We called them gophers

When I was growing up on the prairies we called prairie dogs gophers. Now i see them referred to as Richardson's Ground Squirrels. A lot of us ate them during the Hungry Thirties. I wonder if they would have tasted any better if we'd been calling them ground squirrels then.

I don't believe that I ever ate a gopher, or gopher stew, but I scoffed down my share of rabbit stew. Rabbits were plentiful where I grew up. We never made any distinction between rabbits and hares in those days. If it had long ears and hopped it was a rabbit. Rabbit stew made a delicious meal. Some folks sold the rabbit skins. They didn't get much for them. Others tanned them with the fur on and sewed them together to make lap rugs. The lap rugs kept us from freezing in the open sleighs. Even our Model A Ford car didn't have a heater so we used the lap rugs on our winter car trips too.

I'm not writing this to whine about how tough things were in those days. In fact I think that life is a lot tougher today in many ways. For one thing there's a lot more crime in the prairies now. And it's a lot more violent too. I'm referring to the rural prairies; the small towns and farming communities. I didn't have any personal experience with city life until after World War II. Our "little houses on the prairie" were always unlocked. Even the isolated country schools were never locked up overnight. In fact, as late as 1950 when I was teaching in a one room country school it never occurred to me to lock up the school at night. I suppose the schools were locked up for the summer holidays. I'm not really sure about that.

Most people worked a lot harder then. That was probably a good thing because we know now that exercise is necessary on order to maintain good health. Nobody works very hard today. At least not in a physical way. We sit around far too much and eat far too much. Then we hand over vast amounts of money to health clubs to try to get rid of the fat.

I wouldn't want to give up my computer, warm house and comfortable car and go back to the life of the Thirties, but I'm sure glad that I was a kid in those days and not today.