How am I even alive?

With all the recent Salmonella outbreaks and egg recalls, I wonder how I have survived 54 years on this planet. My Grandma Delcie had chickens in the yard when I was just a young lad, and I know exactly what it's like to step in chicken doo barefooted. There was no running inside for the anti-bacterial foam to wash my feet, just wipe them a couple of times on the grass, and keep playing.

She also had a sink on the back porch where she did laundry in an old wringer style washing machine that had one small jelly jar glass that the whole family drank out of. The process of sanitizing the glass was to fill it and empty it several times with water and then drink. The water was usually a bit warm in the summer, and using this process would allow the cool water from the well to fill the glass. Their was no hot water out there, and none of the family seemed to ever get sick.

Same with Grandma Brown's home. She didn't have running water in the house. She would fill a pail of water from the old hand pump in the back yard, and everyone drank out of a ladle that was hung on the side of the pail. That shallow well had lots of iron in the water and I'm sure she never had to take an iron supplement in her life, but it gave her potato salad a tangy taste that no one has duplicated since. It also caused a brown patina on the porcelain pail. The whole family drank right from the dipper and never used a glass.

How did we get to the point where we are so allergic to everything in my lifetime? I remember as a teenager working in the tobacco fields all summer, and now I can't walk to my car without breaking into a sweat. Am I getting weak in my old age? Well, maybe a little, but we all are definitely getting lazy by past standards. Imagine if you will, my Grandma Brown had to carry all her water into the house, and likewise, all waste water outside. I feel inconvenienced having to switch the lever on the front of my refrigerator from ice to water to fill my glass, and who hasn't waited impatiently by the microwave waiting for something to heat up watching the time count down thinking "hurry up!".

We are also getting "digital lazy" these days. If an internet video freezes and buffers for a second or two, we freak out and hit the refresh button. Uploading is worse, and something I usually do just before going to bed so it will be finished when I wake up the next morning. There's no way that I have the patience now to sit and watch the upload progress, or lack of it, without trying to do something else on the machine, which usually causes everything to slow down and cause more frustration.

Now, I have been asking around to see how many of my close friends (yes, I have some) actually use the internet to watch videos and the number is extremely low. Most say that's the last thing they'd use their computers for, and yet some of us do most of our viewing on the internet. How about you? Leave a comment whether you use the internet for entertainment, or rely on cable or over the air signals. Could you imagine toting water inside each day, trying to live without all the digital conveniences you have today?

But, is life better in the digital age?