I thoroughly love growing up in the Osage and "the good old days" but I remember my mom saying the good old days were not as good as many said. She did not like carrying water to the house, yes carrying water to the house because there was no water in the house. In fact you had to walk outside in all kinds of weather and physically pump with your arms an old fashioned water pump to fill a bucket of water. Typically you carried two buckets as it was about as easy to carry two verses one and it saved time. Another thing which today sounds cool, she walked about 2 miles to school each day and if lucky someone would come by with a horse and offer a ride. Interestingly enough just south of the old Grainola School there use to be a shed where students would park their horses for the day. I guess you could say it was the first parking garage.
Another favorite thing of "the good old days" was that you took your baths in a galvanized tub much like the bucket but generally outdoors and if you wanted warm water (not hot unless you were really lucky) you heated a bucket of water on the wood or coal burning stove and added it to the tub. I was blessed that I got to perform this bathing ritual at Grandma Annie's in her back yard on occasion, NOT FUN unless you just liked everyone getting to watch.
Another favorite was the outhouses. That is a small building about 3 to 4 feet square in the back yard sitting over a deep hole in the ground. Inside the house was a board that you sat on or stood at that had a hole in it where you relieved yourself. There were a few challenges to this that I remember getting to participate in. First, they/we did not have toilet paper so the common thing was a Sears (yes the one that is about to be closed forever) catalog hung on a wire where you would tear out a page and clean up your mess. There was none of that stuff we have today to sanitize your hands or the seat. I felt sorry for the girls having to sit all the time. Later and actually when I was quit small we started getting toilet paper which was marvelous. Probably the worst was going to the bathroom/outhouse in the winter or during the rain or ice storm.
OH ya, how about doing the dishes? Yep, you had to carry water into the house for that as well and if you wanted hot or warm water you had to heat it as well. And what about soap? I remember making soap a few times out of hog lard. And yes, we had to kill and butcher the hog and of course we smoked the meat for bacon and ham. All I really remember about making soap is that we cooked it in a large black steel pot outside and it stunk and you had to feed the wood pile a lot of keep it going plus you had to stir the pot for what seemed like hours. My mom loved it when Dial soap came about and that lie soap was no longer needed. I actually think that soap ate the hide off of a person and that is why they considered it cleaning with soap. Kind of reminds me of the Beverly Hill Billies and Granny who used lie soap. If you have never seen it, try it out on Netflix or Amazon. I am sure you can find it somewhere.
Well I guess I had better go but those were "the good old days" and some of the things were not so good.
So, what do you learn in the Osage?
- good old days are what you make of them and they really are good old days because they make you remember what is really important
- the future is yours to grab and run with, don't blame your circumstances, it is your choices
- life will always have challenges because that is what Christ promises us but that is how we stay focused on Him and the future is ours to have, it is our/your choice to make it good
Thanks for listening,
gary
golson21@hotmail.com
If you would like a copy of our book, electronic is on Amazon Kindle under the name "Home on The Range, by Gary Olson", and if you want a paper back copy it will be out around the first of April or perhaps in March 2019. All profits will go to Wings (www.wingsok.org) which is a non-profit for adults with special needs. If you want a signed copy send a donation of $25 or more to Wings for a donation and I will send you a free signed copy. If you would like, designate it for building a house for adults with special needs as we need about $500,000 for a house. Well, that was a mouthful and thanks again for listening.
