From BrainPicking’s blog comes a New Year’s resolutions list “penned by the great Woody Guthrie in 1942 at the tender-but-just-wise-enough age of 30.”
1. Work more and better 2. Work by a schedule 3. Wash teeth if any 4. Shave 5. Take bath 6. Eat good – fruit – vegetables – milk 7. Drink very scant if any 8. Write a song a day 9. Wear clean clothes – look good 10. Shine shoes 11. Change socks 12. Change bed cloths often 13. Read lots good books 14. Listen to radio a lot 15. Learn people better 16. Keep rancho clean 17. Dont get lonesome 18. Stay glad 19. Keep hoping machine running 20. Dream good 21. Bank all extra money 22. Save dough 23. Have company but dont waste time 24. Send Mary and kids money 25. Play and sing good 26. Dance better 27. Help win war – beat fascism 28. Love mama 29. Love papa 30. Love Pete 31. Love everybody 32. Make up your mind 33. Wake up and fight
Read the full post, complete with a photo of the actual list and an explanation of How to keep the hope machine running, or what socks have to do with self-actualization and belonging.
photo: fine art america
A simple, yet touching list.. Would that we all could focus on the little things more
Boiled down:
# Work hard
# Earn lots of money
# No emotions other than ‘glad’
# Improve appearance
Three out of four of those are anachronistic gender roles, and the last one is mere vanity. Sounds like a Good Man list to me.
“Good morning America how are ya?
Don’t ya know me,I’m your native son.”