Hard Work
May 6, 2002
7:21 a.m.
Like most of the rest of the country, we went to see Spiderman this weekend. Good film for what it is trying to do, I think.   over the past few days, we stumbled upon a PBS television show called Frontier House. It is essentially a family-based Real World, set in 1883. The concept being that three families (complete with kids from maybe 6-teenagers) got carted out the Montana territory in the early spring and were expected to live in period until late fall or early winter. The goal was to convince a panel of experts that they would survive the winter. Fascinating stuff. We take a lot for granted in our everyday lives right now. One family had to complete a house that was only partially started. Another man--a single man who ended up getting married during the show's time--had to build his house from scratch. And I do mean from scratch. He and his father chopped trees for the raw material. It's a six hour show. As we watched the families get along (or not) and deal with everything from the elements to gender roles to their own incompetence, the question became more and more direct. Could I have lived and survived in the wild in 1883? At one point Brigid asked if we would have considered taking part in that experiment. The answer is that I don't know. The show itself is certainly similar to the more popular reality based shows like survivor and Big Brother, but it is quite different in that there was very little in the way of contrived challenge. Better put, maybe: there is no immunity challenge on the great frontier. While I sometimes find reality shows interesting, I can't imagine do them. But Frontier House was not really about the same things as those other shows. The families did not seem to come to compete--in fact, there was no direct competition in regard to the rules. Instead, the families came, much like their 1883 counterparts, to test themselves. Some of them didn't do that so well as others, but that's not the point. I've got to say that the concept appeals to me. But man, oh man, oh man. Those people worked their butts off day and night, milking cows, planting farms, raising chickens and pigs, building houses and other structures, hauling water from the streams, dealing with varmints and physical pains, dealing with storms (it freaking snowed nine inches in June, for crying out loud), cooking incessantly, washing clothes by hand, going without bathing. I've decided I really like my air conditioning, you know? And hot and cold running water is something magical in this light. So, would I do it? I don't know. All I can really say is that I'm glad for the people who came before me. Because what they had to do was really hard.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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