Over 16,532,798 people are on fubar.
What are you waiting for?
The past is where you find it. Recently, a friend with an interest in local history picked up at a flea market an old account book for a nearby village's store--at a time the old accounts were recorded, a typical general store for a tiny community well back in the foothills. The book gives a uniquely detailed view of that community and its economy in 1842-43.
The store accounts are kept in a fat, suede-covered ledger in a beautiful, ornate hand that looks more like the Declaration of Independence than a prosaic tally of nickels and dimes. The book has 452 pages, recording something like 6,000 transactions, remarkable chiefly in their diversity. This little store sold pretty much everything: nails, snuff, horseshoes, shot, calico, rum, shoe leather, baking soda, salt, scythe snathes, axe helves, butter, paint, pots and pans, baskets, panama hats, soap, oranges, tea, cloves, buttons, thread, molasses, oxbows, turpentine, whale oil, shingles.
The village store was not a place where the profits mounted quickly. A quart of rum cost a dime. The storekeeper was a hardworking man. He closed Sundays, Christmas, New Year's, and the Fourth of July. The rest of the year he was at his counter, cutting, measuring, weighing, selling--and recording. Would he be surprised at our interest? 
