The Constants in My Life
Everyone has a few constants in his, or her, life. Maybe it is just getting up every morning and getting dressed; going to your job every day; having a nice dinner each night; watching your favorite TV show or anything that you do each and every day with a satisfied and secure feeling. Some of my constants are; The 6:00 o'clock news,Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and the Saturday night Lawrence Welk show. At the end of the day, no matter what else has happened during the earlier part of the day, I feel completely contented to just sit down, relax and watch the 6:00 o'clock local and world news. However bad the news is there's still a calm over me from just being able to do what I do every day. Following the news is Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. That is my two hours of rest and relaxing for the day. I have been doing that for many years and the only thing that interrupts it is something that is beyond my control. The Lawrence Welk show has been on every Saturday night at 7:00 PM for over 50 years. I have missed very few of his programs. A lot of young people, my daughters included, consider the show square. Though Lawrence Welk has been dead quite a few years, with reruns, and shows made from clips of his old shows, his show continues to this day. That says a lot for his popularity. Maybe the young people don't care for him but Somebody does for him to be on that many years.Just recently for two weeks in a row his show was not on and I thought maybe this is it. But then the next week there he was again on at the regular time. My old standby! The least the TV network could do is apologize for messing with my Constants!
Our Little Pig
Back in the olden days, and I am sure they still probably do the same thing today, farmers would get rid of--do away with, or give away--the runt pigs of a litter. Almost always there would be one , maybe more, of the pigs which would be a lot smaller than the rest of the pigs in the litter and somehow was considered not as healthy or as apt to grow well. They were called the runts of the litter.My Dad knew someone who raised pigs and he had a runt pig he was going to do away with (probably kill!). So my dad said he would like to have it. So the farmer gave my dad the baby, runt pig. He brought it home. It was the cutest little thing when we first saw it and we fell in love with it. We kept it in the house in a box and fed it whatever baby pigs eat. I can't really remember what we fed it but we made a big pet out of it. It would lie by the warm stove or at our feet just as a dog would do. We named it Stinky. We got very attached to the pig and loved it just as you would a dog. However, Stinky grew and grew and grew until he was too big to keep in the house anymore. There goes the theory of runt pigs not growing well! So he was relegated to the shed in our back yard. By the time winter came there was talk of butchering Stinky. A horrifying thought but that is what had to be. The pig was butchered and we had a winter of good pork chops, sausage, pork rinds and all of the other good meat that comes from pigs. We thought, sadly, of Stinky every time we had a meal of the delicious meat.
Vicks VapoRub--The magic Healer
I was brought up on Vicks VapoRub. My Mother thought it was a magic cure all. Even after I married I did not escape the influence of Vicks! My husband thought the same things as my mother!When I was little and got a cold I got witchdoctored by my mother with Vicks chest rubs, swallowed lumps of the nasty tasting stuff and tons of it stuffed up my nose. I have to admit that when my mother would rub Vicks on my chest as she put me to bed and then placed a flannel cloth, warmed by the hot wood stove, on my chest it did feel kind of good. I am not sure it did much for my cold but my mother thought it did. I am sure medical people would frown on having a child swallow Vicks in this day and time or even putting it in the nose.After I got married I went to bed every night with the pungent smell of good old Vicks VapoRub. My husband liked to put a little swipe of vicks across the area under his nose--I am not sure why--But he did it every night. I think maybe he thought it helped him breathe better. I often told him that I sure hoped Vicks didn't cause cancer because he was sure to end up with it if it did!Not only did he like to use Vicks for colds and as a breathing aid, he also would use it to rub on anything out of the ordinary that grew on him or bothered him in any way. He rubbed it on pimples, blisters, sores, ingrown toenails and warts. Now I see that Doctor Peter Gott, who has a medical column in many newspapers, recommends Vicks VapoRub for lots of ailments also. He says too, that putting a bar of soap down between the sheets by your legs will stop leg cramps--huh? I read that column all the time and some of his remedies sound bizarre but many people do write in lauding his homespun doctoring practices. So now my husband is gone but I still have his trusty old bottle of Vicks VapoRub in my medicine cabinet. Once in a while I open the bottle and smell it just for old time's sake! But I promise you I will not be using it for anything else!
