(800) 853-2651
SHOP NOW

How did we ever survive?

3

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
Everywhere I go I see someone sucking on a water bottle, or talking on a cell phone, or looking at this thing in their hand and using fingers to push buttons. I was trying to get some info on a old platform scale from the 50's. The first thing the guy said is it a digital readout. Growing up we had one phone in the house. If we needed a drink we got one before we left the house. If out in the field helping Dad we drank out of a gallon glass jug. All that electronic stuff does make life easier, but we can get along without them. Stan
 
They probably said the same thing about air conditioning, indoor plumbing, automobiles, sliced bread, chilled steel plows, and sails on boats instead of oars. :)
 
You are right 37Chief.Thats why so many people have no money by the time they buy all that junk they don't need to survive,pay to watch tv, pay for their serius radio or whatever it is and complain they are broke.
I remember my grandmother bringing our dinner and coffee to the field in a mason jar all wrapped in newspaper to keep everything warm and it worked and she wouldn't use anything else.
 
Basically all of the USA is a slave to the electronic gadgets.

A year ago my son asked me...."Dad, what kind of cell phone did you have when you were my age" My son was 12 at that time and I am 46 now. I explained to him that I did not have a cell phone until I was 30 years old and that the internet did not come out until 1996. My son has no concept of a dial telephone, or that TV only had 5 channels when I was a kid, I did not get cable TV until I was 13 and even then it was only 30 channels, not 500.
 
What I don't understand is why when a new cell phone comes out everyone stands in line to spend hundreds to buy it even though there old phone works just fine.

i don't have a cell phone. get along just fine.
 
My grandparents had a livery stable where they rented buggies and horses for years. They told my dad that tractors and autobiles were a passing
fad. It soon put them out of business. They did send 3 sons to college. My dad graduated in
1912. Hal
 
Asked my two boys if they wanted to see their Great-Grandpa's cordless drill??? YES!!
I reached onver the shelves in the barn, brought out a hand-crank model, one hand on the big wood knob, one hand cranks the middle round and round, and I showed them the set of drills. They were drop-jawed.
 
I don't have a cell phone either. My wife has one for emergencies. I do like the net--find info on anything--but water bottles, texting and all that I can do without.

Larry
 
Times are changing in this country.
It wasn't that long ago when possession of marijuana & ccw would land you in jail.
 
If you want to really entertain a young person, let them roll up and down, a crank window in one of those ancient vehicles.
 
I agree completely. I say if today's people had their thumbs cut off, they could not talk. The same goes with cell phones, GPS equipment, etc. It takes about 4 key strokes to just start to get to where you need to go. When I get another flip phone, I am going to take a hammer and take care of this smart phone that I can barely use.

In the years past, apps were putting on fertilizer or chemicals. Not very much real work being done today. Even at my age, I can do more than most 16 year olds today. But I don't know the right buttons to push. So who will be right in another 50 years. It won't be me, as I will not be here.
 
Someone called today, doing a Survey...wanted to
know what make of cell phone we used,(was probably going to try and sell us one) I said
that we had no cell phone, and no cable TV either.
They sounded astounded, before I told them that
we didn't do surveys either, and then I hung up!
 
Back on the farm in the 1940s and the 50s we had all the latest gadgets
Cordless lawn mower.Cordless milking machine, Cordless wood processor Cordless drills,cordless dishwasher Shucks we didn't need to get electricity thill abuot 1948.
 
I saw a cartoon where a young boy asked his grandpa, Grandpa did you have any hand held devices when you were a kid? Grandpa replied we sure did, they were called a corn knife and a hay hook!
 
I'll agree with you on everything but the water. The first time I went to Kentucky back in 81,it was before you could buy water in bottles anywhere and everywhere you went. We stayed almost a week in Lexington and that chlorinated city water was more than I could stand. I thought I would die of dehydration. The wife's cousin's boyfriend finally brought me some well water from his place outside of town.
I keep water bottles and refill them with tap water then put them in the freezer,then I toss one in the tractor or pickup and take it along. By the time I'm thirsty,they've started to thaw in good shape.
Dad used to have one of those canvas bags that he carried on the fender of the tractor,but the last one of those I bought didn't work at all.
 
Way back when...I'm walking along, behind my two Belgians, hooked to a double tree harness pulling my single plow.

The world is great. I'm tired and sweaty but this is much better than my grandparents had it when they had to turn ground with shovels. Heck, look how much more ground I can cover than my grandparents.

Suddenly, I hear a 'clap-clappety-clap' sound off to my right.

I turn to look and see my neighbor on sone metal contraption with round steel wheels. Smoke is billowing out the top of the stack.

...What the heck! he is plowing the ground with that piece of junk. Dang neighbors! always wanting the newest thing and just buying them , not even thinking of the ramifications of the costs.

