a generation that;
> was trained up in the way that we should go
> knew right from wrong because Mom taught us from an early age
> got spanked when Dad got home from work, not in anger, but because Mom had told me it would happen if I kept doing what she had said not to do.
> and got spanked in public, as may have been required
> eschewed; tattoos, body piercings, getting drunk, free love, etc
> dressed modestly
> had no electricity, no running water, no indoor-plumbing, and heating was by woodstove stoked up before bedtime; and we woke up to ice on the water pail.
> saw three or more kids huddled in the same bed, under the same blanket, and woke up sometimes with a nightshirt froze to the wall.
> took a bath once a week, when mom dragged the bathtub in; girls first, then the eldest boy, then the riff-raff..
> scrubbed the clothes in the washtub, then hung the clothes on the outdoor wash line to dry, summer or winter.
> that had Uncles returning from the War, not always in the best of mental health, never mind the missing bodyparts and foreign wives.
> in the which, not having birth-control, granny was with child most of her life, and not all of the babies survived.
> in the which men grew old before their time and died early, having wore themselves out. Some were missing various body parts, having lost them to farming accidents. Teeth disappeared early, never to be replaced. Losing a leg or an arm was often a death-sentence.
> often had three generations in the same house
> fall, was slaughter-time
> winter, was a time of hibernation, and looking after those creatures trapped in the barn, that had snow up to the hayloft. There was no car, in no garage. The tractor was in the shed; and nobody was going anywhere until Grandpa shoveled an alley to the outhouse; byo tp.
> Dads, if not actively farming, were boarding in the city, working.
> firewood had to stored up all summer as time permitted
> Mums had to be doctors, Dads were dentists, kids were often just an annoying necessity, older daughters became midwives.
> eventually, daughters were married off and moved to distant parts that took weeks to travel to, if you had a horse and wagon. But they always came back whenever a family member got married or died.
>Grandma read the Good-Book to Grandpa who was one-eyed and had fingers missing, from farming accidents, and was too tired. Us kids listened from the sleeping area with Mum. Dad wouldn't come home until the weekend, weather and finances permitting; and if the pos old car he bought, made it home. But boy-O-boy, he loved that Austin A40; in spite of, every winter the head came off for a valve-job. Dads were mechanics, too.
> people wore a lot of hats. In those years, life was hard. But they had a vision for a better future for their children, my parents; and for their grandchildren, that's me. We had that better-life; but it's gone now. We are in retrograde, being crushed by an oppressive government, exactly as prophesied hundreds of years ago. The "good-life" came and went. As we collectively got richer, we went the way of Solomon, who said; "look; this is what I have done by my hands." And poof! just like that he lost his mind and fell to eating grass. Now, we have done it again; allowed evil to flourish. We will all soon die but not from having reached a good old age......
> Yes, it looks like we are the final generations; WWIII is on the horizon. We will never come back. Humanity as we know it, will be destroyed, the Earth torn asunder. Survivors will sift thru the rubble for a thousand years; God help us all
