With the recent winter weather, many of us found ourselves stuck inside for a few days. If there’s one thing society doesn’t need is additional time being forced to stay indoors. I read with interest of widespread power outages across the area due to the ice and snow.

I found it odd that in this so-called modern age, we have all sorts of technology available to us and yet when the power goes out, we find ourselves living like Little House on the Prairie and cooking beans over an open flame.

As I thought about the folks that were without power, I began to think how much things have changed over the years. For example, when I was growing up, we had all the love and attention a kid could hope to achieve. However, if we wanted water then we had to go to the well and draw it up by the bucket load. Now, I just turn the handle on the kitchen faucet and then complain because it tastes funny.

As a child, if we wanted heat, that meant spending a day cutting wood and hauling it back by the truckload and throwing an extra log into the old wood stove on a chilly night. Today, I just turn a dial on the wall and heat magically comes out of the vents in the floor.

As I power my way through a gallon of iced tea, I get aggravated that I must get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Not sure why I get upset. It’s a basic math that a gallon of tea into kidneys that only hold sixteen ounces, something must give.

I remember when a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night meant putting on your shoes and tromping through the snow to the outhouse. No one was more upset about that than my father because there was no way I was going out in the dark and face the monsters that live in the night by myself.

Having the modern conveniences of today are nice, but I know what it’s like to not have them. Many of today’s young people have no idea what it’s like to live in a world without Google, video games, and cell phones.

When I was growing up, if we wanted to know something, we didn’t ask Google, we went to the library or we asked a friend.

We didn’t have time for a lot of video games because we were too busy rolling around in the dirt outside. We didn’t need cell phones because when it was time to come inside and get cleaned up for supper there was no mistaking the message that was being sent.

I will say that it’s nice to have information at my fingertips. I recall a situation once where it would have been nice to have.

I was barely 18 years old and had just started a job in the meat department of a grocery store. On my first day, I knew virtually nothing about meat. Although I grew up in the country, I had no idea people ate hog testicles. I had never heard of such. If I ever ate them, I assure you, it was not on purpose.

A lady approached me on my first day at the store and asked me if I had hog testicles. I stood there kind of stunned and I replied, “No just normal human size I guess.” She then explained that she was looking for them for supper and I turned a shade of red that made it obvious I had misunderstood her request.

Google would have come in handy that day.