Cats
Back in the olden days we usually had a cow. My mother would make butter and buttermilk. We always had pans of milk in our ice box (That was what we used to keep our food cool before electric refrigerators were invented).When my mother or dad would bring the milk into the house after milking the cow there would be cats, many cats, sitting by the door waiting. They were waiting for someone to pour milk into the pans that were scattered around the back door. That was a regular ritual and the cats knew that ritual well.Of course we did not claim to own the cats but they did claim us as their owners. My mother said she could not resist feeding them because most of them did not have an owner at all and would have starved otherwise. Her practice of feeding them was exactly what kept them coming back. I have seen as many as six or eight cats at one time around our back door.As a consequence of all those cats hanging around our door, I am definitely not a cat person today! I do not dislike cats but at the same time I do not really like them. I am really a dog person. I may hear from some of the millions of cat lovers that I know are around the world. Cat people are adamant in their love for their cats!
The Shotgun
I was really a wild one at the age of three! My mother had been asked to sing with a quartet at a funeral. My dad drove her there and was going to wait in the car with me while she sang. She got out of the car and went in. I decided that I wanted to go in also. My dad said I couldn't go in and that I had to stay in the car with him. I was adamant and was ready to fight him to let me go.
Finally, I realized that I was not going to sway him so I said "If I had a shotgun I would shoot you." My dad related to my mother what I had said when she came back to the car. She told him he should have swatted me a good one on the behind. My dad never spanked me in my life--that was my mother's territory. Anyway, that day I found out that I didn't always get my way about things.
Hoe Cake
Hoe cake is a kind of bread made from corn meal, boiling water and salt. My mother learned about hoe cake from a neighbor of ours who made it all the time. It was delicious. The neighbor made it for her lunch a lot and she would eat onions with it. You got the water boiling and then poured it over the corn meal with salt in it (the amount of water was enough to make a stiff dough).Then after mixing that well you made it into small round patties and fried them in hot bacon grease. MM good. They were somewhat hard to get brown but slow and easy did it.Originally the hoe cake was fried on the flat side of a clean garden hoe over a wood fire (thus the name, Hoe Cake). Then a new improved method of cooking them, in a skillet, came into use. There are other names for the hoe cake, such as; johnny cakes, corn cakes, mush bread, pone, journey cakes and Indian fry bread ( from Native American cooking). If you have not tried this, do--because it is mouthwatering delicious! Probably fattening but still delicious.
How Observant are You?
I recently found out that I am not very observant at all. I have lived in my house for thirty one years and just discovered a few months ago that one of my kitchen cabinet doors was installed upside down. There is a curved section at the top of each door but no curve on the bottom, so it is a very noticeable mistake if you just look at it. Had I noticed that when we bought the house I would have demanded they install it right side up. However, they would have had to deal with extra holes after it was installed right. Now, since it has been so long ago, I think I am stuck with an upside down door.
I have cleaned the door, polished the door, opened and closed it unnumbered times in thirty one years so you would think that just once in that time I would have noticed the mistake--but I never did until just recently when for some reason, I happened to look right at it and I gasped. You also would think just maybe, someone else would have noticed it staring them in the face over the years but they never did.
Do you know what? It is staying just as it is. I figure if in thirty one years no one noticed it why would they now?
