Today I spent some time eating lunch with my parents and listening to them talk about events that happened during their youth.  My Father's from the mountains in Kentucky and my Mother's from Illinois (sort of city area, but not like Chicago).  Their lives were very different, but each had a much harder than I had growing up (thanks to them).  Their lives were harder by a hundred-fold than the lives of most kids growing up now.  If a child from this time were tossed through a time warp and ended up back in the earlier half of the 1900's, I doubt that child would survive a week. So, folks, make sure you listen to your elders, spend time understanding what they have lived through - or trying to understand.  I'm not saying I don't get frustrated with them sometimes, but wow.  I don't think I could have survived in their time, either. 

I appreciate them all over again every time I think of all the things they've survived; things I didn't have to survive because of them.