As the world begins its next adventure in financial chaos and rolls over to expose its soft underbelly of lies and deceit that have been perpetrated on the public, those that see the truth have been warning the people once again. You can give people the truth but you cannot make them believe it. That is for them to come to grips with.

Trade wars are usually bad for all parties in the end but between the beginning and the end there can be some surprising developments. Human actions and delusions on the part of the public can produce strange results at times. All of our systems are based on trust. When that trust is lost, everything will come crashing down. Until then, things will go on.

If trade tariffs with China have the short term effect of creating American jobs, that could have a wealth effect by creating more disposable income in American pockets. That in turn can have a positive effect on the stock market and consumer confidence. Also, commodities are set to soar in price soon and this could carry the stock market up with it for a while.

I think you already know the answer to this, our government is preparing for a crisis – A MAJOR CRISIS. 
So make sure you watch this presentation while it’s still online…

Richard Russell once said he believed we would have a third leg in the current bull market before the bears take charge. He was right in the past and could be right again, only time will tell. This situation can not last long due to the enormous mal-investment built up in the system over many decades. A house of cards will eventually fall and the taller the house the longer and harder the fall will be.

One thing that could destroy the temporary high could be the destruction of the financial system due to loss of the reserve currency status and the replacement of the petrodollar system. If and when that happens things will not be looking good for America for a very long time. China is taking actions that could result in just that type of outcome. Their new silk road initiative and oil trading system utilizing Yuan to gold will eventually have serious consequences for Americas standard of living.

Total debts and derivatives in the world amount to 30-50 times of world GDP. The bulk of this is derivatives and when they fail they will become worthless. The 250 trillion or so in global debt will default when asset prices implode and interest rates explode. When the debt bubble explodes stocks could decline by as much as 95%. Interest rates could exceed the 20% rates we saw in the 1970’s.

In the last 100 years the value of major currencies have declined by 97-99 % relative to purchasing power in gold. The last 1-3% will follow very soon. When the financial system collapses due to losses from derivatives and stocks it will erase all of the savings, and retirement funds people were expecting to get at some future date. This will instantly impoverish the bulk of the population.

As the system collapses the banks will likely try to re-inflate assets by massive money printing which will only cause hyperinflation at some point. As hyperinflation kicks in the price of many assets like stocks, bonds, investment properties and art will likely collapse in real terms. Items like gold, silver and productive farmland will likely fare better.

Eventually deflation will carry all asset prices down as the world falls into a global depression, possibly for decades. All of these things will likely result in social unrest and wars as people become hungry and angry at a system they took for granted for so many years. The trust will be broken and people will look for something else to believe in.

One thing is for certain. People today believe anything but reality and that will catch up to them all very soon in a very painful way. Things work until they don’t. Our economy has been rolling along for decades on the stored wealth of previous generations but that is about to run out of steam very soon. When it does it will be a shock to all but a few. You can ignore reality but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.

If you’re interested in learning more old remedies, you should read The Lost Book Of Remedies.

The physical book has 300 pages, with 3 colored pictures for every plant and for every medicine.It was written by Claude Davis, whose grandfather was one of the greatest healers in America. Claude took his grandfather’s lifelong plant journal, which he used to treat thousands of people, and adapted it into this book.

Learn More…

Want To Prep But Not Sure Where To Begin?

Just a few weeks ago, I did a radio show on UFOs that started off on the Men in Black, but which later became focused on the well-known document titled Proposed Studies on the Implications of Peaceful Space Activities for Human Affairs, a part of which was focused on alien life. It was a document written by an employee of the Brookings Institution named Donald N. Michael. The report was contracted by the Committee on Long Range Studies, which was an arm of NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The document was completed and provided to the House of Representatives in the 87^th United States Congress on April 18, 1961.