The Cotton Picker
As a cotton picker I was a dismal failure! I don't know exactly how much cotton the average picker picked but I did know of quite a few who could pick one or two hundred pounds a day. Really good pickers could pick three or four hundred pounds a day. My top count was maybe 50 pounds. I was glad I didn't have to make money from that to live on!We lived near the edge of town and there were several cotton fields within walking distance from our house. Some times we could walk to the farmer's place and ride a wagon to the fields if they were farther away. I did not pick cotton every day but I did go sometimes just to try to make a little extra spending money(believe me, it was mighty little)!I would start out picking like a pro and then I would be thirsty and have to go back to the wagon and get a drink. When I returned my friends would be far down the row of cotton from where I left them. Then I would start out again like wild fire to catch up with them. For some reason my bag would just not get filled up! I picked and picked but still my bag was skimpy and light. Cotton is not heavy and it took a lot of it to fill up a bag. You had to push and stuff it down into the bag again and again to get it packed good. When the time came at the end of the day for all of us to go weigh and empty our bags my bag would be the lightest one of the bunch. I worked my butt off and I could never get more than fifty pounds. We got paid by the pound so my cotton would be worth about half what the other pickers'( even the bad ones) was worth. At the end of the day,probably about six hours, I would be dragging my bag up to the wagon to get it weighed and get my few cents of money. It was not worth it! But the next time my friends wanted to go pick cotton I was right in there with them. I guess I was optimistic and thought maybe this time would be different--but it never was! As much as I love 100% cotton clothes now I do not have a good memory about cotton from those days.
The Easter Bonnet
What do Easter parades, Easter bonnets, baby chickens, furry rabbits and eggs have to do with the resurrection of Jesus? I can't tell you. Somewhere down through the ages they all got mixed up in some way with Easter. The one thing on the list that makes any sense at all is perhaps the Easter bonnet.Usually decorated with spring flowers they, in some way, might be a symbol of the resurrection of spring and a newness of life. But parades, bonnets, chickens, rabbits and eggs--no connection at all!Once in the long ago past most women and girls had to have a new bonnet and a new dress for Easter. These days most women do not wear hats as a fashion statement to church or anywhere else. Many women do not even wear dresses to church, pants have taken their place. In my church a dress is a seldom seen garment. On occasion you may see someone with a hat on for Easter, but I can assure you it will be on an older person, not a younger one! I have not had a hat on in years except for warmth on a very cold day.This is not to say that one should not use eggs, chickens or rabbits as a decoration for Easter but the point is you should realize that those items do not in any way represent the true meaning of Easter. Sadly, the hat industry has been shuttled to the bottom of the fashion world's list.Hats Off and a happy Easter to everyone!
The Pepsi Company slipped up on this banana peel!
This is a true story. Many years ago my husband (now deceased) bought a Pepsi Cola for his lunchtime drink. He was a die hard Pepsi addict for many years despite the following incident.When my husband looked at the bottle (before cans) he saw that something was inside it besides the Pepsi. Upon opening and examining the contents he found a whole banana peel! Someone had forced a banana peel into the bottle opening. The bottle had gone through the cleaning, sanitizing and inspection process without this being discovered. It took some effort to dislodge the peel from the bottle. I am sure that now, with new improvements in the cleaning process over the years, this could not happen (at least I hope it couldn't). He did not let this interfere with his love of Pepsi. He was asking for Pepsi on his deathbed! This says a lot for Pepsi~
Barbie Fashions
When my two girls were small they had Barbie dolls. I made clothes for their Barbies. A bought dress could cost almost as much as a real girl's dress back then and we did not have money to clothe both our girls and Barbie.
I bought two Barbie patterns and drug out my big box of material remnants. I was creative in finding other sources for material. One idea was to use the tops of fancy decorated socks. I always had a supply of those. I would use them after they got holes in the heels or toes and could no longer be worn. I would cut the foot part off the old socks and cut two arm holes at the top. With the decorated part turned down over the shoulder they made perfect little blouses for Barbie. I once found an old pair of boots which were no longer wearable but had a very pretty strip of fur around the top. I cut the fur strip off, stitched a lining on the back and Barbie had a beautiful mink fur stole!
One Christmas I made a complete wardrobe for each of their Barbies. I had to work after the girls went to school or at night after they went to bed in order to keep them from seeing the clothes before Christmas. I made skirts, blouses, dresses, pants, coats and all of the items that Barbie might use. I spent several weeks on the project but it was worth it to see the faces of my daughters when they opened their beautiful Barbie Wardrobes!
