Daryle Lambert: The weather is cold out side!

thanks to Flicker

I am very sorry that I haven't gotten a blog up today but there are circumstances that cause me to be late. Hopefully you will see these as an excuse. In Kentucky they have the worst ice storm in the history of the state. People have been told that they won't have electricity for up to a month. My sister in law and one of her sons, plus another son's girlfriend and her two children traveled from Kentucky to stay with us until the power is restored. They had been staying in a hotel in Evansville, Indiana but decided that it would be best to visit us. Can you imagine not having power or heat for a month?

However, it gave me an idea for a blog. How did people get along without these conveniences that we take for granted? First they usually went to bed early after sunset and if they needed light they used oil or kerosene lamps. In Kovel's price guide you will find Kerosene lamps priced as high as $4500 and oil ones $7500. Yes they don't put out as much light as the electric ones we own but for that amount of money, I can buy a lot of the electric ones, wouldn't you say? But how about cooking? Again there wasn't gas or electricity so they used coal or wood burning stoves and guess what? Not many people back then went hungry. However, my grandmother often started cooking before daylight and cooked all day. A great granite and chrome example of a antique cook stove might bring you up to $10,000 while a coal burning parlor stove can easily fetch $5000. I remember as a child backing into the parlor stove and the blisters that it raised on the palms of my hands. You only do that once.

But you are asking, what about entertainment, right? Well there wasn't television or even radio so can you even think that was possible? Well it was. They read books and talked to one another. What a novel thought you say! Some of those old books now can sell for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Not bad when you consider that most of those books cost as little as five cents. The simple life- where did it go? There most have been something special about it, or why would people today pay so much to get it back?

Today we look back to the way our ancestors lived and say, how did they do it? But I have to admit they may have had a better life than we did today. I know that they didn't have as much worries and I am sure that their stress level was lower than ours. In your search remember that there are collector sthat are just waiting for an item from these long lost days and your reward can be great if you find the right pieces. It was a different era without computers or four lane highways but just like the movie Cars, it shows there was something special about those years. In fact I am going to suggest that each one of you rent the movie Cars and watch it, and if you have children share it with them. This isn't just a cartoon but a movie that shows us some lessons that we need to relearn today. See you tomorrow.


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