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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

I'm worried that you could be right Bill.  In a couple of years , or less; 
those still in the city could have as their biggest worry, adequate food, 
clean water , and sanitation.  And, the vast majority of the people in this 
country 'do'live in the cities


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--- On Sun, 11/23/08, william Eggers <wce1482 AT yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: william Eggers <wce1482 AT yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Give up the dream? My dilemma (Egyptian Onions)
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008, 9:56 AM
> Now is the time to be on the farm instead of in a city. 
> Some may not like it on the farm, but you at least have
> something to eat.  It looks to me like there may be a real
> problem getting something to eat in a city for a number of
> years.  A job like you described sounds nice, but how long
> before the pink slip comes.  It is not a question of no
> money on a farm and a lot of money in the city anymore. 
> But a question on no money wherever you are adn something to
> eat in the country.
> 
> --- On Sun, 11/23/08, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
> <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:
> 
> From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
> <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Give up the dream? My dilemma
> (Egyptian Onions)
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Sunday, November 23, 2008, 9:59 AM
> 
> While it might be fair to say that I'd have litte to
> comment on, always 
> annoying my current wife by always introducing her as my
> first wife and and 
> answering the inquiry as to how I talked her into living
> way out here by
> explaining 
> that it was her idea,  none the less, but sometimes
> there's a perspective
> from 
> not having stepped into it that is just enough different.
> 
> To other people who have been though some of what Roxanne
> is talking about 
> I'd ask this:  If you had chucked it all and moved back
> to the city, how do
> you 
> suppose things would have worked out??  Do you think family
> tensions would 
> have subsided and things would have come closer to
> "Leave it to
> Beaver" type 
> household?
> 
> What I am saying is this.  Giving up the homestead dream
> for the suburban 
> dream most often, I'd guess, is giving up one thing to
> be unhappy over for 
> something else to be unhappy over.
> 
> I'm reminded of when the Isrselites got fed up with the
> exodus:
> 
> "And the mixt multitude that was among fell a lusting;
> and the children of
> 
> Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh
> to eat?
> We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, the
> cucumbers, and 
> the melons, and the leeks, and hte onions , and hte
> garlick;
> But now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all,
> beside this manna, 
> before our eyes."
> 
> If one's family had a well defined dream they wanted to
> pursue and that
> dream 
> was being thwarted by sojourning in the rural Ozarks, then
> it's a fair 
> question to be considered.  However, I've never seen
> that nor heard of it. 
> It's 
> always more a longing along the lines of remembering that
> there were onions in 
> Egypt, but forgetting the slavery and abuse.
> 
> Even under the best of conditions the return to the urban
> life rarely works 
> out like the homesteader refugee imagines.  Yes indeed!  If
> I was only in X 
> urban center, why, with my wit and charm and skills,
> I'd be such a success.
>  The 
> only reason I'm unhappy is because I'm stuck here
> on this rural farm!
> 
> But story after story I can tell you, the family, or half
> the family, or one 
> spouse goes back to the city only to find they were not
> dealing with the real 
> problem and they are still just as miserable.
> 
> If that ever happened to me, I'd ask first and
> foremost, "You know
> what my 
> dream is, what's yours?  You know my plan, let's
> see your plan."  
>  If the only 
> dream and the only plan is just to not be there on the
> farm, then all problems 
> will miraculously disappear, the prospects are grim.
> 
> Now what I have said applies to the best of times.  These
> are NOT the best of 
> times.  I'm not one who puts a lot of stock in the
> outlook that,
> "Well, ya 
> never know how things will turn out ..."   Wrong, one
> often has a very
> good idea 
> how things will turn out if the eyes are kept open and the
> ear is to the 
> ground.  Economies collapse, it has happened throughout
> history.  All the signs
> 
> point ot a majorly recessive economy for a number of years,
> if not an out and 
> out collapse and restart from the soot and ashes of the
> old.
> 
> That longing for the "Peasant Valley Sunday
> Morning" suburban life is
> longing 
> for an existence that very well no longer exists.  Someone
> was visiting 
> yesterday and we compared notes, "Do you know any
> family that has not been
> affected 
> in some way by the current downturn and rise in
> unemployment?"  We 
> collecitvely knew no one.
> 
> What I am saying in short is this:  Before viewing such a
> situation as whose 
> dream is the more important, make sure that there's
> actually a
> counter-dream 
> on the table being bet against your own.  I've found
> that when the only
> thing 
> being offered against someone's dream is "I just
> want out of
> here", that's the 
> only consistent thing you are going to be able to rely
> upon.  They will always 
> just want to be out of there, no matter where it is.
> 
> 
> James
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