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Archiver > CARMARTHENSHIRE > 2003-01 > 1041443129


From: Pat Powell <>
Subject: [Cmn-L] Re Good old days
Date: Wed, 1 Jan 2003 17:45:29 +0000
In-Reply-To: <003f01c2b1b5$254b8b60$2f322940@n7y8h1>


Hi Joe

Well it takes all sorts - as they say.

I have never fancied the idea of a mixer tap. For instance if someone
has been using it for hot water and then you want to run a drink of cold
water - then you have to run off quite a bit of water before you get
nice cold water out of the tap. - what a waste of water!

When our water was cut off for a couple of days while the pipes were
replaced you really understood how lucky we are to have it ready on tap
- so to waste it seems wrong.

Anyway - maybe I am just a poor old "wrinkly" who still likes some of
the "old" ways - and I do love walking in bare feet!!!!


Very interesting to hear you got the 1900 house and 1940 house over
there on your mountain top!!
You should have heard all the comments we made when it was on!


Anyway - I wish you - and all the rest on the list a very happy new
year.

All for now

Pat




In message <003f01c2b1b5$254b8b60$>, Joseph Gregory
<> writes
>I'm sure there are nearly as many different personalities among the Amish as
>there are amount the "outside world.
>If it is available in Britain, Australia or wherever you are, the movie
>"Witness" with Kelly Maginess and Harrison Ford seems to me to be as good a
>"picture" of the Lancaster area Amish as one can get.
>We stopped by the roadside and purchased something, I forget what it was, from
>an Amish man and his son. The man was not wearing shoes. What I remember were
>his feet. They were extremely calloused and he has only stubs for toenails. I
>think his feet were in that condition because he followed his plow in his bare
>feet, and the soil and the occasional rock had calloused his feet and worn his
>toenails down to almost invisibility.
>Would I like to live like that? Absititvely and posolutely (as my mother used to
>say) NOT and I don't think any of you COULD, knowing that modern appliances and
>conveniences were available, I think it would drive us crazy.
>We came up behind a group of Amish men driving a car. The odd think was that ALL
>of the chromium, including the bumpers were painted black and the car looked
>like a black hole in space.
>I asked a non-Amish girl who was working at a shop about the car and she said
>that the rule among the Amish seems to be that "If your grandfather did IT, you
>can do IT (whatever IT might be) too." That is why some have electricity,
>drive and smoke.
>I watched the BBC production of "The 1900 House" and "The 1940 House" and the
>people who volunteered to live in these houses barely survived the short time
>they had to stay in these houses.
>Our 1900 and even 1940 ancestors could live that way because they didn't know
>any other way. But with what we now know about what is now possible our
>frustration would be unbearable.
>A small example; When we visited Aberdare a few years back, our cousins' sinks
>and bathtub had separate spigots for the hot and the cold water. Now you might
>not have noticed that, but because we have spigots which mix the hot and cold
>water together into one stream, so you can make the water coming out of the tap
>as warm, hot, or cold as you like, although it was a small thing, I fretted
>about that difference all the time we were there.
>I can only imagine our frustration if, as our ancestors did, we had to draw
>water from a well, creek or an outside pump, then heat it in a fireplace or on a
>stove and bathe in a metal tub, near the nearest source of heat, knowing that we
>didn't have to do any of that?
>When I was a child, washday for my mother was a ALL DAY wet and messy job, even
>with a wringer-type washing machine, especially in the winter when heavy wet
>clothes had had to be hauled out to the back yard and hung on a rope clothesline
>with wooden clothespins/pegs while the cold wind whipped the soggy clothes in
>her face! NO THANKS? Did you ever try to put clothing that has been frozen stiff
>in a laundry basket?
>People did what was expected of them and they did it to survive. Survival is a
>very powerful motivator.
>Don't let anyone tell you differently, THESE ARE THE GOOD OLD DAYS.
>Eagerly anticipating whatever improvements the new year and all subsequent
>years, will surely bring.
>Happy New Year.
>Joseph Gregory
>Mt. Top, Pa
>
>
>
>
>
>==== CARMARTHENSHIRE Mailing List ====
>WALES GENEALOGY, The Easy Guide to Welsh Genealogy
>THE GENEALOGY SITE FOR THE WHOLE OF WELSH RESEARCH
>http://www.WalesGenealogy.co.uk
>

--
Pat Powell

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