It Would Never Happen Where I Come From

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/08/german-boy-complains-to-police-about-doing-housework/1?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodaycomOffbeat-TopStories+%28News+-+Offbeat+-+Top+Stories%29

I read this story, and had to push my chair back. I needed room to laugh. Here is the story: An 11 year old boy in Germany called the police to report forced labor after his mother had asked him to "tidy up his room." He needed more free time.

Now I don't know where you are from, but I am from a little town in south Georgia. My daddy knew the police, his brother was the chief. If I had so much as considered calling to complain about "forced labor" I promise you that the next day I would have been begging for all the forced labor that was available. When my parents gave me a chore there was not a question about doing it.

Where I am from "tidying up your room" was easy. There were jobs available in the sun at Wight's Nursery, there was okra to be cut, tobacco to be broken, peasand tomatos to put up. Have you ever sat with your grandmother and cleaned corn or snapped beans on the swing on a hot summer afternoon?

The heat in the summer in my little town slips up to 100 degrees easy by noon. So any out door activity besides hitting the city pool could really be considered "forced labor," but I promise you no body is going to attempt to call it that. The folks that I grew up with just got it done. Forced labor was so much better than the consequence of questioning anybody about doing any type of work.

Work in a good thing. My daddy always said, "If you don't have blisters you didn't work hard enough." Free time is so much more appreciated when you have worked hard and perservered through any effort. When did work become a bad thing? Even God worked 6 days and then rested. I guess He must have been from my little town too.