I just put down the Sunday edition of the Lexington Herald, after reading a very interesting column written by Leonard Pitts, Jr., in which he bemoaned the loss of all things familiar and, well, old.

Bemoan is perhaps a strong word. I think he meant something a little sad, but not altogether moan-and-groan sad. He compared the 20-something generation and how they were so used to everything wireless and technological and immediate to those of us ever so slightly over the age of half a century. It made me think of how things changed for my parents, and how I never considered what it must have been like for them to see television become a household necessity, or a microwave the preferred mode of cooking food. You know, the old ways of doing things, like preserving your own food in mason jars and tending to free-range chickens are definitely, and there is no other word for it, bemoaned by at least one person – me.

For, although my adventurous and independent nature would probably have gotten me either killed or shunned by all sane men, I would have loved the cowboy days, when women made quilts for utilitarian purposes, and they were just as beautiful as the ones we have now, hanging on walls for decoration or put in contests to win fame and fortune. Food was grown in the front and back yards, and excesses of one vegetable or fruit were traded with neighbors for something you didn't grow. I think I would have been a mite queasy about killing the family cows or chickens and having them on the table for dinner that night, but then, in my part of the country, kids as young as eight years of age are shooting deer and posing with their bloodied kills with immense pride, so I suppose it's all in how you're raised.

I know life was tough back then. No indoor plumbing, much less indoor toilets. No electric lights, and heaven forbid, no Internet. Scary stuff. 

But, there were horses and carriages, which are sources of great fun for me. And, there were buildings that you saw your family build, from the ground up, so you knew every stick, every brick and every log that went in to them. Things seemed to be more personal then. People were important to each other, whether because they were related or whether they needed to be avoided or whether they could extend a bit of credit to you so that you could buy imported peppermint sticks for the children.

Gosh, I don't know. There is so much good about our world, and then, there's so much that we as a civilized people have ruined for our souls. Newspapers, an institution for over 200 years, are being scrapped in lieu of reading your daily dose of world information via the World Wide Web. Books? No, no...e-Books are much easier. Click to purchase via a credit card, it downloads to your desktop and you're done, without ever getting up out of your ergonomically-designed computer chair. What's that you say? Can't take the newspaper or book in to the bathroom with you in the morning? Posh. That's why they make laptops, right?

There were no gyms with fancy work-out equipment – there were plows and fields and barns to build. You made soap from tallow and candles from beeswax and treated yourself from time to time with the stuff the town's general store, not WalMart, ordered in from big cities. Children played in open fields of wildflowers and climbed trees and had chores.

Yes, my fantasy world doesn't consist of space flight or other planetary searches. I don't care about life on other planets, I'm still mourning the loss of the life on this one. My fantasy world was 1800, and I would have loved spending some time there.