100 Years ago in Arkansas...

Most of the roads were gravel. You would generally travel by mule. The main social event on any given week was church on Sunday. Although there would be an occasional quilting bee or barn raisin'. The County Fair was the highlight of every September. Everyone entered their canning and handwork and feuds could be started over who's pickles were better.

Work was hard but life was simple. There was never any question on whether or not a child should be taken from his/her parents. There was never the issue of domestic abuse. If a man hit a woman and any of the family ever found out about it, that man would quietly disappear, no questions asked.

You knew what was in your food because you raised it. There wasn't any tainted wheat gluten added to the preformed meat patties, because no one would eat something like that. Meat was only made out of an animal, not a preformed, chub packed, vitamin enriched, breaded, heat and eat meal that is so popular these days. Every woman knew how to cook. Every one. It may not always be gourmet, and it usually wasn't, but it was filling.

Granted, 100 years ago in Arkansas, we were about to be struck down by the flu pandemic followed closely by WWI. But no one protested outside the White House. No one dodged the draft. And the press most certainly didn't spend every waking moment trying to find dirt on the President, the Cabinet, and high ranking military officers.

My husband's family at this time still spoke German in the home. Louis was bilingual, his parents only spoke German, and we have a very nice picture of him in his American WWI uniform displayed proudly on our den wall. He was the last family member, at least on that side of the family, who was the proper age when a war broke out. Although my late father-in-law did enlist in the Coast Guard at the end of WWII. The war was over by the time he got out of basic but 2 of his future wife's brothers were involved in the fighting in Italy. No protesters for that war either.

IMHO, it would seem that our generation has gotten into the habit of whining about what it takes to be free. We all want our liberties, but Heaven help us all if we actually have to do something to protect it.