches, onions, cabbage on sale today," yelled out by a driver on a produce truck. Changes happen, often they creep up on us, and we eventually accept them, however grudgingly, but it sure can be nice to think back on the way we were, but then we need to move on. 

WORD HISTORY:
Spit-English has more than one word of this spelling, but this form is closely related to "spew" and goes back to Indo European "spyu," which meant "to spit, to discharge fluid from the mouth," but its exact history is a bit cloudy. The Indo European form gave its Old Germanic offspring "spitjanan," ^ seemingly a parallel development with the ancestor of "spew," as it had the same meaning, but it was not as commonly used. This either gave Old English, or the West Germanic dialects that later came to form Old English (Anglo-Saxon), but while still on the Continent, both "spæten"and "spittan," dialectal differences, although as noted under the original Old Germanic form, these forms were also not as common in usage as the ancestor of "spew." The Old English forms then melded to become "speten/spitten," before the modern form. The noun came from the verb circa 1300. Danish and Norwegian have "spytte" (to spit, Danish noun "spyt" and Norwegian noun "spytt"), Swedish has "spotta" (perhaps a dialectal "spetta?" and the noun "spott"), Icelandic has "spýta" (both verb and noun form).

^ It's possible that this was rather a form developed in the North Germanic branch of Old Germanic, or perhaps a survivor from Old Germanic in the North Germanic branch. It is unclear, but forms are only found in modern North Germanic, with the exception of English, which is West Germanic. The West Germanic dialects of what are today northern Germany and the Netherlands, as well as southwestern Denmark, had much contact with North Germanic speakers, which remained true, even after many of these West Germanic speakers migrated to Briton and founded England. As a guess, I would lean to a borrowing from North Germanic after the Anglo-Saxons were in Briton, which might account for the more sporadic use of the word compared to the ancestor of "spew," which was the common word among the West Germanic dialects/languages for "to spit." If "spit" had been borrowed while Ango-Saxon was still on the Continent, it begs the question, "Where are forms in Low German and/or Frisian," as they likely would have borrowed it too, but I found no forms of such, not even from centuries ago. Low German and Frisian are both the closest relatives of English, and they were especially close (linguistically and geographically) when the Anglo-Saxons were still on the Continent.    

Big Jake, The Conflict of Change

I first saw this movie many years ago, as it was released in 1971. As with some other pictures starring John Wayne in that general era, it had a theme of old versus new; a subject that really never goes away, as change and the fear of change drive many of the adversarial relationships in the world. With the movie, it is not only because of Wayne's age (he was in his mid 60s when he made this film), but also because of the turbulence of the mid to late 1960s and into the early 1970s, when talk of  "the generation gap" was quite common. The changing attitudes of society on many subjects, and the conflict with previous generations over these changes, are reflected in the movie. In this western, by this time a film genre itself straining under advanced age, and set in 1909, Wayne plays "Jacob McCandles," an aging rough and tumble cowboy, estranged from his wife, Martha, who is played by long time friend and often co-star, Maureen O'Hara (their last film together), who has made their ranch into a multimillion dollar operation. Here we have a successful businesswoman versus Wayne's not so financially successful character, who is seen wandering around on horseback, accompanied by his dog, which he calls, well, "Dog" (don't forget, Tarzan called his adopted son, "Boy"). Anyway, rising "feminism" was one of the great changes, and fears, of the era in which this picture was made, a change not easily accepted by many men, even to this day (think Donald Trump).

Anyway, Jacob's 8 year old grandson, played by Wayne's real life son, Ethan, is kidnapped by a ruthless band, led by John Thane, played by Richard Boone. McCandles is unaware he has a grandson... hey, I told you he was wandering around, which is likely a good thing, since if he'd been around, the boy might have been named ... "Grandson." Martha contacts Jacob, who has been ... oh, I think I told you he's been wandering around on horseback. He goes to meet Martha by train, and as his horse is being brought off, one of his sons, Michael, played by Robert Mitchum's son, Christopher, is riding along on a motorcycle (horse, motorcycle ... change, get it?). The kidnappers have demanded one million dollars, a staggering amount for 1909, but Martha reassures the questioning Jacob that, "we have that much, and many times that amount." Since Jacob's sons have not seen him since they were kids, Martha introduces Jacob to Michael and James, played by another of Wayne's real life sons, Patrick. Jacob's oldest son, Jeffrey, played by Bobby Vinton, has been badly wounded by the kidnappers and, thus, is not with Martha. Jeffrey is the kidnapped boy's father.

