I'm So Old That....Continued

I'm so old I remember when telephones were big wooden boxes that hung on walls. On our farm, the phone hung in the kitchen. As I recall, that's where most phones were because that's where the family generally hung out. In those days, nobody had more than one phone. It was always a big box with a handle on the right side that you turned round and round and round in order to get the operator's attention that you wanted to make a phone call. When the operator (always a lady in those days) said, "Number, please" you answered with the number and hoped it wasn't busy because whoever else was on the same line, might be using it. When I was a kid, there were no private phone lines. Everyone shared a phone line, generally two different homes, thought sometimes as many as four. The thing was, if you picked up your phone to make a call and heard someone already talking, it was easy to just listen in and get all the gossip from around the area. Mom absolutely forbid eavesdropping. Bummer. I could have learned some good stuff to spread around.

I'm so old I remember when getting a permanent hair wave was an all day affair. Everyday, on my way to school, I passed by the town beauty shop and there, right in the big window, was the most horrible contraption I'd ever seen. I always thought it looked like some kind of torture machine and one day I asked mom what on earth it was and did it hurt the person sitting under it. "It's an electric permanent wave machine," she said. And it doesn't hurt. I asked if she'd ever gotten one and she told me "no." I understood. I wouldn't have sat under that machine for all the fudge sundaes in the world. And brother, did I ever love fudge sundaes.

I'm so old I remember when gasoline pumps had glass globes.  Dad always went to Finny's Gas Station on the outskirts of our small farm community. Finny was lucky. He had two pumps and gas cost 12 cents a gallon. Dad always sat in the car with us because Finny pumped the gas himself. No self serve back in those days. I liked to watch the glass globe atop the pump because the liquid in it gurgled and burped as it emptied itself into our car. But mostly I just liked the smell of the gasoline. I found out that many people liked that smell. I always thought it would make a nice perfume. But, hey, what do kids know?

I'm so old I remember when a horse-drawn wagon delivered the milk. Mom had a regular delivery schedule. I don't recall how many bottles she got at a time, but I do remember the milk man came three days a week. Mom always put the empty bottles outside the door on milk day so they could be picked up, sterilized, and used again. If she wanted to change her order or add cream or butter, she left a note for the milkman and stuck it into one of the empty bottles. Back then, milk came in one quart clear glass bottles with a cardboard stopper on the top. The first couple inches was cream, which mom always poured off to use for something else. She always told us the cream was too rich for us. I always suspected she wanted it for herself because I don't ever remember one time getting to put it on my cereal.

I'm so old I remember when women wore hair rats. Don't panic. Hair rats weren't vermin; they were small, pliable rolls of enmeshed hair that could be pinned to the head and the hair rolled over them to give height or design to a hairdo. Mom had three hair rats. Two short ones, which she used on her bangs or on the sides of her face and a longer one that she used for the back of her head, right above the neckline. She only used the rats when she and dad were going out to party and I used to lay on the floor and watch in fascination as she transformed her regular plain hairdo into something I thought was magical. She'd use bobby pins to hold the hair rat in place, then comb her hair over the roll and hold it down with at least a dozen hair pins. Sometimes she used all three rats, two atop her head and one at the neckline. It was my favorite hairstyle for her. I thought it made her look like a movie star. The fact that she was good at fixing her hair didn't get passed down to me but to my middle sister, who later became a hairdresser. She never used rats though. By the time she was plying her trade, back combing had been invented and all the rats got tossed in the trash.

Just in case you've never seen a hair rat, I want you to know what you've missed. I distinctly recall the day I found one laying on a table in the living room. I looked it over suspiciously. Then I poked a finger at it. Then I picked it up. No amount of figuring could tell me what it was. So I asked mom. She told me it was a rat. I threw it back on the table, horrified. I was little, but I'd seen a rat in our barn and wanted nothing to do with anything so vile. "Doesn't look like a rat," is what I told her. So she explained. They went out of style sometime during the late 1940s. I thought it was a good thing because I certainly didn't wish to wear anything named after such a scary creature.

That's all for now. I remember other things too. Someday I'll write them down. Till then....

Blessings,

Sandy

I'm So Old That....

I'm so old I remember when women wore corsets. Mom didn't, but Grandma did. One time I saw this odd looking thing laying on her bed and since I couldn't figure out what it was, I asked. She informed me it was a corset and when I asked what it was for, she held it against her clothes and showed me how it went on. I suggested she get rid of it because it looked like it would be painful to squeeze one's upper body into such a contraption. She told me it was fashionable and made the wearer look thin. I vowed then and there no such thing would ever touch my body. I kept the promise.

