Pigtails and Chicken Coops

While at the Syracuse Fairgrounds the other day, I caught this cute little girl in pink and her older sister milking goats. She tried her best to help but her tiny fingers couldn't quite handle the skill. Still, she reminded me of the few barnyard animals I had at her age.

Rather than milking cows or goats, we chased our pigs, ate the chicken, ran from the angry rooster and rode our sheep. It was The Seventies: the Cold War, an Oil Crisis and the beginning of Earth Day. Whose Dad in St. Lawrence County didn't experiment with self-sufficiency and agrarian life? Our garden was bigger than a baseball field.

The social dynamics were completely different too - hard work was expected, cooked vegetables were eaten and spankings tolerated. The average salary was $7,564 a year and a loaf of Wonder was just 24 cents a bag.

My sister and I knew nothing about hot pants and mini-skirts but Grandma knitted us red shawls to go with our polyester bellbottoms and noisy brown clogs. We carried matching yellow Tupperware lunch boxes with compact thermoses, Oscar Mayer bologna sandwiches, rosy red apples and sugar-laden Ho-Ho's for dessert. Nobody we knew were allergic to nuts, dairy or shellfish.