When alone, Martha shows Jacob a large trunk holding the ransom. Jacob is to take the trunk and follow a map left by the kidnappers for delivery of the ransom at a town in Mexico, and bring the boy home safely. After some trouble, which I won't get into,* both James and Michael accompany their father. It is then we see Michael has a new automatic pistol he brings along. It fires several shots in just seconds, and it is contrasted with the old fashioned six shooter. Michael also has with him a new rifle with a telescopic sight for long range targets. This is contrasted with Jacob's "Greener," a type of shotgun produced in England by a company of that name (still in existence). Shotguns are for short range targets. Jacob also is accompanied by his long time friend, Sam Sharpnose, an aging Apache, played by John Wayne's close personal friend, Bruce Cabot, who died within about a year of making this picture. He too carries a Greener, as well as a knife, and he tells Jacob his eyes are too old to see far off targets.

I won't go further, except to say, the little group sets off, but many people know about the one million dollar ransom, and when the leader of the kidnappers, John Thane, meets the group, he tells them they have to keep the ransom money safe, until they hand it over for exchange of the boy, or that they will kill the boy. Thane is unaware Jacob is the boy's grandfather. Jacob has been out of that part of Texas for so long (we're told 9 years and 4 months), that throughout the film, when people find out he is Jacob McCandles, they always say, "I thought you were dead," bringing various remarks from Jacob like, "That'll be the day," or, "Not hardly."

This is a good movie, and it shows the strains on society in those times, including the very nature of the overall movie; that is, there ARE bad guys in the world, and combatting them is dangerous and requires people who will risk their lives and be tough to defeat them. Both James and Michael are "squeamish," I believe was the word used by Jacob, about having to kill other men. This is an issue still with us today, as now decades later, the world is connected like never before, but this has also provided an opportunity for all sorts of "bad guys" to hurt others, through scamming, or outright killing, including terrorism.

* The Texas Rangers have bought several automobiles and a segment of the story covers the old versus new theme by contrasting the use of these automobiles with horses.

Photo is from the 2003 Paramount Home Entertainment DVD


 WORD HISTORY:
Old-This common word, related to the second part of wor"ld" (the ending was once spelled both "old" and "uld," before the contracted "ld") and it is also distantly related to the first part of "altitude," goes back to Indo European "altos," which had the notion of "grown up, tall." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "altaz," also meaning "grown up." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "eald" and "ald," depending upon dialect, and these later became "old." The other Germanic languages have:
German "alt," Low German Saxon "oolt," West Frisian "âld," Dutch "oud" (no "L"), Danish "ældre" (elder, older, elderly), Norwegian "elder" (elder, older), Icelandic "eldri" (older, elder), Swedish "äldre" (older, elder).

The Struggles For Change Are Timeless

This was first published in April 2014.


I suppose way, way back in time, one group of early humans yelled over to another group of early humans in the next tree and said something like, "You know, if we go live in that opening over there in the side of that big clump of soil and rock, we could have protection from the weather, we won't have to worry as much about lightening and forest fires (after all, there was no "Smoky the Bear, as yet), we'd be safer from predators and we could go out to get our food right from there. Being on the ground, maybe could actually put some of the seeds in the soil and grow some of our own food." The other group likely gasped and replied, "Oh my, we've been swinging through the trees for years, if we were meant to live in such a place, we'd be there. We've survived all this time, we don't need to go changing anything. Don't go rocking the tree" (I guess they said that, because boats hadn't been invented yet), and besides, there are bats in that place. And you want us to go live in there? Why they'd come flying in, scaring the Neanderthal right out of us. No wonder our neighbor three trees down* told us you are dangerous with all your newfangled ideas. Yep, Rushes Limbbough warned us about you. He said no one's going to get him off his ass in a tree to climb down and go putting seeds in the soil. He only charged us a handful of nuts and a handful of berries to tell us that, too."

