The Classics...

House built in 1735, North Kingston, Rhode Island  According to the comedian, John Branyan, Shakespeare possessed a workable vocabulary of 54,000 words compared to the average American's 3,000.  Now, in all fairness, William Shakespeare couldn't program a computer or even turn one on for that matter. But truthfully, life was different back then. Time the current culture fills with television and entertainment, the past filled with books and comradery and surviving plagues...

I just returned from a week visiting my family on the East Coast. Thankfully, I flew there in-between two snow storms and enjoyed amazing warm days filled with sunshine. I love it there.  I turn back the pages of time and remember life as it once was. ​Life in the days of the classics.  One day we traveled to a quaint little village in North Kingston, Rhode Island called Wickford. According to Wikipedia, the village contains the "largest collections of 18th century dwellings to be found anywhere in the northeast." History captured my imagination as I strolled by houses that were already dated at the time of the Revolutionary War.  If only the houses could speak and tell stories of their occupants.  Like an old man with a cane, the windows and walls bow with age. Step and post from the horse and carriage days. Remnants of the past linger on the streets where posts and steps remain from the horse and carriage days.  One house for sale showed a galley by the kitchen with a bed that pulled down from the wall. I imagine that bed was for the sick. With no indoor plumbing years ago, a bed by the door proved most necessary.  My own grandmother grew up using an outhouse. I remember that her mother worried why she needed to head that direction so frequently. One day she watched her daughter out the window and observed that she ate a pear or two from the orchard every time she meandered down the path. The mystery was solved.  Even with the difficulties associated with those years, my grandmother lived until she was 90. ​  The past. The present. Do we in this current generation really understand the value of our past? Are we more educated now than the people streaming to the Globe Theatre so many years ago? Did those patrons watching Shakespeare's plays in the 1600's understand humanity at a deeper level than students trying to comprehend his Old English in classrooms today?   Enjoy this little spoof on The Three Little Pigs and decide for yourself!