BY JACK GODBEY

Community columnist

It’s hard to turn anywhere these days without someone talking about germs and how to sanitize everything under the sun. While I understand the reasoning for this obsession right now, I began to think about how times have changed just within my lifetime. 

Many of the things that folks get their feathers ruffled about these days with cleanliness makes me chuckle a bit when I think about how things used to be. For example, when we purchase eggs we rush them into the refrigerator as soon as we get home. I can remember as a child that one of my chores to do after school was to go to the barn and collect the eggs out of the hen house. 

Granted, that was many years ago but I don’t remember the chicken’s nest being refrigerated. Mother Nature designed that egg perfectly to sit in the nest for several days and be just fine.  However, these days people forget their eggs on the counter for 20 minutes and they toss them in the trash. 

I can also remember when my dad was in the barn milking our lone cow to provide fresh milk for us to drink. Many times, I stood in the stall with him and would aggravate him for a drink of fresh milk until he would finally point the cow’s teat my way and squirt the milk across the stall directly into my mouth. I can still remember how good that tasted. 

Today, people think that pasteurization of milk is required. I understand that pasteurization helps destroy some bacteria that allows the milk to sit on the store shelves without spoiling. However, for us shelf life was not an issue because we would go through it quicker that our old cow could produce it and any bacteria present made our immune system strong and as a result, we didn’t catch every sickness under the sun. 

We lived so far back in the country that city water was a luxury that we did not have. We did have access to spring water though and it was another chore of mine to collect fresh drinking water. Of course, I was not happy about the task as it took me away from watching Bugs Bunny and I would try to get out of it. 

I could tell by the tone of my mother’s voice however, when I had pushed things as far as they were going to go and it was time to get up and get the job done. I do remember that water being some of the best tasting that I have drank in my life. 

When people hear this they often will comment about the water being contaminated because it came from the ground and was not treated with chemicals as city water is today. I have to scratch my head in confusion when I hear this because we have clearly forgotten in this day and age that natural is always best. 

I can also recall going on the weekends with my dad to an old country store in my home town of Stanford to get a bologna sandwich. The women behind the counter cut the bologna by hand and cut it so thick it would choke me. I recall the women then using the same knife to cut a slice of cheese or to slice vegetables and it was never cleaned in between. Those were the best tasting bologna sandwiches that I have ever had. 

If eating that bologna is wrong then I don’t want to be right.