Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

by Barbara Holland

In a collection of witty essays, the author of Endangered Pleasures protests the current state of the world as she discusses such vanishing institutions as liquor cabinets, suntans, clotheslines, childhood, world wars, and pianos. 25,000 first printing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays

235 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Barbara Murray Holland was an American author who wrote in defense of such modern-day vices as cursing, drinking, eating fatty food and smoking cigarettes, as well as a memoir of her time spent growing up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, near Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[dead letter office · Rating 2 out of 5]

One or two of these would be good. Dozens of them is a bit much.

She's salty about all kinds of things. The demise of clotheslines, the dearth of picnics, the obsolescence of pianos, our lack of proper reverence for liquor cabinets and for taverns, the sad absence of telegrams in modern life.

The theme is that she laments the fact that she is the only surviving person who appreciates things like taking walks in the fresh air, and a healthy willingness to take risks. She longs for a day when we had real things to be afraid of like world wars and great depressions and atom bombs. She has no patience for our modern practice of putting asphyxiation warning labels on plastic bags, which she seems to think make perfectly good playthings for hardy children. It's probably just as well that she didn't live long enough to hold forth on peanut allergies.

By midway through you can basically just read the title of the essay and fill the rest in on your own. For example:

Typewriters (strongly pro-typewriter, saddened by absence thereof)... Porches (likewise)... Suntans (as above, and also disgusted by our modern squeamishness about cancer etc.)... Pranks (regales us with tales of her brother's college pranks while strongly insinuating that nobody has had a mischievous brother since 1962)... and so on.

[Karleen Merchant · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you were born in the 1950's or before, you will love this book! I read a couple of the chapters (Clotheslines and Pianos) to my 88 year old mother. She was laughing and agreeing with what was written. She especially enjoyed hearing about hanging sheets on the clothesline.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was clever and so true..it is amazing how interesting and sophisticated people used to be. This book drives home just how sad and pathetic modern life is.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great curmudgeon of a lady! I'm not nearly as old as she is, but I recognized a lot of what she writes about missing.

[Eden · Rating 1 out of 5]

2020 bk 364. I like essays - they are a nice way to end the day, a short piece of reading and then off to sleep. I've even read other books by Barbara Holland and enjoyed them, but this, this book was wah, wah, wah all the way. What I thought would be a nice book of different pleasant encounters turned out to be all axe with no grindstone in sight - so she wrote a book. She isn't happy that time has passed, she bemoans the loss of the neighborhood tavern, that we don't just designate a kid a problem child but seek out reasons, that porches and people sitting on them have disappeared. Progress happens, not all of it is good, but to spend an entire book bemoaning everything that was supposedly lost and what has been gained, well, it isn't the type of book I want to end my day with. I have to admit, I got 3/4 of the way through and put it down.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Brought up a lot of memories, though I was born 18 years later. Here of a few of my memories.

Doctors: Holland’s “In the days before the all-purpose antibiotic, it was important for the doctor to figure out what ailed you, and this he did, not in the lab, but sitting on your bed” is my seeing our family pediatrician, Dr. Bookmyer, in our home sitting on my sister’s bed about to give her a shot. (Watching him pull back his arm to give her the shot traumatized me.)

Suntans: Holland’s “Those who could afford winter vacations come back to the office in February brown and smug,” is my going to back junior high after returning from a family spring break trip to Gatlinburg with a tomato-red sunburn and being pleased with myself.

Picnics: Holland’s “As a form of recreation, eating under a tree seem pretty flaccid now…” are my family’s picnics on Belle Isle and Mom cooking dinner on a Coleman stove placed on the tailgate of our station wagon somewhere in Canada amongst the horse flies.

Old Stuff: Holland’s “In the attic there were trunks. You can still find trunks for sale, but they’re sold as coffee tables” are my dad’s basement file cabinet that housed a couple of my school papers and Life magazine’s cover story on the JFK assassination and the mysterious locked trunk that was in my girlfriend’s basement.

Liquor Cabinets: Holland’s “In modest households [the liquor cabinet] might simply be one of the kitchen cupboards set aside for the purpose” is my family’s cupboard above kitchen stove that held all the liquor my dad won for having the best neighborhood Christmas decorations.

Pianos: Holland’s “I can’t figure out where they all went, the pianos, or how they disappeared so quickly” is my dad’s honky tonk piano, which was kept down the basement and where I sat next him as he boogied his way through such songs as “Jeepers Creepers, “Charlie, My Boy” and “Goody Goody.”