We should be so lucky as to still have those Barbie dolls for they were some of the original dolls and are now worth a fortune if they are in still in good condition. Sadly, they were lost in the garage sale world many years ago.
Garage Sales
I love garage sales! However, at this time of my life (I am a senior citizen) the reality has hit me that instead of accumulating more "stuff", I need to be getting rid of some of the things already stored on my shelves and in my closets. So I fight the temptation all the time to get in my car and go hunting down garage sales. If I go to one I am certain to buy something!I used to make things to sell at my craft sales and was always on the lookout for supplies for my projects. Now, since no longer doing craft sales I have lost the need for supplies. I used to crochet dozens of doilies with thread from garage sales. So with no outlet for selling the doilies I have stopped crocheting.I still occasionally go to a sale but am very selective about what I buy. Only things which can be used immediately or in a short time and which are very good bargains are hauled away in my car. However, that old urge to grab a prized item when I spot one at a sale still haunts me.Another drawback to garage saling these days is the price of gasoline. You can go to a store and buy brand new items for less than the cost to fill your tank with gas and drive to a bunch of sales. But nothing matches the thrill of finding the perfect item you are looking for at an unbelievably low price. The garage sales will probably still entice me as long as I am able to ambulate on my own!
Baby Chickens
Have you ever smelled a baby chicken? Probably not, but I have many times. They are a precious little ball of yellow fur and they have a clean, fresh smell that can't really be described.Years ago, around this time of the year my mother used to order a batch ( I think that is what she called it, although I think a group of chickens is called a flock) of chickens. She raised the chicks for our summer supply of fried chicken. She would order about twenty five baby chicks from Swift & Company. Maybe about two or three weeks later, she would order twenty five more. Swift & Company was just up the street from us about a mile.We would pick up the chicks and they would be in a big cardboard box. Once we got them home my mother would keep them in the big box, lined with lots of newspapers, in the house at night. Then when it was warm during the day they would be put out into the yard in a closed wire pen. Late in the day when it began to get colder she would transfer them all back into the box, with fresh newspapers, and bring them back into the warm house for the night. We might be unlucky enough to lose a few chicks due to crowding in the box or maybe some unknown ailment or disease they might have come with from Swift & Company. This care would continue for about two or three weeks until the weather got warmer and the chicks grew a little older. After that they were freed permanently from the box and the house and were allowed to run freely in the yard ( I need another blog to tell you about how carefully you walked in our yard !).I am not sure how old the chickens were when we started eating them but I can tell you they were "finger licking good!" We had fried chicken most of the summer. If any chickens were not eaten at the end of summer then they were put with the laying hens and they supplied us with eggs for the winter (the hens, not the roosters. The roosters just took care of the hens).
The Little Twin books--by Lucy Fitch Perkins
As an elementary school student I did a lot of reading. My interest was in all kinds of books but there was one special series that I read over and over again and was totally involved with every one I read. That was the Little Twin series by Lucy Fitch Perkins. I have checked at the library and was told that they no longer stock those books--how sad!I got on the Internet and I was lucky enough to find the Little Dutch Twins with a free download available. The download was fifty nine pages but I printed it out anyway. I plan to read it again. Perkins wrote a book for almost all of the old countries. There were The Japanese Twins; The Mexican Twins; The Irish Twins; The Eskimo Twins; The Swiss Twins; The Scotch Twins; The Italian Twins; The French Twins and the Belgian Twins. She also wrote some other books about The Cave Twins, The Spartan Twins and The Puritan Twins. I lived every exciting moment with the Twins in those stories. Reading the book now may not be as much fun as it was when I read them sixty five or seventy years ago but in my memory these stories stand out as the most thrilling and fun filled adventurous ones I ever read.I can't believe that children nowadays would not be as enthralled with these books as I was back then. Surely, the library had a good reason for dispensing with the Little Twin books-- but why? I can't imagine. Sure, they may be a little old fashioned but not so much that they couldn't be just as much fun as ever to read. Reading them now would keep children acquainted with the cultures and customs of our past.
I really dug that!
