by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Let's have a jar is often heard as a statement among the working classes in Britain when they talk about having a beer.
Still today in the American backwoods the moonshiner may offer you a jar of his finest and you can bet that the jar is just that, namely a small glass jar used as a glass. And why not?
It is amazing how, I find, by just looking closer at a common phrases in a language we can come to understand their possible origin and it was common in the early part still of the twentieth century, and even until about the late 1950s (and later still probably) to find homes in the countryside using only repurposed glass jars as everyday drinking vessels. After all they can free with stuff you bought.
Maybe, in this time of recession and austerity (and the recession, despite the claims of being over is far from so), it is time to rediscover this kind of frugality (I have never given it up, mind you) and make use of such things in our daily lives rather than spending money on glasses.
While, today, it is true, drinking glasses and such can be had for little money but a Pound is still a Pound to me and I rather have it in my pocket than in the form of a glass and the ones to repurpose I have paid for anyway by buying the stuff that was in it. Why should I throw it away, even if it is the recycling bin?
Let's rethink waste and think frugality...
© 2013
