SENIORS: They have much to say

With the passing of our seniors, we are losing some real history of our country. Today’s young people know little of the conditions that existed in the country’s formative years. In one lifetime I have experienced living on a farm with no electricity, a windmill to pump water from a hand dug well, horses to pull the farm equipment and all of the cooking done on a Monarch wood stove, which also provided the only source of hot water.

The period known as the Great Depression is not just a name, it is a memory of evening meals consisting of a slice of bread and some flour and water gravy. We occasionally obtained shoes with cardboard soles that lasted two weeks and then required additional cardboard inserts to plug the holes in the "new shoes.” These inserts were cut from scrap cardboard and lasted the first few hours of the day. We walked everywhere as there were no school buses.

Today’s child will never know the excitement we had when acquiring our first car, a 1927 Chevy that cost $50. They certainly will not have the opportunity to ride from Michigan to Kentucky in a model A Ford. When we read in our sixth grade “Weekly Reader” that someday they would be able to send pictures through the air, we tended to lump it in with Buck Rogers and his flying belt.

It is unlikely, and unfortunate, that today’s youth may never appreciate what our men did in World War n They endured tremendous opposition without panic, and eventually gained the upper hand in furious battles, suffering huge loses during the process. People today will find the statistics unbelievable.

These are a few things that are passing from our store of knowledge with the death of each senior citizen. I fear that today’s youth will never know, and therefore, can not appreciate our history and their heritage. What a shame. We are a nation of immigrants bonded together to hack out a fine country with unimaginable comforts and bonuses. The people now enjoying these benefits, especially free speech, have little knowledge of who or what they owe to those who preceded them. Unfortunately many will never know. Today’s seniors are leaving fantastic accomplishments to generations that do not realize how and at what cost this country became what it is today.

BILL WITTHUHN

Coeur d’Alene