Interesting comments, Little Hawk. My daddy said to me one time, he said, all these things we have today that are supposed to save time, just take up more time. Because when you save time at one thing, you cram more things into the time you saved until you don't have time to do anything at all.

He said, your grandma used to wash our clothes in a washtub and hang them up to dry on the clothesline. It took all day long, but we always had clean clothes to wear. Nowadays people don't even have time to put their clothes in the damn washing machine.

I thought about that, and it didn't take me long to realize he was right. I am just as guilty as anyone else. I have time to get my clothes in the washer but no time to put them away, so they sit atop the dryer and the cat sleeps on them and then they have to be washed again to get the cat hair off.

I really like reenacting because we get a chance to get away from some of these things, and learn skills that modern kids today will never know, unless their parents take time to teach them. Last weekend I learned how to start a fire with flint & steel. Great fun. A couple of guys cooked a ham, beans, bread, cabbage, squash, over the fire, and I churned butter. We ate like kings. It was great.

I think each period of time has its own unique challenges and trials. I am glad to be a young person in 2001 because I have access to advancements in technology and medical science that my parents and grandparents didn't have. At the same time it's important to me to know some of the things they had to do before these technological advancements came along... like cooking over a fire, and sewing by hand, and stuff like that. If the apocalypse comes I won't be naked or hungry. ;-)

About the television..... back in 1993 our house was robbed. Our very nice 25" RCA stereo remote-control TV (which was a gift from Mister's grandma) was stolen, along with my jewelry box. Which was a pretty stupid thing to take, because I don't own any expensive jewelry, and if I did, it wouldn't be on a box atop the dresser. Anyway, we had no TV for two years. People thought we had lost our minds. We missed watching movies on the VCR, though, so eventually we did take Grandma's offer of a 2nd hand 13" manual TV. We still have it. I like to have the TV on when I'm sewing or knitting - if I have music on, inevitably I will not get any work done because I'll either start dancing or playing along. I will freely admit I have become a PBS junkie.

There's worse things....