How We Lived, Not So Long Ago

For those who say the Worst Times Ever are coming, I kindly refer them to my great-grandparents on my mother's side. Above on the left is HD, my great-grandfather, going with his brother to get corn ground. He was born in 1865, so this is a pretty old picture.

Below is a later picture, with his family and some grandchildren, standing in front of HIS HOUSE, or as some of our relatives call it, their "cabin home". My grandfather may be one of the teens close to HD, who is on the left. They lived a hard life. 

My grandfather had most of the fingers on one hand cut off in a game of "chicken" involving an axe and a chopping block. He didn't back down. Many of the pictures of relatives from the 1900s-1930s on Mom's side are in front of cabins this ragged. Their belongings were few ("no bought toys"); their formal education was limited; their work was hard and continuous; but their lives, if not cut short by moonshine, accident, or injury, were surprisingly long. Mammy, HD's wife, lived to be 90 years old in that cabin. She is below.

So maybe we can live without cable, eh?