Change is tough, the bigger the change, the tougher it becomes. The struggle of women to even begin to fully integrate into American jobs didn't happen because a bunch of old, white businessmen suddenly woke up one day and said, "Gee, we've had a revelation, and we're going to hire more women, and we're even going to give some a chance at leadership positions." It took work and, yes, some confrontation, although World War Two provided women with the opportunity to enter jobs long seen as the preserve of men. While much of the prewar mentality returned when the war ended, things have never been the same, and women have made a long, slow climb into many jobs, including top corporate jobs, although they still lag behind men in many areas, as well as in pay in many jobs. In 2008 Democrats had an epic presidential nomination battle, pitting former First Lady Hillary Clinton against then Senator Barack Obama, a man of mixed black and white race. With Republicans in deep trouble at that time, the Democratic nominee was likely to be the next president, bringing either our first woman or first person of (known) black heritage to the presidency. While this thought was tantalizingly positive to some, it scared the absolute Neanderthal, ah, I mean, hell out of others. A guy I knew back then, a life long Democrat, was terribly upset over the choice in the Democratic primary, saying, "Some choice, a b----, or a n-----." His racism trumped his disdain for women, and he voted for Hillary in the primary, only to switch to McCain in the general election. I'm pretty certain he officially became a Republican after the election. Obama's election mobilized the racists and bigots who became determined to bring him down, even if it brought the country down in the process. Had Hillary Clinton been elected, it would have mobilized the Clinton haters, and those terrified of women in high places, to seek her demise.** We already had a prelude to a Hillary presidency, as Republicans relentlessly pursued both of the Clintons in the 1990s. Change scares some people because of its uncertainty, but it scares others, because they're afraid it will succeed.

* Compare that to the modern music group, "Three Doors Down."

** Not all opponents of Obama are racists or bigots, nor are all opponents of Hillary Clinton anti-women, but it speaks volumes that many of those who are such have gravitated to one political party.

WORD HISTORY:
Limb-This word is of uncertain heritage, although an Indo European root form, "elei/lei," with the notion ''bend, flexible," is a possibility. The Germanic forms seem, however, to be exclusive to Germanic, as there appear to be no known relatives in other languages, including those of Indo European derivation. Old Germanic had "lithuh," with the meaning of "extremity, appendage, body part." This gave Old English "lith," which meant "appendage, tree branch, joint, body part." A variant of the Old Germanic word, "limuh," emerged, but why the change to "m" from "th" is unknown, but it too meant "body part, extremity, tree branch." This gave Old English "lim," a form which lasted for hundreds of years, before the ending "b" began to be used circa 1600, but with no apparent reason, although the same happened to "thumb" prior to "limb." Could it have been, in both cases, a dialect where the ending came out with a "b" sound pronounced? Or, in the case of "limb," it could have been a spelling influenced by Latin "limbus," and the derived "limbo," neither of which is related to English "limb." In most cases, the other Germanic languages have words resembling Old English "lith," a word no longer used in English, as "lim(b)" became the prevailing word, but Danish, Norwegian and Swedish all have "lem," for "limb,' and Icelandic has the compound "útlimum," for "limb."

The Ship That Sailed

Note: While originally publish in March of 2014, I modestly updated this September 28, 2014.

When Barack Obama became President of the United States the ship of economic change had come into the dock. In my opinion, the fact that he was the first African American to be elected president was essentially irrelevant on the economic front, although it was significant in that it pointed to the "changing feelings" in the country regarding race, but the idea that Obama's election signaled a "post racial" era, was nonsense, as notice, I didn't say "completely changed feelings regarding race." No, the ship of economic change came calling, because when Barack Obama was elected, the nation's economy was in meltdown. Americans were fearful for their jobs and for their overall well being, and certainly for their futures. Surging oil and gasoline prices in prior years had sapped the purchasing power of many, a purchasing power already diminished for some by the transfer of jobs overseas, with the resulting cuts in wages for a number of Americans, and a continuing "transfer of wealth" to the very upper incomes. Republicans, much diminished in political power in both houses of Congress, as well as in opinion polls, generally decided to make a stand against the new president by opposing just about anything and everything he either proposed or supported, including things many Republicans had once supported, or had even proposed.* No question in my mind that some, but certainly not all, of this Republican opposition was based upon race and the new president's non typical name, but it was also, in my opinion, based upon $$$, as the nation's greed mongers feared the new president would curtail and corral their run wild activities, which they slyly love to call "free markets." As it turned out, no major banker went to prison over the absolutely scandalous mortgage mess, and strict proposals to curb such activity were successfully watered down before they were enacted by Congress and signed by the president, and no new tax on derivatives' and futures' transactions for Wall Street traders became law. Even with their relatively successful efforts to limit public control over their endeavors, the whiny rich bankers kept... well, whining.

