I had a client years ago who was in his late 80's. He grew up on a farm in Indiana and I remember him telling me a story about threshing grain. He was just a kid in the 1920's, shoveling coal into the firebox on a big Case steam engine that they took from farm to farm. He said they would try to stay near a creek whenever they could so they had a water source for the engine. It was hard, hot work. He said there was a "big German fella" who worked on their crew who never drank anything but hot black coffee, something which fascinated him as kid.

It was an interesting story to listen to. Such a mundane activity but the fact that it's no longer a thing and only existed in the memory of someone who remembered doing it made it kind of fascinating