Dale Wyngarden: Human existence tends to exploit, not appreciate

Our TV is frequently tuned to Home and Garden Television (HGTV). My wife particularly enjoys the shows in which house hunters view three options before choosing their new home. These shows don't call for heavy thinking and they’re sometimes filmed in quaint neighborhoods of foreign countries. They’re less stressful than travel. And cheaper.

Perhaps the most frequent complaint I overhear is that bathrooms only have one sink. I can't remember the last time I stood in our bathroom and wished there was another sink so someone could join me while I attended to my daily toiletries. I guess it's a new-age thing.

My memory jumps back to the late 1940s when an uncle and his young family lived in a small ancestral farmhouse just east of Zeeland. Their stay on the farm was brief before they moved into town with the conveniences of city water and sewer, and central heating. Providentially, because it was primitive. No running water and certainly no two sinks. There was a cold water pitcher pump in the kitchen. The toilet was a wooden outhouse 100 feet out the back door. A huge galvanized tub provided weekly baths with water heated on one oversized space heater, fueled by a big pile of corncobs. This was the farmhouse my uncle grew up in. And his brother, my father.

For some of us, it was three generations ago. For others, five or six. Either way, it wasn't that far back that our foreparents lived pretty humble lives. They didn't spend time dithering about two sinks in the bathroom, an island and a six-burner stove in the kitchen, pools or hot tubs, or the inadequacy of three-stall garages. A show the other night featured a couple with one child who had outgrown their 2,600-square-foot house and were on the hunt for something more spacious. Good grief.

Now we all realize deep down that consumerism turns the economic gears creating the prosperity we cherish. But one-and-done doesn't cut it. We are fed a subliminal diet of malcontent. Years ago, Detroit concluded style was more important than reliability. Changing model styles annually to get people itching to trade every three years was their goal. The fashion industry delights in our discomfort in yesteryear's threads. Something new and different is on the rack. Hollywood hairstyles fill magazine pages showing what's trendy.

Wallpaper is in. Wallpaper is out. Wallpaper is in again. Wood cabinets shout yesteryear. Change them for white.

If changing styles don't send us shopping, stampeding technology surely does. The first portable wireless phones were the darling of the construction industry. They sat in pickup trucks in canvas bags only slightly smaller than your carry-on luggage. Today, you can wear one on your wrist. But wait. It's much more. I offered an old GPS to my grandson and he declined, holding up his phone. That was his GPS. And his watch, his camera, his yellow pages, his daily newspaper and his instant mail service.

So we buy new, and the unfashionable and obsolete most often become junk. And we consume more. Not only has world population exploded from 2.3 to 8 billion people in just 80 years, but hundreds of millions have risen from peasantry to middle class. And we buy better. When did you last hear someone sound thrilled about their nice Formica countertops?

Go big or go home. The ride is great as long as we have a seat on the merry-go-round. Will it last? Will everyone get a chance to ride? I often recall our tour guide as we traveled through a Belize banana plantation. We used to be called British Honduras, he said, until the British cut down the last mahogany tree and there was nothing more to strip from the land. Then they moved out and left the land to the peasants. But of course banana growers quickly moved in, and American fruit companies are rich and peasants are still peasants. Don't we love our cheap 55-cent-a-pound bananas? And the mahogany China cabinet your grandmother thought the epitome of fine furniture? It's in the back corner of Goodwill. Nobody wants it today.

The story tells a lot about how the powerful treat the weak, how we all treat the earth's finite resources, and how things that seem oh-so valuable and important today aren't so tomorrow. When the water is gone or we’ve fouled the well, two sinks in the bathroom won't matter much.

— Community Columnist Dale Wyngarden is a resident of the city of Holland. He can be reached [email protected].