Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015 Water pump installed long before I was born |
We gave up
watering the dry lawn a few weeks ago as the grass turned brown from the
oppressively humid heat. It rained a lot earlier in the summer but then it
stopped.
Wild animals,
deer, rabbits, coyotes, and raccoons were coming closer and closer to the front
door, looking for fresh water. I filled the three bird baths daily but the
water was always gone. Deer trampled the flower beds searching for water and
fresh green grass. Why this water tasted better than the pond or the river
nearby, I would never understand.
On days like
this, my memory takes me to my grandma’s clay dirt and straw brick house with
its tiny windows. When it rained, the interior became quite dark so I sought
the outdoors under the large awning over a concrete patio. I enjoyed sitting and
watching the rain fall, turning the grassless yard into a sloshy landscape with
tiny rivers dug into the mud. The yard birds chirped and the pig squealed with
joy. Thunder in the distance broke the domestic tranquility and lightning
cracked an invisible whip in the sky.
I was too
young to know or understand why grandpa never graveled the yard, installed
pavers for a pathway, or planted sturdy grass that we could walk on without
sinking into deep mud. Grandma’s rubber boots helped if they did not get sucked
in and stuck ankle deep with a grip so powerful, no pulling could disentangle
the vice like hold of the mud. He probably could not afford pavers or gravel, raising
six children even in the country was not easy.
I was just
happy to be with him, to ask questions to which he always had a fascinating
answer. Grandpa was a self-taught man who loved books. He instilled in me the
love of reading, exploring, and asking questions of scholarly men from whom I
learned so much.
He always
brought out the few copies of National Geographic which a team of American
archeologists had left behind when they finished their summer Roman digs at the
edge of the village. They stayed with grandpa as he had a beautiful and fully
furnished brick home that was never used by family unless his youngest son
visited from the city 60 km away. He unlocked this magical house for him and I
would sneak in and play with his Roman coin collection or grandma’s shoes and
purse from her dowry trunk. As was the case with everyone, his brick home did
not have running water or a sewer system. The outhouse was in the back and the cast
iron water pump was in the middle of the yard.The rest of the year, grandpa and grandma lived and slept in the tiny two-bedroom mud and straw brick house with the kitchen at the other end and a generous loft where he kept hay, dry corn, and wheat from that year’s harvest, along with armies of mice and numerous flee-infested cats who kept the mice population under control.
The peasants
were lucky to get electricity in the early 1970s even though the village was
located only 9 km from a very large industrial town. Before then, the oil lamps
were the only form of light at night. No street lamps either, just the starry
nights, darkness, and scary stories sitting with the neighbors outside the gate
on the wooden bench, specially made for this purpose, for chatting with
neighbors and catching up on the village news and gossip.
People lived
so close to each other and crowded, separated only by a wooden fence, with no
land in between homes. It was impossible not to know everybody else’s business.
The rest of the land was used for personal gardening and for Communist Party’s
collective farms.
Bolsheviks
were U.N. Agenda 21/2030 compliant long before the globalists of today decided
to install worldwide communism and force people off their private property into
high-rise, mixed-use buildings in the city under the guise of Green Growth,
Sustainability for the sake of environmental protection - such an easy way to
control the dumbed-down and crowded population.
Grandpa
commuted to work 18 km round-trip for over 40 years on his bicycle, rain or
shine, even in the snow. He could not afford the rickety communist bus that ran
twice a day to and from the city and riding for free in the open cargo area of
a large factory truck like cattle was out of the question. Today’s globalists are attempting to remove us from our cars and force everyone into public transportation and bikes. They are even going to tax bike users on the many expensive bike paths that are being built around the country in a mad rush to socially engineer everything we do because, if it worked so well for communist China and socialist Europe, it must be good for us too.
At least the
Soviets pretended to care for agriculture, for the food supply of the people.
They forcibly confiscated their property and moved them off the land into
crowded villages in order to form their collective farms on the joined land
where everybody worked and, regardless of effort applied, got an even portion
at harvest time, while the commies took their lion’s share first.
Some of the
villagers worked harder than others but they shared the harvest equally. Humans
are not so altruistic that they would put forth effort for others indefinitely.
Pretty soon everyone slacked off. There
was no incentive to work harder. The factory communist motto, “we pretend to
work and they pretend to pay us,” eventually stretched to farming as well and
fields remained unproductive and full of weeds. Such was socialism, it bred
laziness - everyone became dependent on the omnipotent government who doled out
crumbs.
Very poignant, with MUCH food for thought. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Carol.
ReplyDelete