Starting to feel old and out of place

[cowboy43]

I was born 79 years after the civil war and now I am 4 years from being that old. My Grandfather was a plantation owner in Charleston S.C. and many relatives fought in the war. After the war they moved to Lockhart TX and owned 3 gins. Some came from Miss. I remember them talking in that strong southern drawl that is no longer heard around here. We made a tape of my mother talking and it sounded just like Lady Bird Johnson. I have a copy of a will distributing properties with slaves listed as property. I know this will offend some people , but I will not apologize because for how they lived because that is how it was back then. It was just a different time when I was growing up. No running water , electricity or indoor plumbing. My father was still plowing with mules when I was a kid. In 1952 he bought his first tractor a ford 8n. He worked at the local cattle auction and he stopped riding his horse to work and rode the tractor to work. :cboy:

 

[TexasBred]

Cowboy I can't understand half what this generation of kids say. Boys I'm around still talk "country" but all the girls like to sound "preppy" or citified we use to call it. As for the slaves just part of our history and can't be undone but I'll never try to glorify it. Sounds like you came from a good hard working family. Gotta be proud of that.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

I was born 79 years after the civil war and now I am 4 years from being that old. My Grandfather was a plantation owner in Charleston S.C. and many relatives fought in the war. After the war they moved to Lockhart TX and owned 3 gins. Some came from Miss. I remember them talking in that strong southern drawl that is no longer heard around here. We made a tape of my mother talking and it sounded just like Lady Bird Johnson. I have a copy of a will distributing properties with slaves listed as property. I know this will offend some people , but I will not apologize because for how they lived because that is how it was back then. It was just a different time when I was growing up. No running water , electricity or indoor plumbing. My father was still plowing with mules when I was a kid. In 1952 he bought his first tractor a ford 8n. He worked at the local cattle auction and he stopped riding his horse to work and rode the tractor to work. :cboy:

I'd really like to spent a day with you listening to your stories. Hope we meet someday.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I was born 79 years after the civil war and now I am 4 years from being that old. My Grandfather was a plantation owner in Charleston S.C. and many relatives fought in the war. After the war they moved to Lockhart TX and owned 3 gins. Some came from Miss. I remember them talking in that strong southern drawl that is no longer heard around here. We made a tape of my mother talking and it sounded just like Lady Bird Johnson. I have a copy of a will distributing properties with slaves listed as property. I know this will offend some people , but I will not apologize because for how they lived because that is how it was back then. It was just a different time when I was growing up. No running water , electricity or indoor plumbing. My father was still plowing with mules when I was a kid. In 1952 he bought his first tractor a ford 8n. He worked at the local cattle auction and he stopped riding his horse to work and rode the tractor to work. :cboy:

I know what you mean! My grandparents were born in the 1870's and 80's my parents 1914 both were the babies in their families.
My great grandma was one of the last surviving widows of the confederacy drawing veterans benefits. She died at 104, pork finally got her.
As a kid I remember she had my great grandpa's uniform and saber in a trunk.
I would like to know what happened to that sabre.
My great grandfather rode with the 7th Texas Cavalry.

 

[Silver]

Cowboy43, it is interesting for sure to me that none of us are really that far removed from "ancient history". My grandfather talked a lot about civil war vet relatives of his, like "Uncle Amzi" who came home on a train from Jacksonville POW camp starved to the point that he was "never right" afterwards.
So it always seemed that these long ago events were really not that long ago after all.
102 years ago today my great grandfather embarked in what was possibly the greatest battle of all time, the Battle of Vimy Ridge. I knew him, and feel closely connected to the past despite being short of my 50th birthday.

 

[Logan52]

At 67, I am feeling old and out of place as well. We have been here in this county since it was settled almost 250 years ago. I grew up on the stories of my grandparents and great-grandparents, told around the tobacco stripping room table and at huge groaning Christmas suppers when I and my cousins ate until we could hold no more.
People today just can't tell stories that way. I still laugh when I think of my grandfather telling how they yoked a neighbor to a young steer they were breaking to work, to help steady him down. Well, the steer ran off, dragging the neighbor with him. They were scared and followed in close pursuit, fumbling as they tried to get the yoke off the neighbor's neck.
The neighbor was getting desperate and yelled, "Don't worry bout me. get the steer loose. I'll stand".
Seriously, when I drive down the road I note the places by who lived there 40 years ago. Strangers live there now.
I married late and my kids are in their 20s. They will not answer their phones. They text and expect me to text them back.
I am feeling old and out of place.

 

[wbvs58]

I shake my head at what goes on these days but just get on doing what I do. I don't worry about things as I feel it is the next generation that is running things now and if that is what they want then so be it, they will learn their mistakes down the track.

Ken

 

[snoopdog]

My grandparents raised me, I lived with mom and then dad, but I remember the stories where a good laying hen was worth more than a beef cow,and a good jerse trumpt it all

 

[cowboy43]

My father used to raise turkeys by grazing them on insects, he would take them out in the morning and graze them all day , bring them back in late in the evening. He would kill a lot of rattle snakes because the Birds would set off an alarm when they found one.

 

[Caustic Burno]

I don't know how many times I followed dad with a black mouth cur named Dave. We would Bay my grandma's hogs and mark them in the woods. I think about how the family got together for hog killin. I just can't see my grandkids or great grandkids coping well with that event. On killing day you had brains eggs and biscuits for breakfast liver gravy and biscuits for supper.
I am real fond of biscuits.

 

[kenny thomas]

I'm a little younger at almost 62 but was raised dirt poor. Was in college before we had running water and inside bathroom.
Eat whatever was there or went hungry. Always killed hogs but never a beef. Not sure why unless it was because we didn't have a freezer. Lots of vegetables but everything was canned.
Not a lot of good old days memories here.
But I still work at least 70 hours a week. Text and Snapchat but no Facebook. Spend a lot of time on the computer at work. Guess I will get by.