I'm so old I remember when every lady I knew wore a dress and high heels to do housework. I never saw grandma in anything but a dress, though sometimes mom would wear shorts and a halter top during the heat of summer. I never saw her in slacks until sometime around the 60s when she gave into the casual and comfy wear of the times. As for grandma, who lived to be 94? Always in a dress. Never anything else.

I'm so old I remember when you had to run the sewing machine with your feet. As a small child I remember sitting on the floor beside mom as she sewed, fascinated by the rhythm of her two feet as she pushed the treadle back and forth. When I asked why she did that, she informed me it was what made the sewing machine work. So when she wasn't looking, I put both my hands on the treadle, pushing it back and forth. Yep, the machine started doing its thing. It came into my small mind that I might have sewed something I shouldn't, so I stopped and hoped mom never found out what I'd done.

I'm so old I remember ice boxes.  The ice man came around often, lugging a huge block of ice with scary looking tongs. I kept my distance. He'd take the ice block into the kitchen and deposit it into the top of our wooden ice box. In winter, it seemed the ice lasted longer than in the summer. The only thing I really liked about the ice man coming was seeing his white horse that pulled the wagon. It was the only white horse I'd ever seen and I thought it was beautiful.

I'm so old I remember when school desks had inkwells. The desks were wooden and wrought iron and in the upper right hand corner there was a small well that held ink. By the time I entered the fourth grade, the inkwell was filled and we were all given a stylus and nib and instructed how to write with ink. I don't remember much about those lessons. What I do vividly recall is that Johnny Miller stuck the end of Peggy Hanson's long blond pigtail into his inkwell and thought it was funny. Peggy and the teacher disagreed. Johnny got sent to the Principal's Office. I thought it served him right. I was doubly glad that I didn't sit in front of him because I had long blonde pigtails too.

I'm so old I remember when every movie theater had an usher. No matter what time of day I went to the movies, there was always a young man in a red coat, dark slacks, a funny little hat, and a small flashlight to show me where the empty seats were. Jim told me he used to be an usher at the only theater in the little town where he grew up. Sometimes I wonder if that was where he learned to like wearing a uniform.

I'm so old I remember when cameras were nothing more than little black boxes. While still in grade school, my parents gave me their old camera to practice taking photos. It was a black Brownie, ugly as it could be, and the pictures were fuzzy. I thought it was a great prize. When our family went on vacation to the east coast, I hauled it along with me. To this day I have the pictures I took with that old camera. I had it for a long time. Then one day, while cleaning closets, I came across it and tossed it in the Goodwill box to be given away. I've been asking myself ever since, "What on earth were you thinking?"

I'm so old that I remember when washing machines were all manual.  Mom's washer sat in the basement. I think that was in case it overflowed, which it sometimes did when she forgot to keep an eye on the water level. The wringer washer got filled with a hose that ran from the hot water spigot to the washing machine. Then she dumped in laundry detergent and a load of laundry--no where near the size of today's "load." Then she turned on the machine and the center paddle swished the clothes around for as long as she thought it took them to get clean. The wringer part on the top of the machine was movable, so she'd turn the machine off and the wringer on. Then she'd  put the clothes through the wringer, one piece at a time, and it would fall into another tub filled with hot water. That is where it supposedly got rinsed. When all the clothes were in the rinse tub, she'd move the wringer again and put the clothes into yet another tub, this time filled with cold water. Then every single piece of clothing got put through the wringer one last time so it would fall into her laundry basket. Then she'd carry the basket upstairs and outdoors where she'd hang each piece to dry. Then back to the basement for the next load. Laundry was an all day job. Whew. I'm tired just writing about it.

I'm so old I remember when you had to be a weight lifter to iron the clothes. If you've never held an antique iron, you have no idea what you've missed. Every woman I knew had at least two. One to iron with and one to set on the wood stove to get hot. Even as a kid, I could barely lift the iron. Mom was thrilled when electric irons hit the market, although as I recall, they weren't a whole lot lighter in weight. It was just that they heated themselves, so every household needed only one. Washing and ironing were never held on the same day. The ironing came a few days later, because there was no such thing as a steam iron and every piece of clothing to be ironed had to be sprinkled with water, rolled into a ball, and put in some kind of bag to "set." I did the same thing as a young wife, for steam irons were still an unknown entity. Blah. I hated ironing day. I think every woman did.