The host of the show referred, on several occasions, to the “top secret” nature of the document. I pointed out that the document had not been top secret at all. “Yes, it was,” was the reply. “No, it was not,” I hit back. Other people who phoned in said the document had a high classification. One caller stated it had “been classified above top secret.” There is no “above top secret” category, by the way. Matters went on like this for around fifteen minutes. Afterwards, and for a few days, I decided to run a little experiment. I spoke to a few people in Ufology about the Brookings report and deliberately steered the conversation in the direction of the supposedly secret document. I was amazed at the number of other people who had assumed the document had been highly classified. One was sure there was a “top secret” stamp on his copy of the report, which is complete crap. All of this demonstrates just how unreliable our memories can be. How do we know this? Well, consider the following:

In the December 1960 / January 1961 edition of the NICAP UFO Investigator magazine, a feature appeared under the banner of Space-Life Report Could be Shock. It tells us this: “The discovery of intelligent space beings could have a severe effect on the public, according to a research report released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The report warned that America should prepare to meet the psychological impact of such a revelation. The 190-page report was the result of a $96,000 one-year study conducted by the Brookings Institution for NASA’s long-range study committee.”

As the above extract from NICAP (the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) makes abundantly clear, the ufologists of the day – late 1960 / early 1961 – knew all aboutthe Brookings report. It was not a hidden report. In other words, there was nothing secret about it at all. NICAP added: “Public realization that intelligent beings live on other planets could bring about profound changes, or even the collapse of our civilization, the research report stated. ‘Societies sure of their own place have disintegrated when confronted by a superior society,’ said the NASA report. ‘Others have survived even though changed. Clearly, the better we can come to understand the factors involved in responding to such crises the better prepared we may be. Although the research group did not expect any immediate contact with other planet beings, it said that the discovery of intelligent space races ‘could nevertheless happen at any time.”

NICAP had more to say: “Even though the UFO problem was not indicated as a reason for the study, it undoubtedly was an important factor. Fear of public reaction to an admission of UFO reality was cited as the main reason for secrecy in the early years of the AF [Air Force] investigation. Radio communication probably would be the first proof of other intelligent life, says the NASA report. It adds: ‘Evidences of its existence might also be found in artifacts left on the moon or other planets.’”

And then there was this from NICAP: “…previous thinking by scholars who have suggested that the earth already may be under close scrutiny by advanced space races. In 1958, Prof. Harold D. Lasswell of the Yale Law School stated: ‘The implications of the UFOs may be that we are already viewed with suspicion by more advanced civilizations and that our attempts to gain a foothold elsewhere may be rebuffed as a threat to other systems of public order.’ The NASA warning of a possible shock to the public, from the revelation of more advanced civilizations, support’s NICAP’s previous arguments against AF [Air Force] secrecy about UFOs. All available information about UFOs should be given to the public now, so that we will be prepared for any eventuality.”

Even when I brought all of this to the attentions of friends and colleagues, some were still sure it had been a highly classified document, with one claiming it had remained classified until the 1990s. Garbage! This may have far more to do with the human mind and our memories, rather than sloppy research. I’m reminded of other similar situations and memories of the Fortean kind, such as those concerning the “missing Thunderbird photo,” a subject I’ll get to on another day.

If you’re interested in learning more old remedies, you should read The Lost Book Of Remedies.

The physical book has 300 pages, with 3 colored pictures for every plant and for every medicine.

It was written by Claude Davis, whose grandfather was one of the greatest healers in America. Claude took his grandfather’s lifelong plant journal, which he used to treat thousands of people, and adapted it into this book.

Learn More…

In an excellent article by Jeff Lukens here on American Thinker, he asks the question, “Is a second civil war coming?”  In reply, I say that America’s second civil war has already begun.  Its opening shots were fired by Barack Obama when he stated, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

Most of this country is center-right and never considered America a place that needed transformation.  Most people can think of things they would change but few believe the nation needs to be torn down and rebuilt.  Obama failed but the left soldiers on in its quest for a new America remade in their own image.

When Obama went on his world apology tour, he wasn’t apologizing forAmerica, he was apologizing for Americans.  This is the essence of this second civil war.  Leftists are demi-gods who believe they are America and that anyone who does not believe in them cannot lay legitimate claim to this country as their own.

