I met a woman this fall who said to me, "I have some things I need to say to my children, but I don't know what they are." Her face was slightly strained as she leaned forward in her chair, with a clear sense of urgency in her voice. 

Mary* is 82 years old. Healthy, active, still going to work every day. But she's keenly aware that time slips by and can catch us unprepared and unready to say goodbye.

So over the course of a couple of days, and 2-3 hours of interview, we navigated our way through the things that needed to be said. This is going to be Mary's Christmas gift to her children and grandchildren this year.

What makes Mary's oral memoir different from others is that instead of focusing on the stories of her life, we zeroed in on the values, principles, and beliefs that shaped the stories. This is what some people call an "Ethical Will," the values not the valuables. When you share with your loved ones who you are from the inside out, giving them something real and lasting about who you are and what you believe — to hang on to.  

At the end of the first session, Mary stood up and touched her shoulders with the palms of her hands, "I feel lighter," she said. And she looked relieved. Finally, her feelings and thoughts were taking shape, turning into something tangible with every recorded minute ... something that she would be able to pass on to current and future generations of her family.

I felt good, too, knowing that we were getting there ... one question at a time. 

Yesterday's luxuries are today's necessities. 

In a world where "luxury" means five-star spa resorts and sleek four-door sedans, have we lost our ability to appreciate the day-to-day pleasures of 21st-century living? 

A car in the garage, a television in the living room, and a refrigerator in the kitchen. Our grandparents saved their pennies for these now commonplace items.

And the trend from extraordinary to ordinary continues. We've already seen how quickly personal computers and cell phones have morphed into household necessities.

What about the convenience of on-demand hot, running water? I had never given this much thought as I poured my bath every night before bed. But a few weeks ago, as I settled in for a nice, long soak, I thought of Merton Pike and the winter his family lost their household water supply. For the entire season. On a dairy farm in northern Vermont.

The Pike family has operated Keewaydin farm on Route 100 just south of Stowe since 1921. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Merton, 90, for Stowe Speaks, a community oral history project sponsored by Stowe Historical Society. 

When the water pipe that fed the barn froze that winter in the early 1930s, the family had to act fast to keep their cows hydrated.

"We rigged it up to have water that we could get out of the river, baled it into a sap tank, and put that into a tank in the barn and baled it out to each cow," Merton recalls. "Cows drink a lot of water when you're lugging it to them."

Although they were able to get the spring that fed the barn running again after a few days, the water supply to the house never did get going. 

What did these hard-working men do? They carried milk cans filled with spring water from the tank in the barn, into their home, up the long flight of stairs to the second floor, and then poured the water into an old washing machine tub that fed it into a pipe which circulated the water back downstairs, warming it by the wood stove. Then they lugged the warm water from the kitchen back upstairs  ... just to take a bath. 

Nothing like a little perspective from generations past to help us appreciate the niceties of today. That hot water running from the tap in my bathroom never felt as luxurious as it did the night after my interview with Merton Pike. 

Merton's story, one of many he told that day, gave me a new perspective on entitlement and privilege. Instead of thinking, "Ah, I deserve this," as I sink into a warm bath at the end of a long day, I remember the Pikes and the winter their baths required hauling jugs of water through the deep snow and up a flight of stairs for the second time in a row. And instead I think, "Boy, am I lucky."