This week-end, we went to the Old Thresher's reunion in Mt. Pleasant, IA. This year they had a demo on threshing using horses. The larger demo used 6 teams of horses at once with their 6 teamsters, 1 person to start and stop the horses and keep an eye on them and 3-4 people loading the threshing machine. Even the smaller threshing machine would have taken 3-4 people. It gave you a sense of what a group working together CAN do. In the old days this would have been a community effort because in addition to the threshing, someone would have been grinding the grains into flour or bagging the grains. The straw could have been baled or piled into a wagon for various farmers to take home. Food would have to have been brought with them or cooked on the spot for meals as this would have been a sun up to sun down job. Do people in your community work together like this anymore? They don't in mine.

We also saw the pioneer village and visited the log cabin. It consisted on one room on the main floor and a sleeping room above. My husband commented about the lack of privacy for the parents (always did wonder how they had such large families!) and that the kids would have had to get along in such cramped quarters. Have we lost something from our families by not having the togetherness families used to?? Not just the appreciation for each other, but the willingness to accept family members as they are - more tolerance of differences. Every family used to have a quaint relative that made family discussions a little more lively (like an Aunt Bertha that always hung her bloomers out the upstairs window or in my case a grandmother that once she had grey hair was always coloring it and you never knew what color she would have the next time you visited - it was pink once and purple another time.)

By now you are probably wondering where I am going with this and so am I! ! !

Many of us will be taking in family &/or friends and this may make for some tense moments. Also how will you handle those tense moments - with anger or with humor or with understanding???

Perhaps now is the time to think about the skills each person may bring and tentatively think of how those skills can be put to use. Also think about the work that will need to be done and how it could be done without overburdening a few (kids should have chores as well). A large household needs a lot of planning and thought in order to make things run smoothly in the best of times and after Y2k probably won't qualify as the best of times. Have you seriously thought about what your days will be like, how the work will get done and by whom?

A little thought and planning now may save major headaches later. If Y2k is more than a BITR, you may have extra people in your household for a few weeks to much longer and a "normal" life just won't exist.

Visit some of the Pioneer villages and historical farms around. Des Moines has Living History Farms which you can call and get the fall schedule. Phoenix has Pioneer Village on the No. Black Canyon Highway. There are many others beside special events that take place. You would be amazed at the ideas you will get and the sense of lost skills.

Personally I think one skill that will be very important is people skills. While I do not subscribe to the politcal correctness garbage, I do know that you can say things in ways to get people to help you or hate you.

-- Beckie (sunshine_horses@yahoo.com), September 07, 1999

Answers

As far as community working together, some still do in isolated areas. Also some church congregations still do...for fund raising events such as tamale (or lumpia) making, etc. It will be a reason why the more organized churches will do well in an insecure future.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), September 08, 1999.