President Obama had a chance to hit the "reset button," and to ride the issues of bank/financial reform and the tremendous economic inequality in the country to bring about significant change and to improve the lives of millions of Americans by helping to make the system fairer. As I've noted in previous articles, Barack Obama is not a politician; he's more of an intellectual, with some political skills, primarily the ability to give great speeches. Both Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt understood the populist undercurrents of their times, and both men used those undercurrents to propose and to help enact change to a system that had been dominated by business interests and wealthy individuals, although neither man had to worry about his next meal or having a roof over his head. Obama's choice, however, while certainly related to income disparity, was to tackle the massive thing we call "the health care system" in this country. Various figures suggest "the health care system" makes up something like one sixth or even one fifth of the American economy. We Americans can be tough to please on just about any issue, but to please Americans on reforming such a massive part of the nation's economy was virtually impossible, and his decision helped the wealthy to escape from the position they had put themselves into when the economy imploded, and it led to a Republican resurgence in the midterm election, giving the, by then, even more conservative Republicans control of the House of Representatives, numerous governorships and state legislatures, all with the nation's congressional and state legislative districts about to be redrawn, but with Republicans then often in control of the process.** The President and his administration, seemingly unable to comprehend the potency of the healthcare issue, even after the blow torch was put to their behinds in the 2010 election, could not even get the roll out of THEIR new health care law right, as website snafus and postponement of certain provisions have proven to be an embarrassment, if not yet a fatal blow. On top of all of that, the president and those in his administration had to know the law, or at least parts of it, would be challenged in the court system, with eventually a likely hearing before the Supreme Court. This of course happened, and the law was upheld, but let's be honest, who would have thought this law would be upheld by the vote of conservative John Roberts! Of course, a win is a win, but "my guess" is, further decisions on various parts of the law will not see Roberts ever stray from the conservative line again, as he has already demonstrated in the "Hobby Lobby" case. The thing is, it looks to me that the President and his administration did not anticipate the challenges in the Supreme Court, a group which leans to the conservative side, a fact they already certainly knew.

So President Obama let the ship of economic change sail, with him waving goodbye to it from the dock. The President, Democrats and average and poor Americans better hope it doesn't return to the dock on his watch. Cuts to programs for the poor have already taken place and that's been with Obama as President. More power is now concentrated in a hand full of banks than when he became President, when many banks were called "too big to fail." The overwhelming percentage of economic gains have gone to the wealthiest Americans since the President took office in 2009, and median household income has so far declined every year of his presidency.*** If Republicans get control, look for even worse, as the wealthy will continue to move to cement their wealth within their families by the removal of estate taxes (and dare I say, more tax cuts for them from Republicans, who have a terrible case of worry over the plight of millionaires and billionaires) and the move toward further rule by the rich ("plutocracy") will accelerate. The problem is, with the ship having sailed, it looks like many of us will be able to say about the President is, "He wasn't as bad as having a Republican." Not exactly a good legacy.

* Republicans were divided over the bailouts of the auto industry, initiated by the administration of George W. Bush, and of the banks, a major program proposed and pushed by President Bush and his administration, both of which did get Republican support, but with many dissenters. Obama expanded the auto industry bailout, and continued with the bank bailouts, often drawing the ire of Republicans, who acted as if Obama had started both of these programs and seemingly disavowing any Republican association with either. Health care reform, including mandates for individuals to get insurance, had been pushed by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts and also supported by Newt Gingrich, among other Republicans. Once health care reform was proposed by Obama, the Republicans were almost unanimous in their opposition to the proposal, forcing the two former prominent supporters, Gingrich and Romney, into contorted reversals. So called "cap and trade," also was largely a Republican idea, dating back in some form a few decades. This was the general idea that limits for certain air pollutants would have "caps" placed on them by the government, and that permits would be issued to companies regarding these pollutant emissions. Companies that successfully limited certain or many pollutants could then sell their permits to other companies not as successful in these endeavors, giving them added time to comply (thus the idea of ''trade"). See this Politifact article for the general history of both Republican and Democratic involvement in "cap and trade" over time:   http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/may/23/debbie-wasserman-schultz/cap-and-trade-legislation-was-originally-republica/

** For more on the importance of the 2010 midterm election, see my article at this link:  http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-2010-was-such-important-election.html

*** For details about income, see the Huffington Post article at this link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/median-income-falls-inequality_n_3941514.html

WORD HISTORY:
Well (2)-English has a couple of words "well," this is the noun, "a hole in the earth where liquid or gas comes, or is brought, to the surface." (I already covered "well," the adverb, which is a different word.) Actually, the noun comes from a verb, which goes back to Indo European "wel," which had the notion "roll, move or turn violently." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "wellanan/wallanan," with much the same meaning, but also the related "bubble up." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "weallan," with the meaning "to toss up violently, to seethe, to bubble up." This later became "well," with the sense "to surge/flow up" (example: "The leak caused water to well up around us"). The original Old English word produced the noun form "wielle," meaning "water hole, spring," which then became "welle," and then "well," where it has remained for many centuries. The other Germanic languages have forms with various meanings, some examples of which are: German has the verb "wallen," which means "boil up, surge forth, churn," also another verb, "wellen," which means "to become wavy (or uneven, as in carpet ... get it?) and the noun "Welle," which means "wave" ("water that churns up"); Low German has "Well," also meaning "wave," Dutch has "wel," meaning "source" (a well or spring is "the source" of life around it), and the verb "walsen," "to roll." By the way, "well" is also distantly related to "waltz," the dance performed "with a rolling motion."

