BigDog Speaks

I can be the first one to admit that I am no spring chicken. Come to think of it, I'm not real sure what a spring chicken looks like but I am certain I will never be confused with one.

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As we stress ourselves beyond belief juggling jobs, family, households, and technology, it is easy to THINK it would have been better to have lived a long time ago. Well, I LIKE indoor plumbing. I LIKE the fact that my water comes in via a tap rather than me carrying it with a bucket. My pork almost always comes from the store, already cut up and wrapped in neat packages. I don't have to view a hog as a use everything but the squeal, food source. I know what chittlins and cracklins are, I have the option to decline them and NOT include them in my regular diet. I have never hand dug a well and with luck, I never will. The IDEA of living off the land sounds great as long as it remains an IDEA. Once you take the next step and actually try to implement the concept, it can go bad quick. How many of us could REALLY, grow our own food, enough to sustain ourselves? How many of us could hunt wild game and keep ourselves fed? My track record for hunting is pitiful, if I needed it to survive, I'd get hungry quick. The next time you get to thinking about what might be called, 'the good old days.' You really need to wonder if that were true. Those 'good old days' were pretty rough if you get right down to it. Lots of hard work, meals that most of us would turn our noses up at were everyday occurances. Yes, the freedoms, the neighbors, and the honesty that made up the 'good old days' can be missed but blast if I would be interested in the rest of it. Canning food, growing food, scrambling to get by with whatever was at hand and making the most of what was there is over worked, and no doubt over-rated. I just finished reading through a few of the FoxFire books and I read them with a vivid imagination. Living back then was hard. The folks back then didn't really think so, they knew nothing else. Unfortunately, us modern, progressive, and SOFT folks, would have no chance since we DO know better and the overwhelming majority of us could not stand to give up our modern comforts. Yeah, I figure I am right where I need to be. Did I mention I really like indoor plumbing?