The Changing of the Guard
As I removed my garments this morning to shower, I removed a pair of long john bottoms. I change into clean ones every other day. I thought of our ancestors, the pioneers, the settlers like Laura Ingalls Wilder. She mentions wearing the same underclothing all winter. It was unheard of to bathe or shower every day. Once a week was the normal. The whole family shared the water. There was too much time and energy needed to fetch, warm, and dump the water afterwards to be so wasteful as to do it more often.
So much that we have now, we take for granted. A warm home, food as close as the nearest store, and even transportation. The pioneers with oxen and wagons often could see the place they had camped for the night, when they stopped to make camp for the following night. Those days were rain-filled and must have been discouraging, but they pressed onward, in hope of something better for them and their families.
Land and freedom were the heralding calls, that lured them and the trail that they followed. The carved, wrestled, and whacked a living and homestead from an often harsh and demanding surrounding. But they chose that path and felt that it was preferable than living in civilization that often sucked them dry.