I wave and smile at him as he passes me. Thinking to myself..."what a fool".

I keep walking behind the plow thinking what a really silly expense it was for him to buy that new thing.

By dark, I've got my coal oil lantern out to help me see where to guide the plow.

While lost in my own thoughts about his silly expenditure, I forgot that I haven't heard anything of the unusual sound 'clap-clappety-clap'.

I look around and see he has already given up. "Yup, that new fangeld stuff really worked out for you" I figured.

Finally, around 11 p.m. I finish the bottom. Feed and water the Belgians and brush them down.

I plop in bed all sweaty from walking and just finally happy to get some rest.

Next morning I get up as the roosters are crowing at daylight. My muscles are aching from the previous days walking behind that plow.

As I limp over to the window to see what the fields look like, I noticed that my neighbor has plowed twice as much ground as I did in about half the time.
 
Wife told the 2 year old grandchild to click the seatbelt. Grandchild asked "One click or two"?
 
The guy that owned the local nursery sold bird seed. He was using a counter platform scales with the beam. The Kansas weights and measure said he could not use them because it did not automatically set itself back to zero after each use.
 
Roger I had a lot of 'dehydration' problems when I was on the harvest until I started drinking only bottled water. Hint-between the front of the combine and the back of the header is a good place to 'hide'.
 
I too had dehydration issues the last 2 summers.
I started on power aid, like gator aid. Stopped
all carbonated bev. Now I make my own lemon aid/
OJ drink using the old power aid bottles. I
freeze a half bottle and add water to the rest.
It keeps my drinks cold. Go throught 5-6 liters a
day. I find having a bottle with lid keeps the
dirt out too.

As for phones, I only have one, a simple cell.
Dropped my landline of 37 years. Don't miss it
and when I was a kid, we had a party line, shared
it with 12 other neighbors. Didn't have A/C
either. NO THANK YOU FOR THE GOOD OLD DAYS.
 
George I'm glad the good old days are gone too. When i was a kid I would slide the bed over to the window so I could lay my head in the window sill to try to get a breath of the cool night time air. Today the air gets turned on if the house is a little muggy. I've posted on this site many times with my smart phone while waiting in the doctors office or anywhere else. Right now I'm using the tablet.
 
Is that a polite way of saying his scales wouldn't return to zero with nothing on them?
 
The first fender mounted tractor radios and tractor cabs were scoffed at and criticized too. But, it didn't take too long before most farms had at least one. As a kid we had outhouses, party lines and coal fired furnaces, I sure wouldn't want to go back to them now.

People survived back then, but they didn't live as long as we do now.
 
And how long can we sustain inputs for these gadgets that come out every 6 months while the dump fills up with the "old" ones? How long can we go down the path of planned obsolescence? How much fuel are we going to burn so Wally World stays at 60 degrees inside?
 
I see no need to have that lemming, phone in the face routine.
My nieces, nephews, kids and grandkids do it.
On the other hand, if good enough were good enough, we'd all
still be riding horses and wiping with corn cobs.
My body appreciates the advances!
 
(quoted from post at 16:01:48 09/15/14) Everywhere I go I see someone sucking on a water bottle, or talking on a cell phone, or looking at this thing in their hand and using fingers to push buttons. I was trying to get some info on a old platform scale from the 50's. The first thing the guy said is it a digital readout. Growing up we had one phone in the house. If we needed a drink we got one before we left the house. If out in the field helping Dad we drank out of a gallon glass jug. All that electronic stuff does make life easier, but we can get along without them. Stan
Click to expand...


LOL You forgot about the part where you walked uphill, barefoot, both ways to school........had you been born in 1990 instead of 1890 :twisted: you would think all this junk was necessary too. :shock: !

I love having a cell phone. Have a problem in a field away from the home place a quick call and tools and such are in route.

Things and times change. Gotta deal with it. Lot of the stuff from the old days I don't miss one bit. I do agree that some people are going to panic if something happens to the cell system or their digital readout stuff fails.

Rick
 
I've heard my dad quote his grandfather (who died at age 91 in 1983) as saying "people talk about the good old days, I was there, they weren't that good. Work yourself to death and dang near starve."
 
Well Stan, before I leave for work I put 8 bottles of water in the iced cooler of my work truck, and generally drink all 8 bottles before I finsih for the day, usually out of state, rarely at home. When I'm home-home, I drink iced well water all day and all night. I love iced well water and don't drink soda. A case of water of the brand that I drink generally costs me $4.00 per case. Unless my math is wrong, that's under 17 cents per bottle. The cheapest bottle of cold water that I've seen while I'm out and about working all day, is 90 cents a bottle, the 7-Eleven brand. I'm saving about 73 cents per bottle. I don't have any idea what a can of soda costs, but I'll take 17 cents a bottle for ice cold water any day, except when I'm at home drinking iced well water.

