We were thought to save and fix everything. Of course in my time there were lots of craftsman and we all helped each other. Our parents and grand parents did a lot of bartering. The money received from the sale of the crops was saved to buy seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and everything necessary to start a new crop at the new season. Grand father sprayed his vineyard with water and sulfur to keep the insects off. We were up at sun up when the rooster crowed and went to bed at sun down when dusk turned into darkness. We only had three meals a day. Our breakfast usually consisted of a big bowl of warm milk with soaked stale bread. Lunch and dinner was what the elderly put on the table. We were never given any choice about food. During heavy rainy periods grand mothers gave us a big basket and we went out in the woods to fill our baskets with escargots. Big snails in big heavy shells that usually came out after a heavy rain. We were proud of the number of snails we brought back because they were to become our meal for the day. We had a big vat outside where we dumped our snails. grandmother pour hot water and vinegar on them to clean them and let them come out of their shells. The snails foamed like crazy. The water and vinegar was changed until the foaming stopped. At that point the escargot were put in a big frying pan with olive oil, garlic and bay laurel leaves and simmered until cooked. We enjoyed pulling the little critters out of their shells and eat them. They were good. After we ate them we played with the empy shells. We broke them up and made little mosaics designs on the kitchen floor in front of the fireplace. We helped our family by playing and we were part of the work. We had a marble floor upstairs and when mother cleaned it she gave us some wool rags and we slid from one side to the other of the room shining the floor as we slid and sang and whistled. We were always part of a working, family and we felt like we belonged and we grew with strong knowledge of life.