I do not remember this incident because I was only about one year old at the time. However, in later years my mother told the story to me. My mother was going on her weekly grocery shopping trek. Of course she was walking because at that time they didn't have a car. She put me in the big baby buggy. She walked to the grocery and did her shopping. She put the groceries in the baby buggy at the end of my feet. On the way home she did not bother to look into the buggy-- a big mistake! When we got home she discovered I had somehow managed to get a loaf of bread and tear open the end of it. I took my hand and dug down into end of the bread. I had eaten a lot of it and just generally mangled the whole thing. By the time we got home I had really wrecked that loaf of bread. In those days bread was not sliced, it was just in one big whole loaf, but this loaf was just one big bag of crumbs. Maybe she made bread pudding!
The Shoe Repair Shop--A Dying Breed?
Do you know where there is a shoe repair shop in your town? I live in a fairly big city and I actually know of only a couple of them here in my city. I suspect that mainly, most shoe repair business is from people who have specially made shoes which are very expensive to replace.
When I was a kid in Paris, Texas, I was a regular customer of one of the several repair shops located there in Paris. Usually, I would visit my shoe repairman at least once a month. Most of the time just for small things such as a torn out eyelet, ripped out stitching or maybe worn down heels. Other times I might be needing new soles on my shoes, a bigger job. Shoes were a necessary item for a school kid. I was hard on shoes and they needed a lot of upkeep. Most of the time I would make my shoe shop visit before I went to school in the morning. The shop opened very early and I would usually be the first customer of the day.
I was fascinated by the workbench of the repairman. It was a long spindle with brushes, files, buffers and cutting tools. He had a sewing machine for stitching up rips and tears. If he were putting new soles on your shoes he would cut the soles out of leather and tack or sew them onto your shoes. After that he would use the cutter to trim off the excess leather then the sander to smooth the leather down evenly with the rest of your shoe sole. Finally, he would put on a coat of shoe polish and buff it to a smooth new like finish-- all in a matter of maybe fifteen minutes. Your shoes were then ready for a new life of perhaps six months or maybe even longer. All that for just a few cents. The repairman's prices were anywhere from ten cents for small repairs to maybe a dollar for new soles--much cheaper than a new pair of shoes.
Back in those olden days I had one pair of school shoes and one pair of Sunday shoes. I used them until they wore out and were no longer repairable or until I outgrew them, whichever came first.
Now I have a long shelf in the bottom of my closet for all of my shoes. I have a color to match most of my purses and a style for every occasion. When one gets a rip, a tear or becomes the least bit worn looking it, along with its mate, gets pitched. That is cheaper than having them repaired these days.
Blackberry Cobbler
My mother used to make the best, mouthwatering blackberry cobblers you could ever find. She made peach cobblers, too, but nothing could beat her blackberry cobblers. I cannot find a cobbler anywhere, of any brand that is remotely similar to hers. She made a kind of dumpling pie dough and cut it into strips. Then she put just enough water to cover the sugared blackberries and brought them to the boiling point. After they started to boil she would drop the strips of dough into the boiling juice and let them cook a few minutes. When the berries and the dough were done, and only she would know exactly when that was, she would put a layer of crust over the top of the berries and dough. She then put it in the oven to cook until the crust was golden brown. MM--good.
We didn't have a lot of sources for blackberries but when we got one, we grabbed it. One of our neighbors had a farm where she grew blackberries. One afternoon she was going to her farm to pick blackberries. She asked my mother if she wanted to go with her and pick berries also. My mother said she couldn't go that day but if it was OK she would let me go. I had not been feeling well because I was getting a sore throat but I had not told my mother that. Never the less, I piped up and said, "Yes, I want to go." I could just taste that blackberry cobbler.
So, with my achy body and my scratchy throat I went with the neighbor and picked blackberries. I picked about a gallon which meant several cobblers. I was miserable the whole afternoon but I got my blackberries and we had cobblers for a while. My mouth aches for some of them now. The sad thing is, I do not have an exact recipe for the cobbler for my mother never went by recipes. She just threw in a handful of this and a pinch of that, never measuring anything. And besides that, I have no idea where I can get blackberries. I never see them in the grocery store. I just hope they have blackberries ( the fruit, not the computers!). in Heaven!
