Life

Born during the latter years of the great depression in 1938, I lived through the remainder of that.  I’ve lived through World War II, the Korean Conflict, The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Viet Nam War,  The Cold War, Desert Storm, The Iraq War, Afghanistan, and a few other skirmishes here and there.

I’ve lived for years without electricity, central heating, running water, bathroom facilities, refrigeration, school buses, and television, to say nothing of modern electronic gadgets.  I’ve cut and split wood for heat, I’ve carried countless hundreds of cords of it into a home by the armload.  I’ve pumped water by hand for family use as well as watering a barn full of cattle and a few odd chickens, horses, pigs, cats, dogs, and other assorted animals.  I milked cows by hand, pitched hay with a fork, loaded oats and corn on wagons with a fork, drove horses that worked, and pitched manure by hand in the dead of winter.

I’ve used an outhouse when the temperatures were way below zero degrees, and let me assure you it doesn’t take long.  I’ve walked to school for years, and walked home again at the end of classes.  I played in the meadows and woods.  Parks and recreation buildings were unheard of.

Times were tough, work was hard, but I always had a close family to rely on, and I expect my ancestors would tell me how easy I had it.  All in all, life’s been good to me.