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Mom Alexander wrote:

> This amazes me that this happened less than 60 years ago.  My Dad was 
> born into a family of ranchers (Mexican/Apache).  Their ranch was 
> (still is) in New Mexico & Arizona.  He grew up in the family's 
> village.  They had no electric or running water, had to tote water 
> from the creek.  They had to ride their horses 8 miles to go to 
> school.  There was a small paddock at the school (one room school with 
> all the grades up to 12th) to keep the horses.  After school they 
> would ride back home.  Some days they would get caught up in a game of 
> ball after school and it would get too late to ride home, so they 
> would camp out at school till the next day. These are 5-15 year olds.  
> On weekends,the younger kids, after chores, would pack up and just 
> ride (I'm talking thousands of open acres). (older kids,11 & up, had 
> to do ranch work all day). Dad said they would ride till dark, camp 
> out, ride some more next day, and make it back home by Sunday night 
> (for their weekly bath). 
>     Every year or so I go back for the family reunion. I noticed the 
> family cemetery (my Mom is buried there) has a lot of tiny graves.  My 
> Dad said " Out here, if you made it past five, you were tough enough 
> to make it through just about anything."
> And he was right. Most lived well into their 90's.  My Grandfather 
> lived to 103.  I still have an old black & white of him on one of the 
> ranch horses, in a bosal (hackamore). He was 97 in that photo. 
>     I don't expect my kids to live like that in this day and age.  But 
> I do believe that kids today are coddled and SPOILED.  Let them be 
> kids, and let nature take it's course.
>  
>                                                                         
> Vicki, Moon, Beamer

My mother tells the same story. My grandfather took her to school on 
horseback when she was small. She rode her own horse when she was a 
little older. When I was a kid we never locked the horse or car. Hell, 
we left the keys in the car so we could find them.

When I was in college some of the guys never had the privilege of having 
a shot of good moonshine. A couple of them came home with me one 
weekend. We got some moonshine. We were about ½ mile from the house in 
the car and we all fell asleep. When we woke up - I could not find the 
keys anywhere. We were all looking when the county sheriff drove by. He 
said, hey Truman did you lose these, and threw me the keys. That sure 
would not happen today. Those were different times.

Truman

--

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm 
not sure about the former."  - Albert Einstein


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