Does the chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?
The words in this title are also the words of a very old song. The words bring back memories of when I was a child and sometimes saved my gum for the next day. Of course back in those days, we didn't have a lot of money so we didn't have gum on hand all the time. We got gum, maybe, once a week, if we were lucky. These days I have gum in my purse or in the cabinet most of the time, although I seldom chew it anymore. It isn't as much fun as it used to be!
Many times I didn't want to throw my gum away when I was through with it for the time being so I would stick it, maybe not on the bedpost, but I would put it at the handiest spot I could find. That might have been on the top of a vase or on the top of the sugar bowl lid or any other unique place I could find for it. Then the next day I would retrieve it and continue with my chewing. When I got through with it, believe me, it had lost its flavor!
I remember my Mother used to argue with me about what kind of gum I should buy. I loved Dentyne and always wanted to buy it but because the package was smaller than all of the other packages she would say let's get Spearmint, Juicy Fruit or Doublemint, they are bigger. So most of the time she won and we would get the kind she suggested.
The bubble gum you got back in those days was two or three times bigger than what you get nowadays. It cost a penny then and now I am not sure what its price is but I can assure you it is not a penny! I don't even want to talk about the price of a package of Wrigley's gum. Not big sums but enough to make my old fashioned budget minded head think twice.
Sometimes one of us kids would sneak to bed with a wad of gum in our mouth. If our mother caught us she would make us remove it, but once in a while we would get by with it and then the next morning she would have to cut the gum out of our hair--not a pleasant job!
How I long for the good old days when Gum chewing was so much fun and its cost was so much cheaper!
You Eat That?
Most of us have a tendency to feel that if someone thinks or does things differently than we do then they are strange. That includes our eating habits.
We all have our preferences about what we eat and how we combine our foods. For instance, I like to drink a glass of buttermilk with pie (any kind of pie). Some other food combinations I like are; regular milk or buttermilk with cornbread crumbled up in it; vinegar on my beans; A big dollop of mustard mixed in my bowl of chili; and biscuits with tomato juice poured over them. I have seen some shocked looks on people's faces when I eat these things. As a consequence I began a long time ago to avoid eating these kinds of things when I am out in public. To me, these are commonplace things and I see no reason why I shouldn't eat them, but to others I seem strange if I eat them. I have known people who put sugar on tomatoes and on cottage cheese. That is a waste of sugar, tomatoes and cottage cheese as far as I am concerned!
I once had a friend that loved syrup poured over a slice of Swiss cheese, yuck! I also had an uncle who liked to mix a big plate of beans and cornbread and then pour syrup on it, double yuck! My mother liked brains. She liked chicken brains, pork brains and beef brains. She made them with scrambled eggs. As a child I ate them but now I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole!
I have a sister who throws out tons of pizza because some of her family won't eat the pizza crust. I love pizza crust as well as the other part of the pizza. I have a son in law who will eat only one thing at a time and he eats the items in a certain manner, salad first, vegetables next, then meat and etc.
Some strange people (and these are the really strange ones!) will eat rattlesnake, turtle, sushi, chocolate covered ants, worms and many other exotic foods--but, for me, no thanks. I will stick with my pie and buttermilk, mustard with chili and biscuits and tomato juice.
Whatever Happened to the Sunday Afternoon Drive?
When I was a kid we used to take Sunday afternoon drives just for entertainment. My Dad would say to the family, "Do you want to drive around a little?" Of course we three kids were all for that. We would not have any special place to go, we just drove around. Sometimes we would drive out into the countryside and just smell the fresh air and see the wild flowers or the farms along the way. Other times we would drive past places where we used to live or past where someone we knew lived. Occasionally we would stop and talk to someone if they happened to be outside where we saw them.