Yes, this war has begun.  The opening skirmish was the Obama presidency itself, which history will see as a failure, despite what the media want us to believe in the here and now.  Sure, he passed ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank, overregulated, and ruled by executive diktat to great media acclaim.  Yet, ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank have been whittled away by legislation and judicial rulings, while Trump has prioritized deregulation and reversed many of Obama’s illegal executive orders.

The war’s second battle was the 2016 presidential election when Hillary Clinton, Obama’s chosen successor, lost to a television personality whom very few took seriously as a candidate.  Trump won despite the Obama administration conspiring with the Clinton campaign to steal the election and has remained as president even as that conspiracy fundamentally transformed into a failed coup attempt to depose him.

Trump’s presidency has been the third battle and with his string of successes, the battle is being won.  This, despite near-universal acrimony and condemnation among the media, the Democrats, and the left.

But, “what difference, at this point, does it make?” because these victories are pyrrhic.  As the eminent Michael Walsh said of the left, “they never stop, they never sleep, they never quit.”  Democrats are chipping away at this nation with their policies.  This is a war of attrition and we Americans are being attrited.

For example, their “open borders” policy is effectively importing a new electorate — one guaranteed to vote for them.  The left agrees with Obama, there is nothing wrong with America, it’s those damn Americans, so they are going to drown the conservative vote with new Democrats.  It’s the same with their policy of “everything should be free.”  Why vote for someone who promises equal opportunity when someone else promises a better outcome?

Nuclear winter became global warming became climate change became “we want total control over everything.”  The reason why Democrat candidates for the presidency so quickly signed on to my congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal is its promise of comprehensive control over every aspect of our lives.  Eliminating planes, trains, and automobiles will keep us close to our homes and jobs or for those “unwilling to work” in their basement enjoying their “universal basic income.”  Dependent people without mobility are easier to control.

The 2020 election looms as the next battle and it will be hard fought because Democrats have myriad policies that may sound great but are really about control.  They have always been masters of micturating down our leg and telling us it is raining.

Yet, they don’t need to trick us into acquiescence, because even should Trump win, without a complete reversal by the Democratic Party, a renewed free and fair media, and a return to the principles upon which this nation was founded, this war will continue, and it is only a matter of time before the left again wins the Presidency, or the House, or the Senate — or all three.

When that happens, this civil war will become hot because the Democrats are going to come for our guns.  An armed citizenry is a free citizenry, and they can’t have that.

The third most populated nation with 330,000,000 people, America has an estimated 350 million guns in circulation; any effort to seize them will call for the total mobilization of our armed forces, city and state police, and the National Guard.

People are not going to turn in their guns and politicians who think they will do so are being naïve.  Fighting will surely ensue as the forces of the regime go door to door to try to take them.

Many of those empowered to confiscate weapons won’t obey orders.  Defections will be common and there will be fighting in the streets, limited at first, but it will soon break out into open rebellion.  The regime will become increasingly strident and many states will refuse to comply.  Using Democratic-run “sanctuary cities” as an example of state nullification of federal law, talk of secession will become rife.

The ruling leftists will, of course, be surprised, and orders will be given to the remaining loyalist forces to put down the rebellion.  In the end, the death toll will far exceed the 620,000 people who died in our first civil war.

To people who say it can’t happen here, I say history is replete with examples of places that no longer exist where people believed “it can’t happen here.”

It can’t happen here?  Open your eyes, it has already begun.

Most people still do not take the threat of technological disruptions to society seriously. They think that if something happens, someone will fix it and life will go on as normal. What they refuse to contemplate is if something happens and nobody can fix it. As society moves along this technological road they become more dependent on it and the risk to their lives increases as they lose the ability to do basic tasks. Hopefully this latest cyber attack will instill in people the need to have backup systems in place to continue their daily activities and live life as a free person and not be a slave to the technology they so eagerly seek.

Many young people do not know a time when they could not email, surf the web, text or call someone from anywhere at any time of day. It has become evident that many people, young and old alike would suffer from a type of withdrawal effect if their electronics were lost for even a day. Many people have replaced human contact with electronic correspondence which reduces their human relations skills and many children spend most of their free hours on the computer instead of playing outside with friends as past generations have done, Growing children have a lot of pent up energy and when they don’t release that energy through physical activity it can cause them to be hyperactive in places such as school where they are diagnosed with all kinds of “disorders” that never existed before. This has caused the present generation to be the most highly medicated people in our history.

