Thanks! I'll take today not the 'withouts'

Watching those detested HGTV house-hunter shows my wife likes, I get to thinking about what all I grew up without, as well as what I grew up with.

I listed the "withouts": electric coffee makers, pizza, computers, cell-phones, tape recorders, television, microwave, the internet and electric toasters.

At least, we did not possess them and they did not exist as far as we knew. In my case, neither did telephones, electricity and running water.

A coffee pot was perpetually sitting on the natural gas or wood-heated cooking range, jukeboxes for a nickel a song were in all the cafes, we bathed in a washtub with water from the pond on Saturdays, and only rich people had more than one vehicle per family.

I never saw or heard anything about drugs during my school years. There was some sneakiness about cigarettes -- roll your owns -- but that held no attraction for me. Nor did chewing tobacco. There were jokes about marijuana, but I did not "get" the jokes. I never saw any of the stuff.

What would today's young people do without TV, cell-phones, the latest electronic games or gimmicks, pizza, and the internet? The horrible "meth" we read of people being charged with making and using was just "mess" spoken with a lisp in my youth.

Our refrigerators were truly ice-boxes. My dad bought two fifty-pound blocks of ice each week to keep our milk fresh, to cool down watermelons, and to make iced-tea.

I participated in some of the new developments of the 20th century, and I have no wish to return to any era of the past or "the good old days."

I just wish to point out how good we have it today. We need to follow the biblical admonition to "count your blessings" and to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

-- Louis Houston is a resident of Siloam Springs. His book "The Grape-Toned Studebaker" is available locally and from Amazon.com. Send any questions or comments to [email protected] or call 524-6926. The opinions expressed are those of the author.