The Long Winter

[magenta]

Reading "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder, as one does in January in Minnesota, I reflect once again how precarious life was 150 years ago. People grew most of of their own food, and hunted, fished, foraged. The Ingalls house in town sheltered 6 people and was a fraction of the size of our condo*. We don't have snow coming in the doors or the roof. We have central heating, indoor plumbing. No going out to the woodpile in the middle of a blizzard, or going to the well. (There is no mention of their sanitary arrangements, but I can guess.) I recently saw a program on PBS about her and the books, so yes, I know about the racism, imperialism, sexism.(Much of it I figured out for myself years ago.) I know that Rose Wilder was one of the founders of the Libertarians and a friend of Ayn Rand. This was an attempt to create an American story of pioneer spirit and self-sufficiency that didn't really exist. But the conditions Laura described were real, and I am very thankful I don't live under those conditions. I like to remind myself that we really do have it good in some ways. Now, if we can keep it.

*Yes, since I watched the show, I know there were really eight people, a couple of boarders who Laura hated and wrote out of history.

Comments

[quadong]

Oh yes, as we sit in our warm, safe home with plenty of food and clean water, I try to explain to my daughters that COVID restrictions really aren't that bad. I'd rather have another year of this than any of the years during WWII, for instance. Heck, I'd rather have a year of COVID than a year of 1918 flu pandemic. Possibly I'd rather have COVID than the high-probability threat of nuclear war, as in parts of the 1950s and 1960s (that's tougher to evaluate).

Needless to say, they listen and understand what I'm saying, but it doesn't really change their feelings.