For the first time in history, a terrorist attack on the electric power grid has blacked-out an entire nation…

And that’s not nearly the worse of it all. CIA Director James Woolsey’s public conversation with Republican Senator Ted Cruz led to the shocking realization that “9 out of 10 Americans will be dead by the end of the first year.”

Lack of regular contact with others can deprive us of skills to deal with everyday life and work through difficult situations. Our dependence on machines and electronics have left many in want of basic necessities when disasters or power outages occur. How many times have you seen people leave home and go to a motel when the power goes out? A snow storm hits and people cannot heat their homes, watch TV or cook food. A thunderstorm knocks out power and people are desperate to find air conditioning and water. I find it incredible that most people feel so important now that they have the need to be on the phone constantly, especially while driving. I can’t help but wonder how we ever made it out of the 1950’s without cell phones.

People have become slaves to the machines they made to make life easier and now cannot live without. People rely on GPS now instead of reading maps and because of that they can be a block away from their destination and not know it if their GPS goes out. The art of writhing letters has been replaced with text messages and symbols. When you realize you are one of these people what could you do to limit the effects of the loss of this technology on occasion?

Spend one afternoon a week and take a walk through the neighborhood, assuming the area is safe, to get to know the neighbors.

At least once a week, cook a meal from scratch and use a cooking source that won’t go out with the power.

Meet a friend occasionally for a cup of coffee and chat instead of using the computer or phone.

Make your kids go outside and play, without the electronic gadgets, or better yet, go outside and play with them.

Have an old fashioned family picnic or a cookout at a local park.

Play board games at home occasionally.

Avoid using your cell phone one day a week or cut out talking while driving all together.

Send a card or write a letter instead of sending an email.

Plant a garden and can some of your own food during the summer.

If you are so dependent on technology that the temporary loss of it causes problems, you are too dependent on it. Using technology to leverage your time and energy is a good thing but it should not replace the human actions we have used for centuries. In the end, the old ways still work and they can help you slow down and enjoy life more rather than speeding through it.

Many people today can actually have withdrawal symptoms if they lose access to their technology for any length of time. This should be an alarm to society but most just brush it off as fear mongering. When the loss of technology causes a business to completely stop operations, that should be an indication they do not have sufficient backup systems to fall back on.

One of the prime tenants of the prepper movement is that they have multiple backup systems to rely on if technology stops working. This is just a logical step taken by people that have taken the time to analyze the threats posed by the loss our technology and determine action is warranted for the preservation of life following certain events. The less technology you require to take care of daily activities, the more freedom you have to live a normal life.

Most people still do not take the threat of technological disruptions to society seriously. They think that if something happens, someone will fix it and life will go on as normal. What they refuse to contemplate is if something happens and nobody can fix it. As society moves along this technological road they become more dependent on it and the risk to their lives increases as they lose the ability to do basic tasks. Hopefully this latest cyber attack will instill in people the need to have backup systems in place to continue their daily activities and live life as a free person and not be a slave to the technology they so eagerly seek.

If you’re interested in learning more old remedies, you should read The Lost Book Of Remedies.

The physical book has 300 pages, with 3 colored pictures for every plant and for every medicine.

It was written by Claude Davis, whose grandfather was one of the greatest healers in America. Claude took his grandfather’s lifelong plant journal, which he used to treat thousands of people, and adapted it into this book.

Learn More…

The current generation has known nothing but excess and prosperity. They have been raised with the notion that everything is easy and when that paradigm fails they will not know how to cope with reality. This is the problem we face and must deal with in the months to come.

The current generation has lost the ability to trouble shoot the problems they are faced with and come up with simple solutions. Creativity is something many people no longer possess and that is one of the things that will make life hard on them. The greatest generation knew how to devise creative solutions to their problems that allowed them to get by and even prosper. That is a lesson we need to take away from the last depression.

