Inquiring Minds wrote:
I was just kidding about the barter part - it was a totally unexpected gift to my hubby for doing something nice for somebody else. But we're all picking on him about it and telling him what we want to eat tomorrow night that he should find someone to barter with.
I doubt any of us are old enough to remember it, but we've all read how people used to pay doctors with chickens or other foodstuffs. I have a friend whose almost 100 year old father was a doctor in rural Alabama, and when she interviewed him for a book she wrote about his life, he told her some of the things people gave him during the lean years of the late Depression and WWII. Hope we don't have to go back to that in this country.
Oh yeah, we knew you were kidding, but it's a very sweet thing for your husband to have received!
I'm always surprised & touched when my students bring me a little gift just to thank me for something or say thinking of you.
My aunt, who would be 108 if she were still alive, raised chickens for their eggs.
Those were the best eggs! She often bartered eggs for services.
In some circles, bartering is still very much practiced . . . and I think it's a good thing, but I also hope we don't get to a point of "the lean years" as it was back in the Depression & WWII.
