We are so spoiled

The way I read history even the kings and queens and royalty lived in nice houses, that were cold in the winter.

Now as an expeditionary Marine I even lived in a tent with a dirt floor in Korea up near the DMZ (for three months). And it was the fall and early winter, and it got cold. Now in fairness, in the last month me or my “roommate” scrounged a broken piece of ¼ inch plywood so we could have a wood floor, which partially covered the dirt. It was OK.

Now let me pile on. This last winter I spoke with a lady who lived on a farm in Nebraska with her husband and daughter. Now the daughter had to go out once a day to chop the ice out of the heated water trough in the barn for the horse. And earlier I knew some New Englanders who just wear more clothes in the winter to stay warm when the thermostat is set down to save money.

For a no no, I underwent heart surgery about two years ago, and bragged initially about going 39 days without a bath to my nurses who asked if I was ready to take a shower. They were not impressed! But loved ones did send me baby wipes to Kuwait, which worked OK for cleaning arm pits and crotches. And of course, if we all smell the same, then most humans don’t notice.

Now with public electricity, even local people in my rural county and city think they need air conditioning to live, and they are being honest. Yet the first time I lived in Okinawa, a semi-tropical land, if I had had a million dollars, I could not have bought an air conditioner if I wanted to. So I learned about fans. As long as we have public electricity, fans are OK.

Now also look around where you live and see how many clothes lines are out in the yards…not many. Most people seem to use public electricity hot air dryers these days, at least in the USA. We are so spoiled! We are living as common citizens better than most of our ancestors. But we do work to buy these things that do benefit ourselves, or so it seems. Now in fairness, one can still go to Amazon.com and find the today versions of clothes lines.

And I all want to do is live until I die.

In the meantime, I think I'll go back to defrosting my old 1928 GE refrigerator, which of course needs defrosting periodically. These days most "modern" refrigerators have an automatic defrost capability, and many don't know how to defrost the old time ways because they don't have to know. We are so spoiled.