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Thanks, and I have seen a lot, indeed. Starting with very little, but luckily from a large family of uncles and aunts and a homestead bankrupt by the dust bowl. Sounds bad, right? Actually, not bad at all, because everyone I knew was in the same boat, and we all worked together to produce everything we needed, food from gardens, milk cows, chickens, rabbits, hogs, etc., and sharing our excess with neighbors, hobos along the railroad tracks, church, and more.

That’s what freedom and liberty was all about back then. There were common sense rules, of course, and a small local government to make sure we were organized to keep the roads clear, businesses safe and the library and schools open, things like that. Welfare was provided through churches, and only through the government as a last resort. There were taxes then too, but much lower than now.

More importantly, there were very few regulations, restrictions, or rules about what we could do or how we did it. You didn’t need a license to open a barbershop or store, for example, or a permit to build a house or barn. I even remember selling excess vegetables and cream to a local grocery store, and my father trading a quarter of beef to a local butcher to package, freeze and store in his freezer the other three quarters for us.

Most importantly of all, we were on our own, and generally “problems” were simply opportunities to find and create new and better ways to solve them. Bullies and tyrants usually didn’t fare well then, because they had no large bureaucracy to hide behind and protect their authority. Sadly, that’s not the case today.

Were those the “good old days”? I wish we could get some of that back!