People’s habits and their customs have changed greatly over the years of my memory span. An example is the way that families spend a holiday, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years. When we were kids, and especially during the depression, it seemed like all of the family that were within a reasonable distance of us, and some that were not family, would gather at our house during the forenoon of the holiday. The men and the boys, who were old enough, would go rabbit hunting. I don’t know what the women folks did except to prepare the meal, and judging from the size of some of those meals, I would say that they were kept busy at that task.

When we returned from hunting we would dress the game and then eat dinner. After dinner we would usually get a card game started. We never played poker, in fact, we never played any game for money. Possibly the reason for that was that we had no money with which to start a pot. We usually played Euchre but sometimes we would get a Pitch game going. We could enjoy that kind of entertainment because we did not have to watch a football game on the TV. We could enjoy things as “square” as a card game or just plain conversation. The way things are now, we hesitate to call on friends or neighbors because we think that we might be interfering with one or more of their programs. There is nothing that turns me off more quickly than to be visiting with someone while they have the “Boob Tube” on with the volume turned down low. You know that they are paying more attention to that than they are to reality. I am thankful that I have been privileged to live during a time when TV was not the dominate part of the human life style.