How

[imported_Dutch]

did they do it? No a/c. No refridgeration. No electric lights. No skill saws. No birth birth control.

[Mike Vogdes]

Men were men.

[Chris Boers]

I often wonder that myself. My thinking is that they did not know of any modern conveniences and made due with what they had.

Imagine not having the internet. As recently as 10 years ago, most people had no idea what it was, and we got along fine.

[ken mcclure]

No CNN, no premium movie channels, no Fear Factor. There was plenty of time to get it done with hand tools and sweat. tongue.gif

[alteran]

I've been without TV for almost 3 years. By choice. Amazing how little I miss it and how much more I get done.

Internet can be as wasteful but when I'm here I'm doing office work for my business and in between having fun. But there are times when it is as easy to get caught up in this as is was to watch sitcoms.

Amish folks work with and for me some. They get along fine and seem to have just as much leisure time [or more] and just as much fun as most of us "english" as they call us non Amish.

Life is what you make it and no matter how you spend it much too short....

Al.

[Victor]

I sincerely wonder whether we're really living better than they did before all that stuff.

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

Well Vic, the short answer is that we are not. Our children have two categories:

1. TV, Computer, Game Boy

2. Play outside, in the basement, bike ride, etc.

They can spend thirty minutes with anything in the first category but only thirty minutes. Then they need to do thirty minutes with anything in the second category. Their choice.

Only by having these rules will they develop the interpersonal skills necessary to succeed in life. We are doing them a favor but they won't know it for another twenty years or so...

[Phil Young]

Plenty of people still go cruising without all that stuff. 'Cept 'lectric lights maybe. Its just what you get used to. We have so many gadgets now that if you go more than 10 miles from a service/replacement source you'd better be able to get by without or you'll be pretty well buggered. Sad thing is people do it all th etime and it wrecks their dreams.

[Victor]

Discovery did a likely scenario of the lifestyle of the Iceman, the 5000-year-old body they found in the Alps. They surmised he had a house on the lake, a wooden boat, a business, a family, and friends, at least one of whom shot him. So what do we have that he didn't?

A hundred years ago you could travel from San Francisco to London in style and grace. You also probably had a servant or two. I don't see all this modern stuff improving our lives in any significant way. All it does is reduce the time it takes to do something. That's not necesssarily an improvement in the quality of life.

[paladin]

gee...I wonder how many old farts here grew up not having indoor plumbing, running water, electricity....and the ability to run to the grocery store every day......
We had a well....manual...at which I "Pulled" water a few times a day, outdoor outhouse that wuz colder'n hell in the winter, read by oil lights or candles, cooked on cast iron stove fed by coal or wood(that I had to break with a maul to get small enough to fit in the stove), pot bellied stove to heat the house.....chased rabbits and small deer with a .22 single shot rifle (Stevens, circa 1910) and rode 3 miles to a two room school house on a pony...that was heated between the rooms with a cast iron stove..
No computers, tv and mom couldn't afford batteries very often for the radio. But on Sunday afternoons it wuz Gunsmoke, Bobby Benson of the B Bar B, Big John and Sparky, The Shadow etc....I was the first of my family to get past the third grade...first to graduate from high school, college...etc and it wasn't paid for by rich parents or relatives. At 10 or 12 I could ride, operate a bow/arrows from horseback, shoot from horseback and "brought home the bacon"
I had a grandfather that would have knocked the crap outta me if he caught me with tobacco or firewater..........and I really cringe at some of the stuff I read here........the world izz out there folks...to make of it what you put into it... :mad:

[NormMessinger]

"You also probably had a servant or two."

Or you were a servant. That much has not changed either, eh.

[Victor]

See my Donn and Alteran thread, Norm. There's a special place in heaven for people who think they're better than everyone else.

[ 08-31-2004, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: Victor ]

[Don Z.]

Yeah, I really miss the days of cholera, diptheria, smallpox...

[Donn]

Hi, Z. Howzit?

[Bill Perkins]

Yeah I think the fractional horsepower electric motor has freed far more people from menial labor than Lincoln did .People used to work 10 hours a day , six days a week .

[brad9798]

Any one of us is welcome to go back (to the days of old) ... what? Oh, I didn't think so ... ;) :rolleyes:

[TimothyB]

Wht modern life has done is give us more free time than we have ever had before. Washing machines, microwaves, pressure cookers, dishwashers, etc.

Then it gave us back things to DO with all of that extra free time. Commute, shop, etc.

It almost seems as if I had MORE free time when I was a kid than I do now. Well... I mean relatively speaking. I know kids have more free time than adults smile.gif

[cdragon]

It's an interesting thing this life, I always think about how everything that is so "hi-tech" and overwhelming today will very soon be considered old fashioned-I guess it has always been that way whether it was figure out a round thing to roll or how to download your wireless thingamajig to your whatchamacallit. I recently read something that was disturbing tho'-all this technology of recent times has done little to truly make our lives easier - that the way we travel is basically the same, airplanes are about the same as they have been for decades (or worse really), trains, cars etc are the same or worse, our households have the same appliances and and nothing has really made an of our "menial" tasks any different. The thing that has changed is information, the amount of it available at all times and the urgency to have it and respond to it constantly - 24/7 in the vernacular. So, our menial tasks of food preparation, house cleaning etc take about the same amount of time, travel is the same or worse, but we are forced to be constantly in touch-always on call-and accordingly have far less time than our parents for instance, who by and large worked till 5 or so and then were no longer available by fax,email,cell,blackberr etc.
So, our lives that were to be served by technology (remember the 30 hr work week, or life like the Jetson's?) are actually serving technology instead and we are running faster, while always available by cellphone, to nowhere...

[TimothyB]

Sending you a PM, Norske

--T