I'm so old I remember when you had to have a woodpile in the kitchen if you wanted to use your stove. I can still remember vividly the old cook stove on our farm. It was a big, black ugly thing that belched fire if you opened the wrong door--which I did on occasion. If you wanted to make breakfast, you had to get up earlier than everyone else and get the fire started before you could even begin the coffee--usually the first thing every adult wanted at that time of day. Once the whole stove top got hot, the rest of the meal could be cooked. It was rather like camping out inside the house. And woe to the one who let the woodpile get empty because that meant going outside in all sorts of weather to either haul in more chopped wood or chop just enough to get through breakfast. How on earth did those pioneer women survive? Hey, wait, I don't know any pioneer women. I'm talking about my family here. No wonder I have always hated being in the kitchen. Maybe that's why my middle sister hates it too. We are the only two of we three girls who remember that stove. Little sister came along way too late to know about it.

I'm so old I remember a lot of other things too. But I won't list them all. So think about this: if you think taking care of a home is hard today, look back at what it used to be like. I bet you'll be grateful you live in the 21st Century.

Mama's Hankie

Mama always had a hankie somewhere on her person. Most of the time she carried it in the middle of her bra where it couldn't be seen but would be readily available if the need arose. There were times when I also saw that hankie come out of her apron pocket; other times it got plucked out of her purse. But most of the time, it came out of her favorite hiding place.

Mama always wore an apron

I thought mama was so smart to find a easy place to keep that hankie. So one day I decided to keep one there too. It made a lump on my blouse and then fell to the floor. I stubbornly jabbed it back inside the blouse. When I realized the battle had been lost, I went to mom, asking why hers would stay put and mine wouldn't.

She didn't laugh. I give her credit for that. Had our roles been reversed, I'm pretty sure I'd have giggled long and loud. She told me I'd have to keep it in a pocket until I grew old enough for a bra. She promised me that when that day came, the hankie would stay put.

Pretty bags that smelled good
were always in her hankie drawer

Back in that day, there was no such thing as Kleenex. No paper towels either. Mom had a whole stack of hankies she kept in her dresser, along with some kind of perfume bag that smelled wonderful. Even now I can remember the scent of her handkerchiefs.

Mama had a lot of hankies

They were her handiest tool. Those hankies dried tears, wiped noses, and all too often, got spit on so mama could wash my sister's and my faces. I have no way of remembering how many times I got spit washed as a child. But it was a lot.

We'd go off to visit someone and before we even got out of the car, all three of we girls got the once over. Out came the hankie. We sisters would all look at each other, wondering who was going to get the spit cleaning. It was usually me. The middle sister was too much a lady; the little sister too young. That spit wet hankie generally headed my direction. The only reason I ever put up with it was because it was never wet enough to be icky and the hankie smelled good.

There were times when we'd all be out as a family and one of us girls  would fall and skin a knee or elbow or whatever. Out came the hankie. Wounds got double spit. The wounded one got cleaned till mama was satisfied we wouldn't get infected before we got home to proper first-aid.

My own hankies were kid size.

Every mom I knew always carried a hankie somewhere on her person. I grew to love having a hankie collection. I still have them, old as they are, because I've taken good care of them. These days, Kleenex gets popped into my purse. Or maybe a few wet-ones. The hankies stay in my scented dresser drawer where they'll be safe.

When my own kids were young, I carried more modern equipment on my person, all the better to wipe my own kids noses or dry some tears. Boxed tissue and individually wrapped wet naps were my tools of the trade. Even so, there were times when an emergency presented itself and out came the Kleenex. I'd carefully scrunch it and put it to my lips. The kids knew a spit shine was imminent and they objected loud and clear. Sometimes they even took off running. Looking back, I wonder why my two sisters and I didn't do the same.

According to history, handkerchiefs date back to Rome and the days of the gladiators--when those in attendance waved their hankies in response to whatever was going on in the ring. My guess would be that it was the men waving the hankies. Those moms, like all others after them, were likely spit washing a youngster's smudgy face or skinned knee. In a mother's world, some things just never seem to change.

