Muhler
Imperial Majesty
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2010
- Messages
- 16,888
- City
- Eastern Jutland
- Country
- Denmark
I'm a bit suprised this isn't done in Denmark Muhler. How does your community know what's happening in your life without this system?
Facebook.
Seriously, certainly out here in the more rural areas it's still quite normal to put in a notice in the local paper when someone has been baptized, married or dead and sometimes anniversaries too. Often with a little photo. But not births.
And the obituaries are indeed the very first thing quite a lot of people read when they get the paper.
But it is increasingly being replaced by Facebook, which the 50+ generations have adopted to such an extent that I believe they are the most eager users! - I mean, how can you be a retiree and not be on Facebook?!? You might just as well be deaf, blind and mute!
But it's no more than two generations ago that virtually all gossip... eh, I mean exchange of community information took place at the local what we today will call a mini-supermarket. Where all the local housewives met and chatted.
In this part of the country there is still an expression "Det siger de nede ved købmanden = they say so down at the grocer" (always said in dialect BTW), which was used to emphasized the validity of a piece of gossip... information.
And in every single village or neighborhood there was invariable a woman who was publicly known as say "Mariager avis = Mariager (town) newspaper", who somehow always knew every single piece of the latest gossip and saw it as her sacred duty to pass it on to as many people as possible.
The alternative to a local paper, whether it came in paper or human form, was the mailman. That was mainly in the countryside though. Many times during his route the mailman would be invited inside for a cup of coffee, so he could pass on the local gossip. Because he had first hand knowledge of how things were at the other farms in the area.
How the mailmen ever managed to get through the day without a caffeine shock is beyond me...
And in small towns street-mirrors like these: http://www.artbazar.dk/www/Upload/fileuploa/4845/134.jpg or this: http://www.fotoagent.dk/billeder/82437/stor/496_IMG_4681__Large_.jpg hang outside at least every third house, so that the occupants inside, could sit at the coffee table and keep an eye on what's going on the street.
- I have a feeling that similar systems existed in Australia?
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