Turtle,
That must be a new thing.
When I was 9, I got a hard life lesson on how people had to work before we had all these conveniences, like electric lights and potty boxes on rails. I was already used to using the outhouse that my grandparents had, they never had inside plumbing in their lives.
Well my grandfather took me to the mine shaft he worked at when he retired, I was privileged enough to learn first hand how an early 20th century copper miner worked underground for 11 hours a day with no potty box, no light and how hot it was just where we were at 11 levels down.
By the way moot, the copper mine that sat across from my grandparents house was 9200 feet deep. The one I went to as a kid was 7300 feet deep but I didn't ride a skip down the shaft we took old wood ladders that were put in place in 1889 down 11 levels to where the pumps, mining equipment and ore cars were left when they shut down in '43. A grand three hour tour complete with carbide lamps (still have all of them) and old phenol hard hats, and the smell of old rotting stuff that they threw down the shaft. Looking back I wish I brought a camera but thinking about it the old brownie would not have take great pictures.
