This past week saw terrible ice storms hit the eastern part of the country. Thousands of people were left without power. It could be weeks before power is restored in some areas. They are left in the dark, without electricity, heat, and hot water. They can't cook their food, use their computers, charge their cell phones and ipods, and the list goes on and on. Life has come to a standstill.
All this got me thinking about how dependent we've become on outside sources to provide our daily needs. I don't think we need to worry about terrorists attacking our buildings and transportation systems. If they really want to cripple us, just attack our energy sources. We'll be dead in the water. Then we've got "Troubles," as Dad used to say.
We are only a generation removed from the time when people still knew how to live off the land and exist without a lot of outside help. Many of you can still remember when you didn't have electricity. Since there were no power lines, your life didn't come to a standstill if there was an ice storm.
You heated your house with wood that you personally cut and split. You cooked your meals on a wood stove. Oil-burning lanterns and candles provided your light. If you had cows, you milked them by hand. You didn't need electricity to run a motor to provide suction to milking machines. Milk cans were kept in cold-water tanks in the milk house. You farmed with horses before tractors were available to you. Your cellar was full of food from your garden; canned fruits and vegetables, potatoes, carrots, and other treasures you had personally grown, harvested, and canned.
You could still get water from your own well and cistern that you used for drinking, cooking, washing clothes, and to heat up and take a bath in. Your bathroom was an unheated outhouse.
Computers, televisions, VCR's, DVD's, and PVR's were not a part of your life. Radios were operated with batteries. There were no cell phones that needed recharging, no furnace or water heater depending on outside sources of electricity in order to work. People were much more self-sufficient. Life did not stop as it does today when power is lost.
I'm not saying we should go back to those days. We've all become too accustomed to, and dependent on, modern technology and conveniences. What I am saying is that we've lost an important part of who and what we are. Most people in this country wouldn't know where to start if they were suddenly forced to go without all those things today.
Many of you have milked cows by hand. I've done that too. You raised chickens, gathered eggs, killed your own chickens, plucked the feathers, and gutted them. I've done that too. Now we buy them prepared and wrapped in grocery stores. You raised hogs and butchered them yourself for food. You planted huge gardens that provided you with food all year round. Now most people find those foods in the produce department at their grocery store, not in their cellar.
Yes, life has certainly changed in my lifetime. Many of you have seen a lot more changes than I have. During that time we've become increasingly dependent on technology and outside sources for our basic needs. A simple ice storm can suddenly bring our world to a screeching halt and leave us cold, hungry, and in the dark.
There are still some people in rural areas who know how to be self-sufficient. They could survive in case of a major catastrophe to our power and communications systems. I'm not as confident about people in many of our metropolitan areas though. There's a whole generation that thinks hamburgers come from fast food restaurants and milk is found in plastic jugs.
As I was thinking about this, I thought it's time to give a standing ovation to all of you who remember what it was like to live without all the things people take for granted today. You've experienced many major changes in your lifetime. You've seen the world go from horses still used as transportation, to the automobile, to spaceships traveling to the moon and back. We've gone from a nation of self-sufficient farmers to a population dependent on others for our food and our sources of energy to heat and light our houses and power our modes of transportation.
Like the Woolly Mammoth and huge Buffalo herds that once roamed the prairies, you are the last of a vanishing breed. Future generations will look back and wonder how you managed to survive in such primitive conditions with no electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing, no TV's, no computers, no computer games, no cell phones, no text messaging, no ipods, and who knows what other technology will come along that we can't even imagine.
You belong to a remarkable generation and should be very proud of all that you've done, seen, and adjusted to as the times have changed. You've done things in your lifetime that most people will never do again. You may be the last generation in this country that remembers what it was like to function and take care of yourself and your family's needs, without major dependency on outside sources. You're a very special generation and I salute you.
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