Desks: Holland’s “The very word ‘desk’ has taken on an almost Dickensian fustiness. We have ‘work station’ now, always in the same mind-numbing beige as the computer and its adjuncts” is my dad’s desk that I’m sitting at now, the one that I keep saying I’m going to get rid of but never do.

Nature: Holland’s “For a generation now, everything of any importance has concerned technology and the world outside its windows is withering away” are my nature walks that Alan and I take in Shenandoah Mountains and next to the James River.

Telegrams: Holland’s “Bad or good, the telegram’s news was, by definition, important. With shaking hand the yellow envelop was torn open and the short, wide, yellow message in capital letters was unfolded, to triumph or tragedy. MISSING IN ACTION OR EIGHT POUNDS TWO OUNCES STOP BOTH DOING WELL.” is the telegram pasted in my grandmother’s scrapbook dated Dec 30, 1943, which states “REGRET TO INFORM YOU YOUR SON PRIVATE --------- -------- WAS ON EIGHT DECEMBER SLIGHTLY WOUNDED IN ACTION IN ITALY YOU WILL BE ADVISED AS REPORTS OF CONDITION ARE RECEIVED.”

Childhood: Holland’s “As we now see it, all mothers once sent half their days and all their summer staring fixedly at their young and regulating their behavior. In truth, most mothers have always had other things to do, and from the dawn of time until about [thirty-five] years ago, the first duty of children was to stay out from underfoot and not bother the grown-ups. The second duty was to be home by dark or by dinnertime, whichever came first” is my roaming the neighborhood unsupervised since my earliest recollection and having to be home by 5:30 p.m. for dinner under threat of death.

Ice-Skating: Holland’s “The innocence needed real ice under a real sky” is my one-time adventure with Linny when we discovered a frozen stream across 13 Mile Road, went home to get our ice-skates, and returned and skated on it. An added pleasure was that we had to sneak across busy 13 Mile Road because our parents forbid it.

Department Stores: Holland’s “Once you’d entered through the discreet swish of its revolving doors, there was no pressing reason every to leave. [Philadelphia’s] Wanamaker’s hosted a full-service post office down on the mezzanine; an apothecary shop that carried the astringent toilet water my grandmother had used; an optometrist; exotic delicatessen; an ample book department, watch and jewelry and shoe repair and a piano turner and a beauty salon and a bridal consultant” is my Detroit’s Hudson’s, which hosted a similar array of services and sundries.

…Department Stores: Holland’s “Christmas was the glory season for the [downtown department] stores, and again they seemed to be doing it all purely for our pleasure. Every well-brought-up child was taken to see animated windows, walking slowly around the block with long pauses to watch the elves building toys” is my family’s Christmastime trips to downtown Hudson’s to see the animated windows.

…Department Stores: Holland’s “Then there was lunch in the tearoom. The restaurants and tearooms of the great stores produced no vulgar smells to coarsen the atmosphere, no garlic, no hamburger grease. The special was probably creamed chicken in a patty shell…” is my lunch at Northland’s Hudson’s eating a Maurice Salad.

…Department Stores: Holland’s “Being there made us feel like ladies and gentlemen, and so, for the moment we were” is my warm and fuzzy feeling I get when I remember downtown Hudson’s.

[Sally Burnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book for its sentimental trip down memory lane. So many familiar old things like the smell of department stores being a combination of high end perfume and expensive leather as you walked through the revolving doors; our mom’s hanging our clothes out to dry on clothes lines on warm, dry days and much more that my Boomer generation was probably the last to experience. It’s a wonderful read for those of us of a certain age and for those who wonder what life was like in simpler times, here you go. I just ordered a copy to add to my personal library, having read this while employee at a library a very long time ago now. I eagerly look forward to rereading it soon.

[Melody · Rating 2 out of 5]

Holland's unabashedly nostalgic look backwards draws some deeply flawed conclusions. Many of her eulogies were for things that, 10 years later, turned out not to be dead after all, and that made for some decidedly odd reading. I expected more amusement than I actually got from this one. It read like one of those stereotypical conversations with one's grandparents, with about as much logical consistency. There were chapters of sweetness, however, and that bumps my rating up a star.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Holland's writing style, but some of her conclusions had me rolling my eyes.

[Nicholle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm interested to see what the senior folks at the retirement community think of this book discussion book. For me, too much complaining without a hint of positivity. It becomes monotonous.

[Gerry Durisin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subtitled A Curmudgeon’s Fond Memories. A book of essays recalling in memorable fashion the mores of the past that are no longer followed today. Holland has a wry humor and a style of writing that evokes fond memories about the most mundane topics!