When the great depression hit in the 1930’s, many people had a difficult time surviving. When the system they depended on ceased to function properly, they no longer had the ability to earn a living wage and care for their families. Even at a time when you could get a meal for a nickel, many people struggled to feed themselves.

In many rural areas, farmers faced the difficulty of being able to even grow enough to feed themselves. The drought that accompanied the depression left many no choice but to move to more hospitable locations where jobs could be found.

Some people were in a much better position to weather the national problems than others. They were not rich in monetary terms but they had a stable living condition that enabled them to get by as always.Find Out More

In the rural community that my family had called home for over 100 years, my family got by better than most. The fact that many of the people were watermen, who made their living on the Chesapeake Bay catching various types of seafood throughout the year, made the depression different for them. As my father related to me, they really didn’t know there was a depression going on most of the time.

The men went to work every morning catching what they could. Anything they couldn’t sell was taken home for dinner. Everyone had a garden and maybe some chickens and a hog out back providing meat for the winter. The area was also surrounded by many small farms producing many things they could trade for. Nobody had much money but the area teemed with the things that were needed to get by and barter was the norm.

Electricity was not seen in the community until the late 1940’s and few people had a car. These people really did live off the grid. That was the norm for them and they got by very well even with the national economy in a state of hard times. They could not buy many of the things they needed so those things had to be made out of whatever materials they had.

There are many stories like this that have been told and they are worth listening to once again. These stories provide the foundation people will need when the economy fails again in spectacular fashion leaving many in dire straits. When everything fails you have to go back to what works. That is a lesson that our ancestors have left for us to follow if we have the sense to learn from their hardships.

The current generation has known nothing but excess and prosperity. When the system turns down again they will be lost without all of the creature comforts and gadgets they are used to getting with great ease. They have been raised with the notion that everything is easy and when that paradigm fails they will not know how to cope with reality. This is the problem we face and must deal with in the months to come.

There are two lessons that can be taken from this story. When hard times come your location and creativity can make up for many shortfalls in life. Those things can make the difference between suffering and having a decent standard of living. Living in an area rich with resources allows you to produce many of the things you need locally with little money and can even provide you with a stream of income. The lack of resources in your area can make things very difficult over the long term.

It is good for people to plan for hard times by stocking up, learning to produce food and storing real money for times of need but that will not be enough when the time comes. Your location and the ability to be creative and solve the many problems you face will be necessary ingredients to surviving the coming hard times. Keeping your plans simple and learning the ways of our grandparents will help in ways we cannot even contemplate at this time but their wisdom will be as critical as your other supplies. One of the many slogans that came from that time is worth remembering.

It’s fewyears af ter an EMP attack and you are safely tucked away in your retreat somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Your storage foods have mostly been used and your high tech electronics is useless. The really bad stuff is mostly past. Now it’s try to stay fed and alive and pray that civilization as you know it is coming back. You’re going to have to work your environment to live. Ever wonder what life might be like to Homestead? What would it really be like to have no running water, electricity, sewer, newspaper or Internet? No supermarket or fire department close at hand?

I have a good imagination but I decided to talk to someone who would know first hand what it was like: my mother. She grew up on a homestead in the middle of Montana during the 1920s and 1930s. It was a two room Cottonwood cabin with the nearest neighbor three miles away. She was oldest, so she was in charge of her brother and sister by the time she was 9 years old. This was her reality; I feel there are lessons here for the rest of us.

There was a Majestic brand cookstove that used wood and coal. The first person up at four thirty A.M., usually her father, would start the fire for breakfast. Then he would go out to take care of the livestock while his wife made breakfast. For the kids, it was a comforting start to the day but your feet would get cold when you got out of bed. There was no sleeping in.

FIREWOOD AND COAL

A crosscut saw and axe was used to cut wood for the stove and after that experience, you got pretty stingy with the firewood because you know what it takes to replace it. The old timers say that it warms you when you cut it, when you split it, and again when you burn it. The homes that were typical on homesteads and ranches of the era were smaller with lower ceilings than modern houses just so they could be heated easier. The saw and axe were not tools to try hurrying with. You set a steady pace and maintained it. A man in a hurry with an axe may lose some toes or worse. One side effect of the saw and axe use is that you are continuously hungry and will consume a huge amount of food.