Accepting Change, Sometimes Grudgingly

Even John Wayne accepted change, albeit often grudgingly. In one of his later movies, "Big Jake," a favorite of mine, the story has many elements of the changing of the times, and of the Duke's gradual, but not total, acceptance of those changes. It was set in the early 1900s, and while horse travel still dominated, the automobile, a contraption viewed with contempt by Wayne's character, had entered the scene in the "Old West." The movie shows the limits of the modern vehicle, as the good guys, in automobiles, chase the bad guys, who are on horseback. Horses can climb much rough terrain, something automobiles cannot do. Both horses and automobiles need water and "fuel," with the fuel for horses being of the food variety, of course. Two of Wayne's sons* in the film like the new automatic handguns and rifles with telescopic sights, as opposed to Wayne's old-fashioned "six shooter," standard rifle, and "sawed-off shotgun." Wayne tells the one son to use the new rifle to shoot a deer that is off in the distance, but the son refuses to shoot the deer to make a point, displaying the emerging new morality.** When Wayne tells him "we need food," the boy then complies, astounding Wayne with his perfect shot at great distance. Wayne begins to accept the modern rifle as an improvement over the old. Wayne gets an old Indian friend to help him, and the two lament the disappearance of the buffalo from the American Plains, a travesty both progressives and conservatives could agree upon.*** In a poignant moment, Wayne tells him, "Things change."

In the final showdown, one son, armed with the automatic handgun, takes down a top gunslinger with a six shooter. The other son has the new rifle, but he misses the first shot, showing that new things aren't infallible, but he nails the bad guy with his second shot. In the end, the bad guys, led by veteran actor Richard Boone, are killed and Wayne's kidnapped grandson is freed (the "old" saving the "new"). Wayne's Indian friend is killed in the shootout, just as the Indians have also disappeared from the Plains.  

* One son played by the Duke's real life son, Patrick, and the other played by Robert Mitchum's son, Christopher.

** Things are not so black and white, as hunters associated with my family always sought to protect wildlife from abuse and overkill, but I get the point. 

*** As I've noted many times before, unfettered capitalism says, "Get the money, get the money, get the money. The hell with buffalo, the landscape, or Mother Nature." The scary question is, where would many of today's Republican leaders come down on such an issue?

WORD HISTORY:
Change-This word goes back to Indo European "kamb," which had the notion of "bent, crooked." This was passed on to its Old Celtic^ offspring, seemingly intact, as "kamb." Latin borrowed the term as "cambire," by which time the notion of "bent, crooked" had developed the secondary idea of "altered, changed," and the notion of "altered" then further developed into "change hands;" that is, "exchange, barter." This then became Latin "cambiare" and it was inherited by Latin-based Old French^^ as "changier," although still with the primary meaning "alter." English borrowed the word from French as "change" in the 1200s. The noun form has the same basic history, except the Latin verb produced the noun "cambio," meaning "an exchange, bartering." Old French inherited it as "change," which was then picked up by English in the early 1200s.The idea of "balance sum returned from a payment" (as in, "The price was $5.99, and here's the 'change' from your $10.00") developed in the late 1500s or the early 1600s.

^ Celtic is a branch of the Indo European family of languages. Its dialects were once widespread in Europe, but only a few survive as modern languages; for example, Scots/Scottish Gaelic, Irish (Gaelic), Welsh, and Breton (spoken in Brittany, France). These languages are all related to English, but further down the family tree.

^^ Old French was the dialect spoken in what is now much of France, part of Belgium, part of Switzerland, and part of Luxembourg. When the Romans conquered this area, circa 50 B.C., the area was largely Celtic speaking, but gradually Latin spread throughout, giving something of a mixture, but with Latin dominating. Germanic tribes conquered, settled, or traversed parts of the region, giving a Germanic layer to the language; in fact, the terms "France" and "French" are derived from the Germanic tribe the Franks, and "Burgundy" is derived from the Germanic tribe the Burgundians. Later still, the North Germanic "Northmen" raided, then settled in, an area that came to be called "Normandy," derived from "Northmen," as is the name of the inhabitants, the "Normans." All of these factors influenced Old French, and thus modern French, but Latin remained the primary component.