* Update: I read the words of Ms. Mikkelson (in my link) incorrectly when I initially published this article. Corrections made now...I really just wanted to share the poems, as I think of how very lucky I am these days...

Now, I have really bad days sometimes; as I'm certain you probably do as well. But just for a minute, can we imagine tending to some of the same everyday mental stressors we deal with, while still doing the major necessary chores in these ways? 

I know for a fact that my grandmother did scrub her children's clothing with a washboard, until her fingers would bleed; just as Lorretta's song tells us the way things were for the lives of people from the hollers. My grandfather worked the dark coal mines 34 years. It was very difficult work; and he made very little money to support his family. He used to bite into chunks of coal, whenever he would feel such pain he couldn't cope well, while at work in those mines. I honestly do not believe the people who lived through the years of the Great Depression have fond memories of their struggles to survive. They may tell the stories in that light, in order to satisfy the longing of those who wish to hear...

Most of the actual memories of those who would tell the stories, were more harsh than the stories they told; as Barbara Mikkelson expresses at the bottom of the page in the link.

Our lives are not nearly as difficult today...We can learn a lot from the wisdom and strength of those who have lived before us, and made their way to ripe old ages before they died; knowing that they had really lived their lives.