Thread: Hispanics' Health Care Disparities Worsen

I think Sherie has made her exit! Couldn't stand the heat, I reckon! AND, FRIENDS, this is the MINDSET we are being forced to deal with. Who has BRAINWASHED these "do-gooders"??? There are a lot of arguments I could make AGAINST this type of person but I will refrain. But, what immediately comes to mind is how people like Jim Baker, Pat Robertson and their ilk have brainwashed SO MANY elderly, uneducated people into donating money to their "causes" and, by so doing, have ENRICHED THEMSELVES. Some people are just easily led and I think that's the category of people who really BELIEVE our cause is unjust. There's nothing that we could say or do that will change their minds because they are just NARROW-MINDED or, maybe even more apt, CLOSE-MINDED.

had_enuf--we were very fortunate that the phone company ran lines into thr rural areas. Looking back I realize how fortunate we were. There were other sections of the county that did not have phones because the lines were too far away and the cost too high to run them. We were 5 miles out of town but only 1 mile from a state highway. I think this made it possible.

Y'all are AMAZING ladies! I really mean that. I just can't even IMAGINE growing up like that and ending up being such SMART women. The worst I remember, and I was just a TODDLER, was that we were on a party line. I must have had a privileged childhood and didn't even KNOW IT.

Since we are on such a subject as the old days, I'll confess something I think is hysterical. At my house where I grew up, we had indoor plumbing that amounted to a commode in a closet until I was about eight and my father took half of my 4 brothers bedroom (because all but one was grown up and gone) and partititioned it off and added a bathtub. Prior to that we took a bath in a huge washtub in the kitchen.

BUT--my grandparents and many of my aunts and uncles lived in places where there was no such thing as indoor plumbing. My grandfather's house had a hand pump that drew water from the well to the kitchen sink. His bathroom was a 4 hole outhouse. One uncle lived in the same town. He had to dip water out of the creek with a bucket and his outhouse had only one hole. As a child, I thought my grandfather was a rich man for possessing such amenities. And that was in the 1950's. Those days aren't far gone.

Oh my GOODNESS. I must have been RICH. I was born in 1944. I don't remember the time when either set of grandparents didn't have indoor plumbing. In fact, my GREAT GRANDMOTHER had indoor plumbing as far back as I can remember. She did have a well on the property but she had running water in the house. I don't REMEMBER a hand pump but there MIGHT have been one there but not at either of my grandparents' houses. We did have only one bathroom when there were still 4 children and my parents but, by the time the last two came along, we had 3 bathrooms. That would have been 1956/57. I guess I just THOUGHT we were POOR!

LOL Bootsie, my people lived so far up in the sticks they had to pump in sunshine.

ROFLMAO!!!! PUMP IN SUNSHINE!!! Now, THAT is DESPERATE!!! AND, we call them the "GOOD OLD DAYS"???

OH YEAH! I DO remember that one of my grandmothers had one of those WRINGER WASHERS!! I was SCARED TO DEATH of the contraption!
My other grandmother sent ALL OF THEIR CLOTHES out to the laundry to be done!! I used to LOVE to spend the night because her sheets were always so CRISP! Funny what we remember, isn't it???

My grandmother had one of those wringer-washers too!! It was scary.

"Pump in sunshine"

That is great.

"funny what we remember"

We remember the little things. When we lived on our farm, I remember going into the chicken house, a great chicken house and watching the hens sitting on their eggs. I remember making "mud pies" in the drive way in little aluminum penny plates. I remember my mom making this great picnic lunch and we hiked to the woods and I saw my first "acorns". I remember playing hide and seek under the big oak trees with my mom and sister and running and falling on a tree root that busted my knee open. Took 7 stitches and my sister giving me a stick of gum to stop me from crying. I remember my dad coming home from a long trip and he brought me this little toy piano with real keys. I remember eating my first fried eggs from our hens with toast and homemade grape jelly. I was only four. They were so good, I had three. I remember trying to pet Midge one of our milk cows and mistakenly walked up behind her and she flicked me in the face with her tail and sent me scurrying and squealing. I remember my sister and I licking the yellow salt blocks set out for the cows. I remember sneaking up and peeking in on the baby chicks in their special little coup that had a heater in it and Mom yelling not to bother them. They were so cute and warm I wanted to hold them. I remember Mom locking us out of the house because we'd run in the front and then run out the back 20 times a day and let the bugs in. I remember the ground hogs who decided our concrete porch would make a good home.

All this on the farm with no running water and no modern plumbing. We had so much fun who cared?

It's the little things we remember because they were the important things.

We all need to remember this day and teach it.

We also need to remember that when our country initiates a policy that results in farm families being displaced off their farms, we have stolen from them the very memories that we cherish in our own lives. This is what NAFTA did to Mexico and all the other FTA's are doing to all the other countries. It is immoral. Poverty on a farm is very different than poverty in a city with no job, no land, no money, no home. The companies and interests behind FTA's are monsters not only for what they are doing to the American People but what they are costing the people in the trading partner nations as well.

FTAs are "mutually" disgusting and repugnant and they all need to be repealed immediately and the USA withdrawn from the WTO.

I remember that one of my grandmothers had a ROOSTER that ATTACKED me! So, she didn't have to worry about ME sneaking into the chicken coup! I remember someone gave my granddaddy a bunny rabbit for me and the thing bit me. That bunny DISAPPEARED overnight! I remember my granddaddy and I picking the berries off of my grandmother's nandina bushes WHILE SHE WAS GONE and we would sit up at the top of their steep, cement driveway and roll the berries down the driveway. Whoever had the most berries MAKE IT TO THE BOTTOM without getting caught in the little holes was the winner!!! OH, this one was REALLY funny. I was the first grandchild on both sides and my maternal grandparents spoiled me rotten. I LOVED to play FOOTBALL so, one day when my grandmother was gone AGAIN, my granddaddy got some LIME and MARKED ME OFF A FOOTBALL FIELD IN HER FRONT YARD. THAT ONE didn't go over so well with her!!! I remember another time that they were going to Chicago for a druggist convention and they ASKED me what I wanted them to bring back for me. I TOLD them I wanted a BASEBALL SUIT. THEY brought me a WALKING DOLL. I threw the doll down in the driveway and broke it all to pieces and cried that I didn't get my baseball suit. The next day, my granddaddy went and bought me the baseball suit!!!!!

I guess those REALLY WERE the good old days!