Suck it up

Throughout history people have had it worse than we do…

Before the coronavirus crisis, I used to think house arrest sounded like a pretty sweet deal. You’re surrounded by all your stuff and whenever it’s time to pick up the pizza or run to the grocery store you get to say, “I can’t do it; I’m under house arrest.” It’s actually illegal for you to be helpful.

But it turns out being stuck in your house for four months straight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

I was whining about that and how it’s affecting me mentally when my much-smarter-than-me son (and that would describe all three of them) pointed out that this was the way people had to live throughout most of our recorded and unrecorded history.

Don’t you hate it when other people are right?

So I started to think about everything we take for granted and spent time looking up stuff on the internet. Consider the source and the fact that I picked the first article that looked interesting and went with that.

And now, a short list of stuff to be thankful for.

Books

One of the few good things about memory loss is not being able to remember the books you’ve already read and right now I’m keeping myself entertained by re-reading John Sandford’s stuff. He’s written a lot of books so I’m set for reading material, but there was a time when books weren’t so readily available.

According to the internet, the oldest known printed book – a Buddhist book from China – dates back to 868 A.D. and since there was only one book in the entire world I’m guessing the waiting list to borrow it was pretty damn long.

Before then you might have to do your summer reading off clay tablets and if you wanted to read a Stephen King novel you’d need an army of slaves to haul “The Stand” down to the beach.

Books weren’t common in Europe until late in the 1500s and America’s first book, the “Bay Psalm” – a collection of sacred poems from the Hebrew Bible which sounds really boring but considering the competition was probably a best seller – was published in 1640.

Libraries

I’m getting most of my books from the local library and as far as I’m concerned, libraries are one of the best things man and/or womankind ever invented followed closely by air conditioning and the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

The oldest known library was founded in the seventh century B.C. for the “royal contemplation” of the Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal; his library card number was 1.

The first free public library was opened in 1833 so before that, if you weren’t an Assyrian ruler or his modern equivalent, you were stuck reading the back of cereal boxes and breakfast cereal wasn’t invented until 1863.

Electricity

So the other night I’m lying on my couch reading one of those John Sandford books and thinking this really sucks for a Saturday night.

Then the electricity went off.

The night got way suckier because it was really hot outside and after a while only slightly less hot inside and I was longing for that happy time of life – a couple hours earlier – when I was lying on my couch reading a book directly underneath a ceiling fan which was being supplemented by occasional bursts of air conditioning and I had a reading lamp that allowed me to see the damn book.

Never think things can’t possibly get worse because Life will show you that they can.

I was reduced to trying to read my book by candlelight while sweating like I was playing a Turkish prisoner in Midnight Express, which sucked (the circumstances, not the movie) but I was in the exact same situation anyone who wanted to read a book at night had to deal with before the 1890s.

And that’s if you lived in a modern city.

The Rural Electrification Act didn’t pass until 1936 and if modern road construction is any indicator, every home in America will have access to electricity sometime next century.

Air conditioning

I could lump air conditioning into the “electricity” portion of this thing, but AC is way too important to not have its own section. It wasn’t invented until 1902 by Willis Haviland Carrier and how that guy didn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize I couldn’t tell you.

Think of how many domestic disturbances could have been avoided if everyone wasn’t so damn hot and uncomfortable. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess Lizzie Borden’s house didn’t have central air conditioning.

Indoor plumbing

In 1940 nearly half of all American homes still didn’t have hot piped water, a bathtub, a shower or a flushing toilet, so you could be trying to read a book by candlelight while sitting in an outhouse.

These days, we’re living like kings.

Radios and television

Radios became a big deal in the 1920s because they were way more interesting than staring at the fireplace and listening to family members describe their day which may well have been chock full of watching a mule scratch lines in the dirt.

TVs were around in the 1930s, but hardly anybody had one and if they did, what the hell would they watch? TV development stopped during WW2, by 1950 TVs were in less than 1% of homes, by about 1960 it was 75% of homes and by 1970 it was about 95% of homes.

Many networks are still working on inventing something worth watching.

Vaccines

Now we’re all waiting on the medical community to come up with a COVID-19 vaccine, but before the late 1700s even that faint hope wouldn’t be possible because there were no vaccines.

The first vaccine was invented in 1796 to protect against smallpox.

Before vaccines you had to have nine kids because you’d lose two of them to some kind of disease, one would get eaten by a bear on the way to school and a fourth one would be impaired by some kind of threshing machine accident.

Those of you who are old enough to remember, think of this: Chester had to limp around on Gunsmoke all those years because Doc didn’t know how to repair a screwed up ACL.

Nevertheless, I’m still pissed off

So despite our current situation, turns out we’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Things could be worse; we could be sitting in an un-air conditioned home, staring into a fire and wishing someone would hurry up and invent books.

Nevertheless, I’m still pissed off and here’s why.

Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield recently said: “If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.”

I’ve got no clue if that’s 100 % accurate, but it certainly couldn’t hurt and things would certainly be way better than they are. I’ve been doing the right thing for months now and the people who aren’t doing the right thing are keeping the rest of us trapped in our houses.

But once again, let’s look on the bright side: maybe the Chinese will write a book about it.