As far as iPhones, Droids, and all of that stuff, I consider them to be the newest babysitter. They keep people, adults and children quiet. As an example, a couple of months ago I was at a tire dealer getting some new tires on one of my trucks, and there were 10 of us in the waiting area. I looked around, counted, and chuckled. Of the 10 of us, only two of us were NOT Droiding, iPhoning, whatever they call it. 8 of us 10 were, and I was NOT one of them. And 2 of the people were father and teenage daughter sitting next to each other, not saying a word to each other, both happily sliding fingers from one corner of their Droid or whatever they were, to the other. And that's when I realized that those things have taken over as babysitters for imaginationless adults and children. If the internet ever shuts down or gets shutdown, those people are going to start bouncing off of walls literally, but for now their babysitters are keeping them quiet and out of my hair. Not a bad deal to me, unless I'm driving down the road and one of them Droids out in front of my truck without looking and I either run into them, or run over them. Either way, I'm insured so no big deal.

Mark
 
In the fifties when i was a kid we did not have electric or phone or running water, no tv or radio either. we still used an outhouse in summer and in the winter we used the gutter behind the cows. We had no tractor car truck or anything with an engine on it. we did have horses though and a couple bicycles
We milked the 24 cows by hand. hay was custom cut but the hay was pitched with the fork on the hay rack and from there in the hay loft. Everything was done with muscle power and hand tools.
Heating was with coal or wood.Water for the house and cows was pumped by hand pump from a well.
Our weekly bath was done in a masonry cooling tank which doubled as milk can cooler and water storage tank for the cows.
A hot bath was washing from a pail lukewarm water outside in the sun on a warm day. :wink:
Believe me, i can do without a lot of these electric gadgets of today but I rather not go back to the old days/ways.

It's much much easier nowadays :D
 
Bison:

Still did a lot of that up into the mid 70's , &
still do some of it today when I'm up on my mining
claim. Heat & cook on a wood stove; use an
outhouse; haul barrels of water from a well 7
miles away (wind pump); weekly bath at the well,
in the pond with the range cattle; no TV or
internet - only radio reception & then only good
at night (radio battery charged by small solar
panel); if you get hurt you take care of yourself
- nearest anybody is over 9 miles away.

Doc :>)
 
Royse:

I've wiped with corn cobs, thank you, but I'll take
an old Sears Catalog any day of the week. LOL!

:>)
 
Yep, me too, 'cept I've got two of them. Use them both occasionally, even still use my Grandfather's Brace & Bits set.

:>)
 
I had a smart phone (android) for about a year, dumped it and went back to a flip phone. I grew up in the '50's and remember we very seldom went to a restaurant and our car had no auto trans, power steering, rear window defogger, power seat or windows or cruise control. I don't know how our parents ever made it!
 
Nobody has ever said any of this is NECESSARY, just that these things make life more convenient, more comfortable, more enjoyable, and in many cases more productive.

Remember the people who invent these things are living the American dream, creating jobs making, transporting, selling and even recycling. What else would people be doing if not for all the jobs created by these modern luxuries?
 
Royse,

We have a rusty cream bucket full of cobs in the
outhouse... just in case the power grid goes down.
LOL.

Or maybe it's just for looks.
 
(quoted from post at 05:32:18 09/16/14) Nobody has ever said any of this is NECESSARY, just that these things make life more convenient, more comfortable, more enjoyable, and in many cases more productive.

Remember the people who invent these things are living the American dream, creating jobs making, transporting, selling and even recycling. What else would people be doing if not for all the jobs created by these modern luxuries?
Click to expand...


Gotta question that. Just with phones. Computers and computer switching has cut how many jobs for operators? Automation has cost even more with robotic manufacturing and packaging.

While I look at many things as blessings that are in the nice, as opposed to have to have area of life many of these things have cost a lot of jobs just through the last 50 years. I remember watching a promotional video (when the Sony Beta player was new) on building JD tractors. They showed an interesting clip of them building the cabs. As far as the cab frame was concerned the metal was picked by machine, cut and placed into a jig by robotics and welded without being touched by human hand. Just how many workers and welders lost jobs over that? May not have been all that many total but automotive manufacturing was going over to some robotics at that time too. So add in JD, IH, Ford/NH, AC, White, Ford auto, GMC and Chrysler and how many thousands of jobs went away. Now these companies didn't go to the expense of changing over for the betterment of man kind but to reduce cost. And even more is going on today and has nothing to do with outsourcing. Everything has a cause and effect.

Rick
 
grew up for a time with a hand pump well and an outhouse.
No, I'm not 200 years old. we were just poor for a while.
(you don't even know you are poor when you are a little kid, just the way it is)

So, I enjoy all the modern toys and conveniences.
Difference between most of us and 'them' is we still have callouses and dirt/grease under our nails.
If it all went away tomorrow, I'd miss the modern, but would survive ok after adjusting. Soft people....not so much probably.
 
