Stop Whining

I remember bath days. galvanized tub dragged into the kitchen area of the two-room cabin. I carried the pailfuls of water from the out-door pump, which Mum heated up on the wood-fired bake-stove.
I was the eldest, but little sister got the first go-round in the hot clean water. Then me, then lil brother (we were all about two years apart).
Hot-water was added as needed, and by the time lil brother got out, the tub was pretty full. I don't recall how Mum emptied it.

The outhouse was a long long ways from the house. So Lord help you if you had to go on a cold winters night.

I think Gramps got a TV in about 1960. I would have been 7. Gramps was born in 1895. He sired 15 kids, 13 made it to adulthood. My Dad was born in 27, so missed the First War. And the Second. His brothers Abe and Frank and I think Garry, went to war. They all came back, but sick in the head. Especially Frank who had been a sniper. The youngest Uncle was born in 43, 10 years before me. Gramps was all worn out by age 60, but I think he lived to nearly 70.

Mum kept me back a year from going to school, until lil sister was old enough to go. It was 2.5 miles each way, and we didn't get bicycles for a year or two. I was too old and too big for kindergarten, so I went straight to grade One.
We had a yardlight on a pole, but no indoor electricity.......... until the TV came,lol.
Gramps had hung up a pair of Dutch shoes on the wall that Abe brought back with him from Holland where he had taken a wife, before he returned from the war. She was a fiery lil woman not 5 ft tall. She talked like a machine gun, 90 mph.
They're all gone now. And the first-cousins are dropping too. Soon enough it will be my turn.
Two of my 4 siblings are gone, and the elder sister next behind me, has survived a heart-attack. Baby sister was born sick, but shes only 56 to my 68, so who knows which of us will drop first. I suspect I'll be the last one standing.

I don't recall hard times; things just were what they were. I turned 16 in 69 and bought a 57 BelAir/283/auto/ 4dr hardtop, for $395.Or was it $295? She was in "mint" condition. Times had already changed; we were rich; the whole of NorthAmerica was rich.
Life was smooth and easy.
They say they put a man on the moon in 69. Granny said "not a chance". I argued with her about it. But over the years, I have come to think that she was probably right.