I remember one Sunday afternoon we had driven out into the country and along the way we saw a car that had gotten off the road and had turned over, The people in the car were black people. A couple of them had been injured in the accident. There were several other cars stopped along side of the road near the accident. However, no one was doing anything to help the injured people. It was as if everyone expected the other people to do something but no one was! To this day I can remember how I, even as a child, thought that someone should get the injured people out and help them. There were no cell phones then so we could not call an emergency number to get help. But someone could have gone to the nearest town and summoned an ambulance or the police. Since it has been so long ago and I was not very old, I can't really remember how it all ended. I just know that those poor injured people were at every one's mercy and the mercy was not there. All the prejudice, bigotry and bad feelings towards black people were surely displayed that day. Thank God that has changed for the most part!
Fortunately, we did not run across many accidents like that. Mostly we had very enjoyable rides. Now, however, with gas prices as they are you might have to consider taking out a loan to fill your gas tank and you certainly don't want to use your gas for unnecessary jaunts in the car. I am afraid the Sunday afternoon rides are now lost in the pages of our memory!
Calendars
I have two big beefs about calendars; number one is that hardly anyone gives them away anymore. I never bought a calendar in my life until the last few years. You could get them free at the drug stores, department stores, gas stations and many were sent right to your mailbox. Now no one gives them away anymore. In fact, they charge you an arm and a leg for them.
Number two is the size of the numbers on them. I like to look at my calendar from across the room if I happen to be that far away from it. Now I have to strain to even see the numbers right in front of my nose. They have nice big spaces to write in your appointments and things you want to remember but the numbers are microscopic! Not only do they print them tiny, they also use pale colors which are hard to see. What is wrong with big, black numbers?
I also like to have calendars in most of my rooms. This year I managed to find one calendar with numbers big enough to see a few feet away. I looked as late as the middle of January and never could find another one. I think all of the people who design calendars are supermen, or women, in the eye department.
I can understand why they don't give away calendars like they used to because of the economy but I think it would cost no more to make big numbers than it would little numbers.
My Brush with Fame
Many years ago when I first married I lived in an apartment in Taylor, Texas. My husband was in the military and was stationed at an army camp near Taylor. The apartment was in a house that was owned and lived in by the grandmother of Rip Torn, the movie actor. I never actually saw Rip Torn but I heard so much about him from his grandmother. He was a child then. She was such a nice lady and she invited us to go to church with her and her husband. They were members of a Lutheran church there in Taylor.
I did my washing out in her backyard with water heated in a big wash pot over an open fire. I am sure they had enough money to have running hot water to a washing machine in their house but for some reason they did not. She did her washing in big tubs using a washboard(some of you may have never seen nor heard of a washboard). A washboard is what they used to scrub their clothes on to get them clean. I am sure it was very hard on the cloth but that is what they did. Whenever I see Rip Torn in a movie it brings back all of the memories of his grandmother and grandfather so long ago in Taylor, Texas. That was my brush with fame, however light it was.
About this Blog
This blog is about new and old experiences. Some from many years ago. I remember so many things from when I was in school. Some of these things may seem unfamiliar to you if you are a young person. I am not so young so a lot of the things I remember are no longer applicable to today. However, they are very vivid to me and I would like to acquaint you with some of my memories. The first one is titled The Nickle Pickle.When I was in grade school there was a store right across the street from the school I attended. It was a small grocery store and they had a huge case holding all kinds of penny candy, can you believe a penny? The kids from school could hardly wait for recess to run to that store and spend their pennies. Being allowed to leave the school at recess is another story. Not only did the store have penny candy, they also had Nickle Pickles. These pickles were stored in a large wooden barrel in the vinegar, or brine that they had been cured in. They were very large pickles measuring from 5 to 6 inches long and were dill flavored. They were a nickle each. I never spent my money for the candy, I went for the pickles. The clerk had a large fork and napkins and she would dip in the fork and get your pickle out and hand it to you wrapped in a napkin. I can still taste the delicious dill and sour flavor of those long from the past nickle pickles. We just ate them alone as if they were a candy bar! I think maybe I have a jar of dill pickles in my fridge. I am going to get me one right now!
