Posted on 05/08/2017 8:00:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Who did not know these things? He’s essentially being Captain Obvious.........................
I agree- ridiculous premise.
He never mentioned music and theater either: the opera, plays, symphonies, jazz etc. And a billionaire could hire them to perform in his home or buy out the place for a night.
And telegrams were available if you had no phone.
Clearly he never watched Downton Abbey- I know it was England, but they had wealthy Americans in the story as well. They didn’t look like they were suffering much if at all IMHO.
This reads like a high school term paper; barely researched and written because he had to write something!
Otherwise titled: Why You Should Be Happy In Your Peasantry
EXACTLY my thought as I read this!!!
What the heck does George Will know about middle-class living?
He sounds like Col. Saito (Bridge on the River Kwai) -
“...be happy in your work...”
Different times, different standards. No Netflix, no tv, no radio.
But there were lots of theaters, circuses, church activities and socials, close knit families, long novels, concerts in parks, etc. There was a social life when you weren’t working. That was the generation of my parents/aunts/uncles. I looked up my relatives in the 1920 census. Most were (as Will states) boarders, renting rooms from other folks. My aunt who graduated from college in 1910 helped her siblings obtain rooms and later helped them with mortgages to buy homes since it was virtually impossible to get one from a bank during the Depression.
All of them had complaints about the hard work on farms growing up and about making a living during the Depression, but they survived.
RE: Two words:
Evelyn.
Nesbit.
His point is invalid.
____________________________
Remind us again why she is relevant to the topic at hand? All I know is she had the trial of the century.
RE: No,not this time.Yes,it’s true that this piece isn’t of vital importance but it’s interesting (to me,at least) to ponder the points made.
Some people at FR are “all or nothing” kind of thinkers. If someone disappoints them, they would never take anything that person says seriously again, even if he tells us that the Sun Rises in the East.
Thurston Howell was a billionaire before the crash. Then he was just a millionaire. (According to Lovey.)
Personally, I would have been dead at 27 (appendix) or crippled at 40 (heel spurs), or dead again at 68 (parathyroid). If through some miracle I survived those things, I would have rotten teeth and be subsisting on gruel.
Even the smallest medical issue back then could lead to death. Calvin Coolidge’s son died in 1924 at the age of 16, while his farther was President. The cause: a blister he got on his foot playing tennis became infected. Think about that...the best medical care available and he dies from a blister on his foot.
All the money in the world could not persuade me to want to go back in time.
Reminds me of the joke:
Millionaire: “I attribute my being a millionaire to my wife”
Interviewer: “What were you before that?”
Millionaire: “ A Billionaire”
Imagine the quality of life another 100 years from now, if you’re an optimist.
Thx ...
Rockefeller lived to be 98. He died in one of his several mansions—the one located right on the beach in FL. It’s still a showcase.
[Anybody who thinks Rockefeller sweltered in that mansion needs to consider the sea and land breezes. At the edge of the Atlantic they blow upwards of 22 hrs a day, every day, and are very pleasant.]
I would be the richest man if I had electricity and A/C on a hot muggy day!
I recall reading an essay on medieval times in which the author (Aldous Huxley?) opined that peasants had a healthier existence than the nobles living in castles principally because the castles were drafty and hard to heat, compared to the small shacks occupied by peasants, which were more comfortable and easier to heat. The nobles were subject to more colds and pneumonia according to this line of thinking. Make of that what you will. :D
Is fast food and TV, movies, and professional sports just replacements for bread and the circus?
We may live longer now, but are we healthier?(Both physically and morally)
Just to nit-pick, it was/is the .45 Colt/or .45 Long Colt. (Colt 45 = malt liquor)
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