No Television. No internet. No Facebook (maybe a good thing). No digging out the car for a run to QuikTrip.
Just imagining, here.
It was an off-hand comment from Channel 6’s down-to-earth news anchor Tera Vreeland, who – after it was noted the last big monthly snowfall record was established back in the 1930’s – quipped “Imagine what it would be like to be snowed in back then!”
I thought about it. The only communication 80 years ago was face-to-face (and I don’t mean Skype) or by telephone, that box on the wall that was cranked up with a handle to alert the operator, who would connect you with “your party.” After you made your calls – or the switchboard got overloaded – you could sit back with the radio and knit, or bundle up to step out and chop firewood.
If you didn’t have a pantry laid in with back-up snacks (I’m not sure snacks had been invented back then. I believe there were only hearty soups and vegetables), you’d just have to go hungry until the woman of the house whipped up something out of nothing. That’s the way it was, back then. The men keeping the fireplace stoked. The women stayed in the kitchen.
After a week, would there still be conversation? And during that era, trying to recover from the Great Depression, the Okies were either tramping to California to escape the Dust Bowl, or trying to plow it. Maybe the big snow was a welcome change.
This morning, the welcome change is the sight of a graded road, complete with visible pavement. It isn’t likely that I could have gotten out, back in the 1930’s, but probably would not have had a reason to do so.
For all the discomfort and inconvenience of the 2011 Blizzard, I’m thinking we haven’t really had it so bad – compared to what our counterparts went through, way back when. Sure, we’ve had some incidents and – unfortunately, a couple of tragedies. Still, even those who got stuck could reach in the pocket and make a call. The social isolationism of the 30’s is long gone. The Skype’s the limit.
I’ll meet ya at QuikTrip for a Double-Frappe-Half-Caf-Latte just as soon as I get the blogs updated, the Facebook status changed, and the GPS fired up!