 

[jltrent]

I'm a little younger at almost 62 but was raised dirt poor. Was in college before we had running water and inside bathroom.
Eat whatever was there or went hungry. Always killed hogs but never a beef. Not sure why unless it was because we didn't have a freezer. Lots of vegetables but everything was canned.
Not a lot of good old days memories here.
But I still work at least 70 hours a week. Text and Snapchat but no Facebook. Spend a lot of time on the computer at work. Guess I will get by.

The house is still there..The Amish guy that lived there a while told me that house was colder than the one he moved from in Montana. It does have water now after a 700 ft. plus well....and I noticed before the guy left what looked like a humongous propane tank install for heating. It would have been nice back then....

 

[jltrent]

I was born 79 years after the civil war and now I am 4 years from being that old. My Grandfather was a plantation owner in Charleston S.C. and many relatives fought in the war. After the war they moved to Lockhart TX and owned 3 gins. Some came from Miss. I remember them talking in that strong southern drawl that is no longer heard around here. We made a tape of my mother talking and it sounded just like Lady Bird Johnson. I have a copy of a will distributing properties with slaves listed as property. I know this will offend some people , but I will not apologize because for how they lived because that is how it was back then. It was just a different time when I was growing up. No running water , electricity or indoor plumbing. My father was still plowing with mules when I was a kid. In 1952 he bought his first tractor a ford 8n. He worked at the local cattle auction and he stopped riding his horse to work and rode the tractor to work. :cboy:

Over 300,000 farmers still out there your age or beyond according to the latest census results which makes you about average, so join the crowd.

 

[pdfangus]

The tragedy is that very few in the generations behind us have any knowledge or any concern about the history we know and care about....I have traced my daddy's lineage back to the revolution all right around where he was born and raised. My mothers family were of English and German descent and apparently came here after WWI...can't find much on them.

I am 70 and grew up around World War II veterans and survivors of the great depression....I was lucky as I grew up with running water and indoor plumbing, but I had plenty of relatives who still had three rooms and an path. and I have known those accommodations very well.

Young people today have no concept of what life used to be like....let a storm knock the power out and they loose their minds in the suffering and deprivation.

around here we still have a younger generation who want to farm but development and real estate prices are limiting factors...

 

[cbcr]

I think that one reason our parents and especially our grandparents and older generation were able to tell stories is because the could describe things in much more detail making easy for you to visualize what they were talking about.

Like many of you, our kids never seem to be able to answer a phone, but if you text them they can answer right back. To me sometimes a simple phone call can get more accomplished much quicker.

 

[greybeard]

starting to feel old and out of place....

same here. I'll be 69 right around the corner and tho all the kewl kids seem to have 'em, I don't have an Instant Pot..

 

[Dave]

I am 67. I don't have a cell phone. My daughter says I am one of 3 people in the entire world with no cell. I told her the other 2 people would be disappointed if I got one now. She said she would call me more often if I had one. I asked her what is wrong with calling my land line? If I don't answer leave a message and I will call you back.

 

[cowboy43]

Sometimes I wonder ( what is the plan) when in 1942 ww 2 started how isolated the world was and America was recovering from the depression and a lot of farmers were plowing with mules , at the beginning of the war the German army had 514000 horses by the end of the war they had deployed 2.75 million horses and mules then 26 years later we landed people on the moon. How has the world advanced so quickly and what will be the end result.

 

[Ky hills]

My parents were older when I was born my dad was 50, and my mother was 46. My paternal grandfather was born in 1894 and passed away in 1979, I was just 4 then but can remember him. my other grandfather and both grandmothers were all born in it before 1905. Both my parents families were farmers, my dads family were tenant farmers, and my mothers family's were all landowners. Some of her family had been here in the county since 1803, I'm a 7th generation farmer. A father and son of that family fought in the revolution and came here afterwards from what would be present day West Virginia. The elder man's grave site was bulldozed by some be nice years ago. My mother says her family raised tobacco some corn, had a few milk cows and some beef cows, along with sheep, hogs and some chickens. My grandmother tended the garden. My garland father worked horses and mules. Mama says they never killed a beef, says about the only meat they are was pork, they cured hams and shoulders. Says they mainly ate from the garden and what was canned from it. I can remember as a child walking into my grandmother's kitchen and seeing hog heads in the sink, where she was going to make souse. They sold some veal calves and lambs, dressed chickens to sell to a grocery store. My grandfather hunted and trapped for furs, even skunks.
My dads family were tenant farmers in a big cattle farm in Fayette County. My grandmother says that they used to have beef evidently did it in the winter because she said they would have it hanging in the barn and go out and cut pieces off to cook. They didn't let anything from a hog go to waste either my granny said they cleaned the hog intestines by tying them to a rock in swift moving creek. Dad always had a fondness for pig feet, I never tried it.
I often think what would some of the older people think if they came back and saw how things are done day to day now.

 

[TCRanch]

Values, morals, dedication, perseverance, strength, faith. Doesn't seem to be as much of a priority among a significant number of younger generations now. My parents were polar opposites; she was an only child from a wealthy family & he was one of 9 kids, dirt poor (aforementioned outhouse, living off the land, etc). Started dating when she was 13, he was 19, married almost 64 years now. My brother & I were fortunate to be exposed to "both worlds" and it was understood we weren't going to be coddled, given everything we wanted just because they could. And I married a man who had no indoor plumbing until he was 8, dug his way out of poverty through hard work & education, became a CEO & retired at 54. We aren't "old" (which is subjective) but simply cannot relate or understand the direction our society is headed.