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How true. I was a child during the 30s and 40s, and lived on a farm. We had a pump that pumped cold water into the house and thought that was great! We had an Aladdin lamp and it was so bright, it was almost like having electricity. (I was 6 when my family moved us from St. Louis, MO to a farm in Illinois.) We adjusted to not having a toaster, to not having running water and a hot water heater--my mother even washed clothes on a wash board and ran them through a wringer that you turned with a crank. But hey--we ate well from a garden, chickens, and killing a pig once a year. We were nearly self sufficient except for staples like sugar, flour, coffee...and we were poor, but we didn't act like it, and I didn't know we were poor. My mother could sew very well, and she made my clothes, even cutting down her old muskrat fur coat into a fur "chubbie" for me. I was the best dressed kid in the 8th grade with my little fur jacket. (No matter that it was much older than I was...and my slacks were a pair of my father's wool pants.) Now we have running water, electricity, satellite TV--high speed internet connections, and I don't think I'm one bit happier now than I was then. In fact, I miss much of the simplicity of life; the slower pace, the fact that we saw much more of our neighbors than we do now. Now everyone is insulated, busy, in their own homes, including me. And I wouldn't wear fur now because I know the terrible price animals pay for womens' adornment.

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