“Have you ever visited a part of the country where things were done as they were in an older time, or were far more modern than you are accustomed?”
When you teach history for 35 years you’re bound to like visiting places where the old ways are either followed or explained. I didn’t have to go very far to experience the old ways either. To start with, I’m no spring chicken. I was born in the middle of the 20th century. My grandparents lived in the country on a farm at a time when many people still didn’t have either indoor plumbing or electricity. My grandfather built his own home with only his sons to help him, It was on the big side because there were eight children in the family. It wasn’t insulated, though, and it was heated with several fireplaces. My mother said on cold winter mornings her blankets would have frost on them where she breathed at night. To get warm they’d run and stand in front of the fireplace or go to the kitchen where my grandmother would be cooking breakfast on a wood burning stove. A lot of food was produced on their farm. They kept chickens, cows, and pigs and always had a big garden every summer. On Sundays my grandmother cooked fried chicken for dinner. She went to the yard, caught a chicken, killed him, removed his feathers, cut him up, and cooked him in lard on the wood stove. You’d be lucky even today to find chicken that tastes as good as my grandmother’s did. To supplement what was produced on the farm they hunted. I still remember fried rabbit and squirrel dumplings. By the time I was born they had electricity, but I think they got their water from a well. For convenience it was on the porch, but don’t worry. It was well protected to keep children safe. Have you ever heard of outhouses? Yeah, they had one.
Besides my own personal experiences with the past I’ve visited Williamsburg, the Amish in Pennsylvania, and Jamestown. I also have a living history museum nearby.
My life today is nothing like my mother’s. I live in the modern world with every modern convenience except a dishwasher. I have one, but it stopped working, and I haven’t replaced it. I don’t think, though, that I’ve ever visited a place that was more modern that what I’m used to. On Monday we learned about Tokyo which sounds lots more modern than my little town. It would be so much fun to see Tokyo, but It gets harder to travel as I age. I doubt I’ll ever make it there, but anything is possible, right?
What about you? Do you have experiences to share?
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