Over the years, I've given this hankie thing a lot of thought and part of me is sorry such a genteel habit has gone by the wayside. In my recollections, I see mom's using apron corners and hankies to spot check their kids, whether they liked it or not. I've also decided that the reason my sisters and I put up with it was due to the fact that mom always smelled as good as her hankies, so good none of us ever minded being shined up a bit. Well, that isn't exactly true. We did mind. But it was mom. Nobody else would have gotten by with it. You know what I mean?

"She watches over the ways of her household, 
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her Blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her."
Proverbs 31: 27, 28

Black Leather Jacket And Motorcycle Boots

In 1950s Minnesota, where I grew up, the guys who wore black leather jackets and motorcycle boots were called "Hoods." I never knew where the name came from and little did I care. According to my mom, all Hoods were dangerous, with few morals, and always ready to take advantage of a young girl. Being the obedient kid that I was, I stayed away from the guys who rumbled past our high school on their noisy motorbikes.

How on earth could a good girl ever conceive that her future in California would not only include a Hood, but a marriage that would last more than fifty years?

By the time I met Jim, he had traded in his motorbike for a '55 Chevy. In the years following, his taste in clothes changed. So did his choice of vehicles. During his long career at our local gas and electric company, he was always a picture of decorum and drove a sensible family car. Once the kids were gone, he bought a truck. Horrors! Would a motorbike be next? Sadly, the advanced Parkinson Disease put an end to that dream, for I have no doubt in my mind that Jim would have taken to riding the streets as he had done when he was young.

But I'll let you in on a little secret. There was always this part of Jim that refused to let go of those bygone days. His closet held black motorcycle boots that he loved wearing and a black, leather jacket to make the outfit perfect. The last year of his life was still studded with times he wore his "Hood" outfit. I always smiled, figuring one can take the man out of the motorbike but you can't take the motorbike out of the man.

In a few weeks, Jim would have had another birthday. While I've never believed in celebrating the birthday of one who's passed away, for obviously, they get no older, I would still like to honor the love of my life, the moral man God sent to protect and cherish me. So I decided to write this short reflection of his past--that part of him few know about, and to set the record straight that those "Hoods" weren't all cut of the same cloth.

Blessings,

Sandy

My One And Only Valentine Celebration

Jim and I were married in April so a whole ten months passed before we celebrated our first Valentine's Day as man and wife. I'd gotten him a lovey, smoochy card and I waited to see what he would give me. We had little money so I knew it wouldn't be much--but I knew there would be something.

He didn't disappoint. First thing Valentine's morning, before I was even out of bed, he crept into the bedroom with his hands behind his back. I grinned impatiently. He thrust his hands forward, holding onto a huge heart-shaped box filled with chocolates. I was ecstatic. I LOVED chocolate candy. But mostly I loved that Jim had thought to buy it for me.

After hugs and kisses, he went off to work and I began my day as a stay-at-home wife. There were dishes to wash, clothes to fold, floors to scrub--all those things that make for a relatively tidy home. I say relatively because I'm a relatively good housekeeper. But I'm not, nor have I ever been, a June Clever.

During the day I chomped on a chocolate here and a chocolate there and another one here and another one there and....well, you get the picture. By the time Jim was home from work and the supper dishes were finished, we sat together on the couch, all snuggled up, enjoying one another's company. "Can I have some of your candy?" he asked. I replied, sheepishly, "It's all gone."

"Gone?" Jim said incredulously. "You ate two pounds of candy in one day?" I admitted my guilt. "I'm never buying you candy again," he said with a good-natured grin. "You can't resist it."  He kept his word. In the fifty-three years we were married before he passed, I never again received even one tiny bit of chocolate candy from him. Truth be told, we never celebrated another Valentine's Day with anything more than a card. And it wasn't even an edible one. Life is hard.

The Hole In The Lake

There was no doubt about it. The lake, huge as it was, was frozen. All the way down. Or at least that was my impression. This same lake that I would swim in all summer long, was now not only walkable, but studded with all sorts of tiny shacks.

Young as I was, I couldn't figure out why anyone would put a little house on the lake, but my eyes knew it for a fact. What's more, smoke spiraled out of each tiny chimney. Puzzled, I questioned my mom as to what was going on. "They're fishing shacks," she told me. I hate to say it, but I didn't believe her. I suspected she was teasing me because of my never-ending bout of questions that went her way.

