Old Days

I remember when I discovered hotdogs. Later, I found out they had special buns to put them on. Sometime later, I found out there were places where people cooked for you and they were not called Mama. They wanted money for the food then they wanted you to leave money on the table. What's with that? Well, we think different these days. I can tell by looking at the world that we think different. It's messed up. Duh! or Dah! or Whatever!

How'd we get here? I whipped my children and made them go to school. I'm still paying for children to go to school. Other people didn't whip their children and they are proud to be modern parents. They write their children every week in C/O some government institute or rehab center. So those children's children are wandering the streets eating pizza and getting fat.

That was gloomy. All children didn't go that way. Fact is the generation we raised is raising children with a new and modern style. Television is the babysitter and fast food is the homecooked meal they will remember. Teachers are smarter than their Mama and Daddy, so there is a continuous conflict of morals. Or maybe not.

The economy drives us these days. Once a year for a week or two is all the quality time families have together. It was the economy in the old days too. Parents and children worked side-by-side and had lots of time together. They sweated together, ate together and piled up in the old farm house to get some sleep before time to milk the cows.

I hate to say it but sometimes we had to kick the dog out of the trail. Sometimes a whack at a chicken was necessary to get it off the porch. You know, normal stuff like that.

Thing about those days, we were together in the same place a lot. The blisters on our hands didn't matter much. Mama would plaster them with something. Clothes for Christmas were a blessing and we actually smiled when we got them. Nowadays, some children will pitch a big one if they open that box and it ain't no game of some kind or a whatchamacallit.

Some things about these modern days are okay. Indoor plumbing is nice. That outhouse could get cold in the winter and stinky in the summer. Electric stoves are great. There is no need to cut wood until dark to feed a wood burner. We called them wood stoves. (Of course, if they had been wood stoves, they would have burned up.) Just have to take care of that bill every month. Wouldn't a bill back then. But back then, we had some woods we could prune for fire wood. Create smoke these days and you got to explain yourself to the fire department.

I'm telling you, back then if I wanted to shoot a squirrel, I did it. Ate it too. I didn't shoot all of them. I got some in my yard now, feed them everyday with the edges off my toast. I don't shot squirrels anymore. I don't shoot anyone I know. Not yet.

I even punched a cow once for slapping me with her tale while I was milking. She stepped in the milk bucket so I never punched her again. I don't milk cows anymore, just take the little strip off the lid of the milk jug. About that little strip, somebody knows how to torment old people!
We didn't have strips on milk jugs, just had to scoop the cream off the top and go at it. Rich stuff. It would stand you up and make you want to go load some hay.

Standing in Front of the Fireplace

Standing in front of the fireplace was an adventure when we were children. Of course, the big kids always pushed me over to the edge. Most of the heat comes out in front. But when I could get in front, it felt so good after coming in from the farm work. We didn't have the fireplaces for beauty, they were our source of heat, except in the kitchen where the cook stove did the job.

You could stand in front of that fireplace and freeze everywhere except on the back of the legs. I stood there, trying to get warm, until my pants legs smelled like they were about to ignite. The back of the legs would feel all itchy and hot but the rest of the body was still shivering. Those were the good old days. :)

A pop meant you started looking to see where the hot coal went. We didn't have screens, most of the time there were enough kids to stop anything that popped out of the fireplace. But if you heard the pop, you looked. You did not want that hot coal in your pants leg cuff. We always had cuffs so we could wear the pants another year. At night, the pop meant you got up, if you slept in the living room, and grabbed the hot coal and tossed it back in the fireplace. It's a wonder we did not all burn up because I know not all the coals got tossed back, I've seen places on the floor where they burned themselves out.

No wonder we stayed outside all the time in the summer. It probably took the whole summer for us to get warm again and besides we could store up some heat for the next winter.