When I was little, I lived in a house with NO air conditioning. . .

When I was little, the house I lived in had NO air conditioning. We had no internet. We had one TV, and for many years it was just a black and white TV. Yes, we had it rough.

When I was little, my parents could not afford an Atari. There were no Nintendos. We had a Texas Instrument Computer that my parents used for the budget and taxes. My poor siblings and I had to find other ways to entertain ourselves. So, we played outside.  We played in the barn, we played in the creek, we played in the trees.

We used to take old sleds and use the underside as ladders to climb trees. We had buckets that we used to hoist things up the trees so we could pretend to be tree people. We never had a tree house, but we had fun in the trees.

When I was little, my parents thought we should raise livestock. They were not full time farmers. My dad was a teacher. My mom was a chemist. But, my siblings and I became farmers. We milked Guernsey cows by hand. We raised lambs and hogs to slaughter. We also raised chickens for both eggs and meat. Yes, we worked hard, when I was little. And, we knew where our food came from.

When I was little, things were different in the world. The US still remembered Vietnam, Korea, and the World Wars. When I was little, people saluted the American Flag. We shook the hands of soldiers. When I was little, I said the Pledge of Allegiance each morning at school. And, we all prayed during the "moment of silence" at school.

When I was little, my friends and I thought our dads were invincible. We thought the US was invincible. We did not know that our dads would grow old. And, we did not know that by the time we had children of our own that the US would suffer attacks on US soil. Yes, things are sure different from when I was little.

Maybe air conditioning is not all that great because when I was little we did not have air conditioning in our house, and I think we turned out fine.

Did I mention that Dennis and I did not intend to become farmers?  Our daughters have pulled us back to our roots. They are now raising chickens and sheep with a little help from us.

And, I may pull out an old sled today to see if the girls can figure out how to climb a tree because that is what I did when I was little, when we had no air conditioning. . .