Yep, life is easier these days no doubt and I for one enjoy lots of it. I'm not a fan of Droid phones and stuff though. I watch people sit there zoomed into droidism, but that's up to them. Personally, I still go without. And the day that my plain Jane cell is no longer covered by a plan, I can and will do without that as well. I don't carry it with me anyway. At best it stays in the glove box of the truck. I average about 40 minutes a month, and that's just to call the family and ask if all is well, great, goodbye. A long phone call to me is about 2 minutes. That's about all that I can take.

Mark
 
Yup, we have a lot of gadgets and luxuries now, but it is because we wanted them, not because we have to have them. Remember, it is our generation that invented most of them. :shock:

I recently saw an ad for a tv show that starts off showing a man digging a hole in the ground. The announcer says "This is their bathroom." Followed by a banner reading UTOPIA. I have news for those folks, I lived that way till I was 14 (66 now), and that is [b:53d9dea252][color=red:53d9dea252]NOT[/color:53d9dea252][/b:53d9dea252] Utopia!!!!!![i:53d9dea252][/i:53d9dea252]
 
I remember the 1st time a weatherguesser predicted a major snowstorm coming into our area and everyone laughed at him. Watched him on a B&W TV with replacable tubes that was built in a wooden case. When ever Dad used the remote channel changer one us kids had to go over and change the channel (we only got 3 channels).
Oh yea, the snowstorm shut the city and most surrounding areas down for days!
I look forward to when my grandson is old enough to show him how a old fashion cordless screwdriver works LOL
 
And don't forget the "power" screwdriver- Both Dad and grand-dad were professional carpenters, and both had a screwdriver that would turn about 4 revolutions when you pushed in on it. Little slide switch on the side would let you reverse it, to take screws out. Long shaft with cross-hatched channels for a ball to ride in, that made it twist when you pushed. Same idea as a recirculating ball steering gear. It worked great for small screws in finish work- but not enough torque for larger screws.
 
We got our flushies in 1960 when I was a senior in school. When I was younger I was in the one hole shack. I was a little late doing my business. Next thing I heard was the bus was out front waiting. I ran from the shack through the house to the bus in front of every kid on the bus. Talk about embrassed. For a kid of about 12 it was a very traumatic experience. Stan
 
(quoted from post at 02:21:59 09/16/14) Bison:

Still did a lot of that up into the mid 70's , &
still do some of it today when I'm up on my mining
claim. Heat & cook on a wood stove; use an
outhouse; haul barrels of water from a well 7
miles away (wind pump); weekly bath at the well,
in the pond with the range cattle; no TV or
internet - only radio reception & then only good
at night (radio battery charged by small solar
panel); if you get hurt you take care of yourself
- nearest anybody is over 9 miles away.

Doc :>)
Click to expand...
e lived like that pretty near to the mid seventies as well. We only did get a phone in 68.
It changed only after i build myself a gen set and modernized things a bit and had electric for to run things.
We still had only the out house up to when we left for Canada in 1980.
 
(quoted from post at 04:13:43 09/16/14) Where was that?
Click to expand...
f the question was for me?

It was in Holland.
We had a small 10 acre dairy farm smack in the middle of an 80 acre park in fair sized city.
We were the only people in town back then that still lived in the dark ages.:shock:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

V
new owner of a 620, will try to update this as we go.
2 3 4
Replies
61
Views
4K
valiant8086
V
3
It's a wonder we didn't all die
2 3
Replies
48
Views
2K
buickanddeere
B
F
Handiest Thing Ever
Replies
18
Views
1K
JimEvans
J
Goose
We were awesome!!!
2
Replies
27
Views
4K
Texasmark1
T
3
Water drinkers
2
Replies
23
Views
5K
Dan T in MO
D
Tractor Parts Tractor Manuals

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Copyright © 1997-2024 Yesterday's Tractor Co.

All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this website, including design and content, without written permission is strictly prohibited. Trade Marks and Trade Names contained and used in this Website are those of others, and are used in this Website in a descriptive sense to refer to the products of others. Use of this Web site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy TRADEMARK DISCLAIMER: Tradenames and Trademarks referred to within Yesterday's Tractor Co. products and within the Yesterday's Tractor Co. websites are the property of their respective trademark holders. None of these trademark holders are affiliated with Yesterday's Tractor Co., our products, or our website nor are we sponsored by them. John Deere and its logos are the registered trademarks of the John Deere Corporation. Agco, Agco Allis, White, Massey Ferguson and their logos are the registered trademarks of AGCO Corporation. Case, Case-IH, Farmall, International Harvester, New Holland and their logos are registered trademarks of CNH Global N.V.

Yesterday's Tractors - Antique Tractor Headquarters
Website Accessibility Policy

Back
Top