There are many ways that life is so different now than it was when I was a child. The first thing that comes to mind is that we didn’t have bathrooms. Nothing like going to the outdoor privy on a cold winter night. I always felt that someone was following me on the trip back to the house. I could run pretty fast! Our baths in the summer months were taken in a big old footed tub that was inside an old milk truck box. There was a big black cauldron with a fire pit below it that we heated the water in. It was wonderful to have this luxury! In the winter we took sponge baths in our bedrooms with a big pan of water. Since there was no running water to the house we also had to carry in water for drinking, cooking, and laundry. Mom heated water on the stove to do her laundry in a wringer washing machine. The laundry was hung outside on the clothesline except when it was too cold. Then it was hung on lines inside the house. Our telephone was a box on the wall with a crank on the side. We had at least five other people on our party line. You could hear all their rings and listen in on their conversations. Our ring was two longs and a short. You could call the other people on your line by using whatever their ring was. If you wanted anyone else, you had to go through an operator who called for you. A far cry from the cell phones of today that tell you who’s calling so you don’t have to answer if you don’t want the call. I remember a time when an older sister called to see if they could take Darrell and I to the circus and an aunt on the same line butted in and asked if they would take her son too! We learned to type on manual typewriters. You really had to pound those keys. When I started working it had progressed to electric typewriters. Now we have computers and iPads, with spell check, etc. We didn’t have a TV until I was probably fourteen. It was a very small black and white that was usually so snowy you didn’t get a clear picture. We listened to the radio in the evenings. Dad and Darrell always had to listen to the Lone Ranger at supper time. We didn’t get cars to drive to school. Everyone rode the bus even in high school. I missed the bus (on purpose) a few times so I could take the car. Our bicycles were passed down from the older kids. Just normal two wheels and handlebars, no such thing as speeds. We came home from school, changed clothes, and did animal chores. Very few kids would know anything about that these days. Mom made a lot of our clothes from feed sacks or flour sacks. The fabric was pretty, so it was fine until you got older, and someone made a comment that their mom had feed sacks like that. There were no computerized games, so we had to get our butts outside and play and not sit and stare at a screen. I remember an icebox on our front porch when I was very young. Can’t really remember when my parent’s got electricity but have a faint memory of kerosene lamps and outdoor kerosene lanterns. Didn’t know anyone with a furnace. We had wood burning stoves for heat. Remember Mom putting wood in the stove in the morning and shaking the embers to get the heat going for the day. We used wood and coal. Later we advanced to oil burners. Life really wasn’t as bad as this all sounds. Almost everyone lived the same way at that time.
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