Usually in the fall of the year, a wagon load of coal would be purchased. It was used sparingly and had its own dangers as it was known to produce a lot of carbon monoxide. They were lucky in that there were coal seams within thirty miles and they could use their own wagon for pickup. Even so, it was a large undertaking: travel to and from, loading the wagon and then unloading by hand; it wasn’t unusual to take a week from start to completion. The coal was really appreciated when a Blue Norther came whistling through and everyone huddled by the stove. Of course, the regular chores at home still had to be done. No excuses.

Also in the fall of the year, people would scour the rivers and creeks looking for a bee tree and the honey they could harvest. Somehow, ‘free’ honey in the wild tastes sweeter. One enterprising man cut a back door into a bee tree so he didn’t have to destroy the hive to get the goodies.

Lights in the cabin were old fashioned kerosene lamps. It was the kid’s job to trim the wicks, clean the chimneys and refill the reservoirs. Candles were in use as well, but any breeze could snuff out the flame and the risk of fire from a dumped candle was much higher.

The privy was downhill from the house next to the corral and there was no toilet paper. Old newspaper, catalogs or magazines were used and in the summer a pan of barely warm water was there for hygiene. During a dark night, blizzard, or brown out from a dust storm, you followed the corral poles-no flashlights.

SPRING WATER

There were two springs close to the house that ran clear, clean, and cold water. The one right next to it was a “soft” water spring. It was great for washing clothes and felt smooth, almost slick, on your skin. If you drank from it, it would clean you out just as effectively as it cleaned clothes. Not all clean water is equal.

The second spring was a half mile from the cabin and it was cold, clear, and tasted wonderful. The spring itself was deep – an eight foot corral pole never hit bottom- and flowed through the year. It was from here that the kids would fill two barrels on a heavy duty sled with water for the house and the animals. They would lead the old white horse that was hitched to the sledge back to the buildings and distribute the water for people and animals. In the summer, they made two trips in the morning and maybe a third in the evening. In the winter, one trip in the morning before school and one in the evening after school before supper. They did this alone.

COOKING

Breakfast was a big meal because they’re going to be working hard. Usually there would be homemade sausage, eggs and either cornmeal mush or oatmeal. More food was prepared than what was going to be eaten right then. The extra food was left on the table under a dish towel and eaten as wanted during the day. When evening meal was cooked, any leftovers were reheated. The oatmeal or the mush was sliced and fried for supper. It was served with butter, syrup, honey or molasses.

The homemade sausage was from a quarter or half a hog. The grinder was a small kitchen grinder that clamped on the edge of a table and everybody took turns cranking. When all the hog had been ground, the sausage spice mix was added and kneaded in by hand. Then it was immediately fried into patties. The patties were placed, layer by layer, into a stone crock and covered with the rendered sausage grease. The patties were reheated as needed. The grease was used for gravies as well as re-cooking the patties. Occasionally a fresh slice of bread would be slathered with a layer of sausage grease and a large slice of fresh onion would top it off for quick sandwich. Nothing was wasted.

On special occasions, some of their protein came from dried fish or beef. Usually this had to be soaked to remove the excess salt or lye. Then it was boiled. Leftovers would go into hash, fish patties, or potato cakes.

Beans? There was almost always a pot of beans on the stove in the winter time, not so much in the summer as it was too easy for the beans on a cold stove to go sour. That pot of beans wasn’t just beans; usually leftover meat would be cut up and go in the mix to add flavor and variety.

The practice of leaving the food out for a noon snack also would lead to what was referred to as “Summer Complaint”, or as we would call it, diarrhea… which was probably a low level of food poisoning. The attitude was ‘So you have summer complaint? Don’t we all. Keep working.’
I’ll say it now, those were some tough people.

Chickens and a couple of milk cows provided needed food to balance the larder. They could not have supported a growing family without these two resources. The quality and volume of food from these resources was determined by how much work people put into them, especially the milk cows. Careful treatment, regular milking (you absolutely could not miss a milking session or it could ruin a good cow) and attention to hygiene was very necessary. The hygiene part was difficult to achieve when you consider the somewhat crude conditions, location of Bossie’s tail to the milk pail and the fact that warm fresh milk is great for growing any number of organisms.

