Progressive Times

Several summers ago when I was visiting my grandparents in Arkansas, Granddaddy and I had a conversation that has really stuck with me. He talked about life in the early part of the 20th century when he was a boy on the farm. His family could go months at a time without spending a dollar in cash. Nearly everything they needed was provided by their hard work on the farm. He told how in later years they decided electricity was a luxury they could afford. But then they had to pay the electric bill every month. As more and more things were converted to electricity, it soon became nearly a necessity they couldn't do without.

In today's lifestyle it's hard for us to imagine how life would be without many things we take for granted. Electricity, indoor plumbing, refrigerators, not to mention computers, television, and the like. Intellectually we know many people did without them 50 years ago, but it would be hard for us to.

With those thoughts in mind, I found it interesting a few weeks ago to discover a similar conversation while re-reading for the umpteenth time Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter. Blizzards had hit the Dakota territory so hard and frequently that winter in the early 1880's that the trains couldn't get through with supplies from the east. The Ingalls family was getting very low on food and fuel. They were living on potatoes and raw wheat. They had run out of coal and kerosene, and were burning twisted hay for heat. But they didn't have a light except from the window, and on stormy days it was pretty dark.


"If only I had some grease I could fix some kind of a light," Ma considered. "We didn't lack for light when I was a girl, before this newfangled kerosene was ever heard of."

"That's so," said Pa. "These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves--they're good things to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em."


So I guess when you think about it, "progressive times" are a matter of perspective. Every generation has something that previous generations did without. But it makes me more thankful for some of the luxuries I enjoy when I remember that these things were not always available.

Stop and think about it. What are you most thankful for that wasn't available 50 years ago? Let's not get so "progressive" that we take our blessings for granted!"


By Karla Cook. Copyright 1994.