So, you think you have it bad . . .
 

You know that old trope, "When I was your age, I had to walk miles through the snow to get to school . . . (uphill both ways, of course).

Well, did anyone catch The Human Planet show? Where the kids have to walk SIX DAYS through the Himalayas to get to school? They had to scoot on their bellies on a shelf of warming and cracking ice at one point, all so the girl (and boy) could get a education higher than elementary. And then the father has to walk back alone . . .

http://timothyallen.blogs.bbcearth.c...he-school-run/

No, but I would have liked to.

maybe there will be a rerun

Hah! When I was a boy, if we wanted to empathise with third world suffering, we had to trek out to the third world and suffer with them, not sit at home and watch it on tele.

When I was a boy I moved to Detroit.

I'm so sorry. I am constantly amazed by the indomitable human spirit, and the power of people to overcome adversity I couldn't even imagine.

:comfort:

I moved there from Miami - In January. I didn't own a coat, or shoes.

you guys are so warmfuzzy

There was a doco about maybe the same thing or at least something similar here. When you see stuff like that, and then see western kids throwing away their opportunities, it makes you just want to wring their necks.

East or West they'll all be working at Walmart, staying in the mountains might be a better plan.

Monty Python's Flying Circus -
"Four Yorkshiremen"

[ from the album Live At Drury Lane, 1974 ]
The Players: Michael Palin - First Yorkshireman;
Graham Chapman - Second Yorkshireman;
Terry Jones - Third Yorkshireman;
Eric Idle - Fourth Yorkshireman;
The Scene: Four well-dressed men are sitting together at a vacation resort.
'Farewell to Thee' is played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.


FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:A cup o' cold tea.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Without milk or sugar.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Or tea.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:In a cracked cup, an' all.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:They won't!

Have just been watching a doco on some British twenty somethings who go to India for a month to work in sweat shops and pick cotton etc... so that they can get an inking of the real conditions in the third world. They were fairly empathetic having experienced days of back breaking work for miniscule wages. Am wondering if the doco makers will follow up and see where they're at in 12 months time.

Is now the time for my "when I was 21, I worked for minimum wage in a 3rd world country illegally" story? I also have a scary (for me anyway, given that I'm such a wuss) interaction with border guards/immigration officials in the middle of nowhere story....probably nothing compared to some of Sarge's and the Merc's stories though.

yes. now is the time.