During the Thanksgiving holidays, I watched Gone with the Wind, again. When we see those fabulous dresses and hats, the fine food, the stately mansions, and men with manners, who wouldn't want to live in antebellum south?
When we see the movies of settlers moving west, crossing prairies filled with wildflowers, sleeping under the stars, it just seems idyllic. Imagine what it would have been like to travel with Lewis and Clark, with the determined Columbus, or Marco Polo.
I have often said that I was born too late, but actually, I was right on time.
I am a compilation of DNA of many, many people; people who pushed their way from Europe to the Carolinas, then across the south in search of federal land grants. These people possessed and passed on a work ethic acquired not from any religious fervor, but from the will to survive. They worked and played and loved and grew stronger, with the goal of all living entities: to reproduce and make life better for their offspring. I couldn't be me without them. When it all came together, it was my time to be born.
Realistically, in the antebellum south, I would have most likely been among those poor white trash people that struggled to live, with no pretty red dresses available. I would have died on the prairie when my appendix burst. Exploring new lands surely was an adventure, but I can't help but think that when they got there, there were no Hampton Inns or Cracker Barrels to welcome them.
There's a time to be born, and I'm thankful that my time was in the 1950s.
*Photos shared from Google images.
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