On Sat, 2 Jul 2016 10:34:02 -0400, Ed Pawlowski > wrote:

>On 7/2/2016 9:16 AM, Janet wrote:
>
>>>
>>> It's funny some of the luxuries we take for granted these days!
>>
>> I don't. To this day as I turn on a hot tap, flush a lav, pick up the
>> phone, turn the heating thermostat up or down, push a button and a
>> machine does the laundry, get in the car to the smkt, push round my
>> state of the art German floor cleaner, I often think of my grandmother
>> who was a big part of my childhood.
>>
>> She had none of those lusuries, ever. She raised 7 children by her own
>> hard labour, and was worn to death by 53. I lived in her house for a
>> couple of years in my teens. This was in the 1960' but it still had no
>> running water, no drainage, no bathroom, no phone, no washing machine,
>> the lav was still a bucket in an outhouse with no electric light; we
>> still (rain, shine, snow, ice) fetched every drop of water in a bucket
>> from an outside hand pump and, we still cleaned the (only) carpet in
>> the house, a square she was so proud of, the same way she did. By
>> sprinkling it with used wet tea leaves then brushing with a hand brush.
>>
>> Janet UK
>>
>
>First hand experience makes you appreciate things. I think about it on
>occasion.
>
>Last week I was driving my wife to a doctor appointment. We were on the
>highway driving at 75 mph and had a 30 mile trip. That was a full day
>ride by horse, one way.
>
>Today we accept that as routine. Just over 100 years ago there would be
>no trip to the doctor, no medication, no fancy procedures, you just stay
>home and die.

I think today, when they keep people alive on machines that is too
much, a sooner, more natural death is to me, highly desirable.