Northern Farmer

Before bed most evenings I like to read from real books because even more than a few minutes on the computer my eyes get very sore. The last few weeks I’ve been ordering some Foxfire books from our local library a few miles away and have to say I enjoy them very much. Last evening I was reading an interview with some oldtimers and what they were saying struck me. I’ll have to quote.

“They’s a lot of changes. They’s as much difference in people now as they is in day and night. People don’t care for people no more like they used to. Used t’be if anybody got sick in the community, why people’d go see about ‘em, not just pass by. If you lived in our community, even if you was seven or eight mile away, when we heard you’uz sick, we’d go see about you. If you had a crop, we’d go an’ see about it. See about crops, take care of your animals, get you out of the rut while you’uz sick, we’d go see about you. Then when you get up, maybe I might get sick, an’ then you’d help, come in with wagon an’ mules, gather corn, haul hay…anything I’d need t’do would be done for me, just like you’d do it for yourself. An’ nowdays you can get sick an people ain’t gonna see about you t’ask how y’are, let alone do anything for you. You’d freeze t’death ‘cause they ain’t gonna get you no wood.”

“An’ y’go t’church, Lord, have mercy! Oh, they went t’church all th’time. They went an’ wore their overalls, their ever’day shoes. You go to town to this church here with a pair of overalls now, an’ see what they say. Oh, they’d laugh at you. We’d go t’church, maybe several of them come home with us. I’ve seen it when we had so many people go home with us that the steers couldn’t pull ‘em up th’hill, an’ part of ‘em would have to walkup th’hill. An’ I’ve seen it when we couldn’t all get in th’wagon. They’d go an’ spend th’night, the th’next day we’d all go back t’church t’gether. Go to a meeting an’ see five or six ol’ steer wagons tied around up in th’woods, y’know. There’s more people then, seem like, that went to church than they do nowdays. Nowdays you can go to church, an’ if you ain’t got no money t’pitch in, you may as well stay home. They don’t care whether you die or not if you ain’t got something t’throw in th’ dadblamed pot. Back in them days, they wasn’t no pot t’pass around or nothin’. If a man had anything t’give the preacher, they’d give him something t’eat.”

“Believe me, we was happier then than we are now. You knowed what you had was your’n, an’ nowdays ever’thing is moving on so fast you don’t have time to enjoy what you have got because you’ll see somethin’ th’other man’s got an’ you’ll be a’wantin’ it, an’ be a’studying now just how in th’world am I gonna get a’hold of that now.Y’see so much stuff-I think that’s confusin’ people more than anything. Th’world’s goin s’fast. Y’see a’many things you want an’ you want to keep up with th’other fellow. We don’t enjoy life like we used to when things were hard.”

This was just a small part of “that” interview but there’s so much wisdom there. In my lifetime I’ve heard so much the same from the oldtimers around here. There was so much community. Life without many of the modern conveniences was a life of fellowship. Now we fellowship with electronic junk. Families would rather stare at the TV all day. Church is a place we hurry and go to and when it’s over we race home to our own little world. And the same thing stated over and over again, how it was so much more fun being around all the neighbors. Now, many gatherings are looked at as a pain in the butt, taking away our time with ourselves in the modern world. This has to be one of the greatest losses brought on by the “modern” world. It just strengthens my resolve to simplify more and more.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 19th, 2005 at 9:08 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.