> So you think you have it tough?
> You need to listen to my wife's mother's version of the "good old days." She was born in a farm in 1916, and spent most of her life as a farm wife. She worked in the fields with the men, milked cows in all kinds of weather, stripped tobacco, raised chickens and a garden, and almost every bite on her table was raised right there on the farm. Houses in those days had no insulation and were heated by wood-burning fire places. The bathroom was out in the back yard and the water came from a well. They survived the depression and several wars. They didn't have truck or tractor until 1947, nor a car until the early 1960's. They got an indoor bathroom in 1957. In the early years, they walked to town. A very small town was three miles and a larger one was twelve. They slept under homemade quilts and wore homemade clothes.
>
> Now she lives in a brick ranch-style house and, although it is about 40 years old, it has central heat and air, two bathrooms, carpets, television and two phones. She says she never expected to live in a house like that. She also says that nobody ever gave them anything. "What we had, we got by beating it out of the ground," she says. She is a widow now, and will soon be 87, but she is in good health and I expect her to reach 100.
> She also claims that hard work won't hurt you.
> Howard


It has struck me in recent years that my mother's generation is the first in our family to purchase their meat and vegetables at a grocery store.

Even my childhood was spent on my grandparents' farm, planting, raising, and putting up all of the fruits and vegetables we ate, and breeding, raising, or hunting most of the animals we ate.

My great grandmother's house still has a well right outside the back door where you can pull up a drink of the finest, coldest water you ever had. My mom can remember visiting there before they had indoor plumbing.

Heck, even I remember having to get up and walk across the room to change the television station.

Moush