I was born at the beginning of the Atomic Age, grew up in the post-World War II industrial boom, stepped from college into the budding computer revolution and retired into the gee-whiz digital explosion.
Throughout it all, however, the ever-present, overarching, Age of Consumerism had the greatest impact on my life. I was taught to consume, encouraged to consume, judged by what and how I consumed and was both rewarded and chastised for my consumption.
I became a consumption addict in a world of consumption addicts.
Long-ago generations recorded the chronology of their brief time on Earth through cave paintings, birth and death records scribbled in the back of family Bibles and occasional footnotes in newspaper clippings about grand champion pigs at the county fair.
My life is electronically memorialized in the debits and credits of my bank accounts, credit cards, loan agreements and real estate purchases. If some future archaeologist or genealogist digs me up and examines the bones of my life, the clues likely will be numerical, not literary.
These are the facts of life — as Adam Smith pointed out back in 1776. Capitalism and market competition govern our lives in the United States and in most of the rest of the world. Other theories, based on heavily regulated, planned economies (think communism and other harsh forms of socialism) have never had much success.
Of course, a few hybrid systems are still out there trying to balance free markets with social concern, in order to keep the foxes from eating all the chickens along the way. Still, at bottom line, people seem to live to buy more stuff cheaply from the fox, who lives to expand his poultry farm.
I am not complaining about this Age of Consumerism. I have known no other life. As a child, I was sold Twinkies between segments of “The Howdy Doody Show.” As a senior citizen, I am sold the pill-of-the-week between segments of “Jeopardy” to help me overcome the health problems created by the Twinkies. My imagination cannot stretch to any other viable reality.
What I regret is not figuring out the economic game soon enough to help me participate more wisely. Said simply: I have bought a lot of worthless things with only a few gems sprinkled on top.
Wise consumer purchases have included a wedding ring, college educations for my two children, a 1975 model Yamaha guitar, numerous family vacations, four out of seven cats that have lived in my home through the years and a pair of blue jeans with elastic in the waist.
Absolutely worthless purchases I have made include a series of three Ford Pinto automobiles, models 1971, 1973 and 1975. I think I kept buying them because they were all I could afford. Also, they were like one of those grotesque odors you have to keep unpinching your nose to re-smell, in order to verify the stench is bad as you first thought.
Many of my Age of Consumerism mistakes were simply impulse buys based on some salesman’s pitch. I do not plan to buy any more seersucker leisure suits, bongo drums, George W. Bush chia heads, pet rocks, sea monkeys, Chinese finger traps, hula hoops, Ginsu knives, five-in-one exercise machines, mole traps, paint-by-the-number kits or life insurance policies with fine print saying I must die in a zombie apocalypse to receive payment.
The really bad buys, however, were the ones I was told would make me happier, sexier, more attractive, more successful, more intelligent, more important, more acceptable — just more “in.” They didn’t.
Reality is, those attributes are not for sale.
A boy overjoyed with a new bicycle will realize in a day or two he is either a happy or sad boy, a loved or shunned boy, with a new bicycle.
The ecstatic woman with a new 10-carat diamond bracelet will realize in a day or two she is either a happy or sad woman, a loved or mistreated woman, with a new 10-carat diamond bracelet.
Neither the bike nor the bling changed anything.
I wish I had figured all this out when I was a teenager. I would now have a lot less junk stored in my basement.
Bud Herron is a retired editor and newspaper publisher who lives in Columbus. He served as publisher of The Republic from 1998 to 2007. His weekly column appears on the Opinion page each Sunday. Contact him at [email protected].
