Are we getting too soft?

Years ago, I was watching the thoroughbred stallions when I got a call from an elderly gentleman who worked on the farm with me. He said he'd had an accident and was needing help. It was just down the road from the stud farm, so I helped him get his pickup out of the ditch and made sure he was OK and that he got home. A few days later I went to visit and check on him. He was married, no kids, and he was probably 70 or so. After visiting for a bit, I got up to leave when with tears in his eyes, he gave me his grandma's old chamber pot. I had never heard of such a thing. It was ceramic and probably dated back to the late 1800s. I was kind of awestruck. The only thing he asked was not to sell it.

Chamber pots or thunder pots have been around and used by mankind for thousands of years with the earliest examples from ancient Egypt dating back to the 1300s B.C. How they looked and what they are made of has changed, but everything else is the same. Some are made of tin or lead or pottery or ceramic or even stoneware. Most of the time the chamber pot was slid under the bed, or it sat next to the bed. A special piece of furniture called a commode was built to house the chamber pot and made to allow better or more comfortable use of it.

With the introduction of indoor flushing toilets, the chamber pot became almost useless. Back in the day the alternative to using the chamber pot was a long walk to the outhouse, say at least 100 feet or more. This wasn't a big deal except in the middle of the night, or when you was sick, or there was snow or ice, and on and on.

My parents were born in the early 1900s, so outhouses were the norm if you will. Same for me up through the eighth grade, when Dad put indoor plumbing in the house along with a real flushing toilet. But for the last 55 to 60 years, I've occasionally used an outhouse or privy. Our boys have used an outhouse, when deer hunting and occasionally a portable toilet. But on a regular basis, they don't have a clue as to the rigors of year around having to use an outhouse.

Now we come to kids born in the last part of the 1900s and 2000s who have probably never used an old wooden outhouse. A portable toilet maybe, but honestly they don't have a clue. Or not having running water in the house, but having to depend on a pitcher pump in the yard. Or having to wear the same clothes for a week. Bath time was once a week and that was when you put on clean clothes. Mom washed clothes once a week year around and hung the clothes on the line no matter the temp, and this includes when it was freezing outside. So in essence the clothes froze dried. A pair of blue jeans was stiff enough coming off the line to stand up.

We old timers could go back and live like our parents, but I'm not sure our kids could. Back to one pair of good shoes and the other pair was worn out. These weren't $300 name brands, but plain canvas tennis shoes and later no-name boots. You sure didn't spend $10 bucks on a fancy coffee, but settled for a 5-cent or 10-cent cup. Back then we didn't rely on Mom and Dad for everything, but instead we worked our rears off trying to make enough to buy a pop and candy bar when the track team went out of town to a track meet.

We have a lot of really good kids and young adults in this countrym but there are also a lot of them who don't have a clue where the dollar really comes from and where the buck really stops. Maybe they are spoiled.