When I was a child during the 1970s, I lived in this house on the hill with my brother and two sisters.  The home had 14 rooms and I believe was built in the mid 1800s.  This was used for many years as the Dormitory for Goldston College I have heard.  Mr. Bingham was a teacher at the school and used to own this Dorm also.

When I lived there, the dining room and kitchen ceilings were 12 or 14 feet high.  All the walls were planks and where there were holes, we put newspaper to keep out the cold.  I remember during the energy crises of the 70s, we would wet newspapers and roll them into homemade logs and burn them in the fireplace.  Later, we had one woodstove in the dining room and one window air conditioner in the kitchen.  That was all.  The other 12 rooms where we lived were just like camping out.  The bathroom was off of the back porch.

By todays standards we lived third world!  But we didn't think about it.  I remember we all had electric blankets and we would take turns in the winter running upstairs and turning them all on.  It was so cold.  Regardless of our newspapers, you could still stand in the house and feel a breeze on a windy day.  Or it could have been our resident ghost.

Some of the best, if not the best, years of my childhood was spent in that big old house with no insulation, heat or air conditioning.  We had a huge yard and all of town to run around and play.  There was little concern then of anyone bothering us.  We would collect bottles around town and up and down the railroad track and trade them at the grocery store for candy.  We made a spaceship out of an old silo that had fallen down and been abandoned.  We played in graveyards. We ate plums, grapes, figs and peppers right off the tree and vine.  We climbed trees.

We were told that if we see a car or anyone we didn't know that they were from the government and would take us away, so we had to hide.  And so we did.  Not politically correct these days, but it worked and kept us safe.

Now, I have all conveniences and it is great.  But it is not at all needed.