GARDENING

The kitchen garden ran mostly to root crops. Onion, turnip, rutabaga, potato and radishes grew under chicken wire. Rhubarb was canned for use as a winter tonic to stave off scurvy. Lettuce, corn, and other above ground crops suffered from deer, rats, and gumbo clay soil. Surprisingly, cabbage did well. The winter squash didn’t do much, only 2 or 3 gourds. Grasshoppers were controlled by the chickens and turkeys. There was endless hoeing.

Washing clothes required heating water on the stove, pouring it into three galvanized wash tubs-one for the homemade lye soap and scrub board, the other two for rinsing. Clothes were rinsed and wrung out by hand, then hung on a wire to dry in the air. Your hands became red and raw, your arms and shoulders sore beyond belief by the end of the wash. Wet clothing, especially wool, is heavy and the gray scum from the soap was hard to get out of the clothes.

Personal baths were in a galvanized wash tub screened by a sheet. In the winter it was difficult to haul, heat and handle the water so baths weren’t done often. Most people would do sponge baths. Youngest went first in the tub, then the women, then the men.

Everybody worked, including the kids. There were always more chores to be done than time in the day. It wasn’t just this one family; it was the neighbors as well. You were judged first and foremost by your work ethic and then your honesty. This was critical because if you were found wanting in either department, the extra jobs that might pay cash money, a quarter of beef, hog, or mutton would not be available. Further, the cooperation with your neighbors was the only assurance that if you needed help, you would get help. Nobody in the community could get by strictly on their own. A few tried. When they left, nobody missed them.
You didn’t have to like someone to cooperate and work with him or her.

GATHERINGS AND HOLIDAYS

Several times a year people would get together for organized activities: barn raising, butcher bee, harvest, roofing, dance, or picnics. There were lots of picnics, usually in a creek bottom with cottonwoods for shade or sometimes at the church. Always, the women would have tables groaning with food, full coffee pots and, if they were lucky, maybe some lemonade. (Lemons were expensive and scarce) After the work (even for picnics, there was usually a project to be done first) came the socializing. Many times people would bring bedding and sleep out overnight, returning home the next day.

Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthdays were celebrated but the gifts were somewhat understated by todays comparison. There might be a shirt made from a flour sack, a homemade leather knife sheath, some colored thread or fancy buttons. The Christmas stocking might have an orange, or an apple, maybe nuts. Hard candy was always welcome. The holidays were made special by a batch of cinnamon rolls or special cookies. In the meantime, get those chores done first.

A half dozen families would get together for a butcher bee in the cold days of late fall. Cows were slaughtered first, then pigs, mutton, and finally chickens. Blood from some of the animals, usually cows, was collected in milk pails, kept warm on a stove to halt coagulation and salt added. Then it was canned for later use in blood dumplings, sausage or pudding. The hides were salted for later tanning; the feathers from the fowl were held for cleaning and used in pillows or mattresses. The skinned quarters of the animals would be dipped into cold salt brine and hung to finish cooling out so they could be taken home safely for processing. Nothing went to waste.

The most feared occurrence in the area was fire. If it got started, it wasn’t going out until it burned itself out. Kerosene lights, candles and wood stoves were not taken for granted as they could become deadly dangers. People could and did lose everything including their lives.

HUNTING

The most used weapon was the .22 single shot Winchester with .22 Short cartridges. It was used to take the heads off pheasant, quail, rabbit and ducks. If you held low, the low powered round didn’t tear up the meat. The shooters, usually the kids, quickly learned sight picture and trigger control although they never heard those terms. If you took out five rounds of ammunition, then you’d better bring back the ammunition or a critter for the pot for each round expended. It was also a lot quieter and less expensive [in those days] than the .22 Long Rifle cartridges.

If you are trying to maintain a low profile, the odor of freshly baked bread can be detected in excess of three miles on a calm day. Especially by kids.