You might not like tech stuff, but I DO. I like the heat to turn on and off like it is supposed to, that is technology. I want the lights to turn on and off from a switch, that is technology. I want the refrigerator contents to stay cold, but not frozen, that is technology.
I like tech stuff. I like the phones to work. I like the computer to work. I like cable. I have worked my whole adult life to never have to go back to the farm. I have fond memories of my childhood. I don't regret a second of it, it made me who I am. But, it also provides the fuel for my fire.
My house as a child was a single wide trailer, with two rooms added on when I was 3. It was cold in the winter, so cold the sheets felt wet when you crawled into them. It was hot in the summer, so hot that you slept naked with the windows open, and ignored the mosquitos. At least once a winter, the surface well that fed the house was guaranteed to freeze and break at least some pipes. The heat was an oil furnace that caught on fire at least 3 times before I left for the Navy at 17. It failed to function multiple times each year. I learned the basics of thermodynamics, internal combustion, fire fighting, electrical hazard (240V motor on the furnace fan that bit us all, at least once), and cussing from the result of that horrible, stinking furnace.
The road was gravel, 9/10 of a mile of red clay gravel. If it rained, if it snowed, if it was sunny, if it was cloudy, if it was anything, the road rutted and washed out. There was a homemade gravel pit that we hauled endless loads of gravel, bucket scoop after bucket scoop, to repair the road. We had wooden bridges that we built by hand, to cross the two creeks. They were about three foot deep and about four foot wide. Every sizable storm, and we were using the tractors, our backs and sketchy ropes and chains to haul them back into place. Transportation was work for us.
My grandparents lived about 100 yards up the hill from us. They did not have an inside toilet. My grandfather was of the firm opinion that you did not shit and eat in the same house. Nor was he willing to spend the money to install one. They had a luxury model 2 seat privy. It was a daily chore, to lime the slots, and a weekly chore to clean the trench. Next to it was a small shed that always held at least one snake. I had foundations for the real fear men have of things getting their dangling bits as they are doing their business.
We did not buy meat, ever. We had cows, pigs, chickens, God so many chickens. We ate eggs every day, sometimes 3 meals a day. We slaughtered pigs and cows for meat. That was a community endeavor, every family working together, slaughtering at least a dozen at a time. We salt cured a lot of it. We had freezers shoved in every water tight building that held the rest of it. We used every square inch of the property to grow food for the animals that we ate, and the vegetables we ate. We were self sustaining, quite capable of living off the grid. We were barely into the first square of the grid.
It was interesting, and I learned about hard work, self reliance and the value of family. I will be damned if I live like that again. It was such a load, every second of every day. If you were not working on it, you were worrying about it. Not so much us, as children, but we watched it. If it was hot, it was going to scorch or dry the hay, the corn, the wheat, the chickens. If it was cold, it was going to freeze the chickens, taint the corn, scald the peas. If it was wet, it was going to mold the corn, soup the field, bust the squash. If it was dry, everything was at risk.
It weighed on us. We worked, all the time. Nature was continuously against us. We were blessed by it, but also cursed by it. No one was immune, and it was what it was. Today, it is what it is.
We were without electricity for 23 hours. Our house is not equipped to be without electricity. We have gas logs, which kept us from freezing. But, we like the conveniences. It pisses me off to have to use a bucket to fill the toilet. It makes me remember that 2 seat luxury model with the ever present snake threat. It pisses me off to be cold in bed, I remember those wet feeling sheets, and feeling the wind through the windows. It pisses me off to worry over the food in the refrigerator, it makes me remember frantically filling freezers with ice.
I hate snow storms, because I remember carrying 5 gallon buckets of hot water 50 yards to thaw the waterers in the chicken house. I remember sledding, and sliding in cow shit, mucking the ice layer out of the stables. I am proud of how hard we worked and how well we lived.
But, I am happier working as hard as I do, in very different ways, to live so well. I miss the convenience when it is gone. Yes, I know how to survive, I know what it takes, how to do it, and a country boy can survive. You don't want to live that way, trust me, you don't. And, I dislike it intensely when I have to.
I said a prayer for electricity, cable and Internet, without a trace of guilt that I was praying for luxuries. I got the necessities, the good Lord provided them to me in history and skills I will never forget or overlook. I just hate it. So, when people tell me they are going off grid, or miss the "good" ole days, I just stay quiet.
There is nothing wrong with that life, and there is nothing wrong in living that way. But it is not a romantic thing, to be wished for. We, as a race and a nation have struggled mightily to put that behind us, to create and enjoy so much more. Every time we get a significant period without those conveniences, I think about this.
I hope to be spoiled and pampered all the rest of my days. I might even spend an inordinate amount of money on a stand by generator, to sit in my yard for less than a day's worth of duty every year. You could say it is the trauma of the daily chicken shit therapy I had as a child. Whatever, I am not ashamed. I won't die in the cold, or go hungry. But I prefer just going to the grocery store. I am happier living this life. Memories are golden in retrospect. If you have not lived that life, be careful what you wish for.
For 23 hours, we got to live the old way. The hell with the old way. Give me the age of computers, electricity and convenience. I am spoiled, and I pray about it. You are just going to have to live with that.
GLYASDI
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