"No, really," I said, "what are they?" She repeated her answer. I decided to ask my dad. I knew he'd tell me the truth. He always was quick with explanations of things that puzzled me. "Dad's fishing," was all my mom said. Now I really didn't believe her. While we fished all summer on that lake, there could be no fishing now. The fish were probably all dead anyway. Frozen to death. That was my take on what happened each winter. What could live frozen inside ice?

"Do you see that little house right there?" my mom said as she pointed at the lake. "The brown one with the red door?" I saw it. It seemed to be far out on the lake, a couple blocks or so, and no real path to it other than footprints already in the snow. "That's where you dad is," she said. "Why don't you go visit him and see if he's caught any fish for supper."

With snow boots, winter coat, scarf around my neck and another around the lower part of my face and mittens on my hands, I began the trek to the red door. I was nervous. Last winter, a skater had fallen through the supposedly frozen river that ran behind our house and had drown. People said he skated too long past safe as the river was beginning to thaw. As a kid, that made a real impression on me. How can one tell if the ice is starting to thaw? Maybe dad wasn't safe in that little house. Maybe I should tell him to get out of there and back on frozen dirt. It was surely safer than frozen ice.

Not sure if dad was in the shack, I timidly knocked on the door. I knew my dad's voice. It was a distinctive voice that once heard, was seldom forgotten. I heard him say "Come in." So I pulled the red door open a notch, just to make sure things weren't melting and dad wasn't floating around in ice water. All seemed safe. So in I went.

He was sitting in a small chair, fishing pole dangling into a hole in the ice that looked to be about a foot across. At his feet lay three fish. Big ones. Walleye's and northern pike is what they looked like to me. The same kind we caught in the summer. I did wonder how one caught dead fish, but didn't have time to voice my question because dad's pole was bobbing in the water.

"Pull up a chair," is what dad said. "Do you want to fish with me?" I told him I'd only come to watch and why did he want to catch dead fish anyway?" He snickered. Then, like always, he carefully explained that deep lakes, like this one, never froze all the way to the bottom so the fish had plenty of space to swim around. I was dumbfounded. Another one of my theories tramped into dust.

I noticed a small stove in the corner and asked why it didn't melt the ice with its heat. "It isn't big enough," my dad replied. It only heats the air so it's comfortable in here. It isn't able to melt the ice." I looked around for signs of water puddles on the floor but there weren't any. I knew what melting ice looked like. Since I didn't see any evidence, I sat on the tiny stool and watched dad fish.

It was boring.

But hey, I was a little kid. I loved summer fishing. There was always a lot to see, even if the fish weren't biting. The shoreline, the waves, the old house on the island a mile offshore, birds, and flying bugs--especially my all time favorite--the dragonfly. They were such  pretty colors and always landing right on my rod where I could see them up close. But in this little house, there was nothing exciting to look at. Not once I'd pretty much memorized it.

Now, after all these years, I confess to the truth of the whole matter:  I knew all the while I was sitting in that little house that the hole in the ice wasn't big enough for my dad to fall through. But in my imagination, it was big enough for me. Better to high tail it while the getting was good because what if I stood up, lost my balance, and went head first into that hole? The horrors of it overcame my sense of well-being.

So I got the heck out of there and followed the footprints back to where I knew the land was. My Mamma didn't raise no dummies.

New Year's Resolutions I'm Sure To Keep

What is it with all those New Year Resolutions where you give up the bad stuff like overeating and begin new stuff, like the agony of daily exercise? What sane person sets herself up for defeat? We all know that the majority of us never keep a single resolution, no matter how determined we are when we make them. This year, I'm changing things around by setting myself up for success. I'm making my own Rules For Resolutions. I know I'll be victorious too. I bet you that I won't fall down on any of them. Here is my personal list:

1.  Eat more chocolate.

2.  Drink only $30 a pound real Kona coffee.

3.  Go to the hairdresser twice a week.

4.  Buy all my clothes at the most expensive department store in town.

5.  Hire a personal chef.

6.  Go on a cruise at least four times a year.

7.  Have fresh flowers delivered every day.

8.  Buy a stretch limo and hire a chauffeur so I can ride around in style.

9.  Purchase one of those beds that goes up and down so I don't have to pile on the pillows to read or watch T.V.

10. Eat more chocolate.




Oops, I already said that. But it just goes to show how important it is to me. So if you should happen to see a white stretch cruising the highways and byways with a gray-haired, well coiffed, beautifully dressed, chocolate eating and coffee drinking old lady sitting in the back with flowers in her hair, that would be me.

Hey, it could happen.

Happy New Year!