Ted, sometimes I think I was born about a 100 yrs. too late. The older I get though,............... the more I like the conveniences.
I can remember as a kid in Nebraska we lived in a small town of 480 people and we were the last house on the towns sewer system, and their was a bag in the line between our place and the next one. The sewer system froze in the dead of winter, when their wasn't enough running down it to keep it from freezing. They would pile old tires on the gravel road and burn them non stop for two or three days depending on how cold it had been. Just so the backhoe could dig down and fix the frozen line.
While it was frozen, it was bundle up, wade through knee deep snow or more to get to the out house. Then have to shovel or kick the snow out of the door just to get in. Summers were almost as bad, with the wasps and the smell!!
I grew up in house that would now be close to a 100 yrs old by now. Had no insulation and in the winter, (my bedroom was upstairs) no heat! You would put two or three quilts on the bed, dress up in your long johns and stand by the heater, (wood stove) until you got so hot you couldn't stand it no more. Run upstairs, dive in the bed and hope you could get the bed warm before all the heat left your body!!
You would wake in the morning and the condensation of your breath inside and the cold wind outside, their would be a 1/4 " of ice on the inside of the window. But you never left the bed till you had to the next morning!
The worst I ever seen it was in the early 60's we had a clipper out of Canada come down across Nebraska. With wind chill we were at 35* below one day and it snowed like a wild banshee for two days straight, 20 - 30 mph winds, and when the blizzard finally quit about three days later we couldn't get the doors open for the snow drifted in them. During that blizzard I slept downstairs in a bed roll close to the wood heater. When we found out how high the snow was I told my Dad I thought I could get out the window over the stairs if it wasn't froze shut. I went upstairs and went out a window that wasn't frozen shut, on top of the back porch. Jumped from the roof to the snow about 3' below the first story roof line.
Made my way out to the my Dad's shop, (that is where the tractor stayed in the winter). It had a heat system on it, set the throttle, give the ole gal a shot of ether and popped the crank over and off she went! That was an old Case tractor with a chain drive rear end. It went anywhere you wanted to go once you got her going. The last thing I remember my Dad saying when I jumped off the roof, remember that big lump out there in the drive is my truck!! LOL I actually had to use the tractor to push my way out of the shop!
One thing about those days, my folks never locked their doors at night till my Mama came home from town one day. She went in and thru the house to her bedroom. When she heard something she called out to my Dad thinking it was him and then she heard the back door open and slam shut! Someone was in the house the whole time.
I was in the Army and happened to call a day or two after that. I could tell by her voice it shook her up and she proceeded to tell me that they were going to start locking the house when they weren't at home and at night!! That was 1975 and I had just finished basic training and AIT and reached my permanent duty station!!
Yep, those were the good ole days!!!
