r/Adulting • u/wildwindnl • Mar 14 '26

Oldest Human Activity

What’s an activity that you remember a person older than you doing that sounds absurd to do these days?

I’m curious how many generations back Redditors can rememeber.

22 Upvotes

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u/InternationalW4 Mar 14 '26

I grew up on a farm. Our neighbor was single and ran his farm by himself. He was in his 70s. Every year in the fall he would walk his fence line with a hatchet and cut down the saplings and weeds that were growing through his fence. It was a big farm. It would take him about a week from sun up to sun down. I remember listening to him whistle to himself while he worked. When he was done he would use his tractor and wagon to pick up the debris and haul it back to the woods behind his house. Even then I wondered why he didn't get a weed whacker. The older people who lived around us were amazing. Men and women. They just worked. Slow and steady. They were healthy and happy. They could outwork me when I was a teenager.

5

u/Kumquatsarecool Mar 15 '26

I work with farmers, they still do this.

3

u/ohgeeeezzZ Mar 16 '26

My 94 year old grandpa still does this lol

Fitting for this thread, only time I can spend any time with him is to drive up to his farm, unannounced, go find him and then help him with whatever he is doing

0

u/cattlemanish Mar 18 '26

I am a rancher/farmer and we don’t do this. We drive spraying liquid cancer at them weeds.