Sen-Sen
For those of you who are much younger than I you probably haven't even heard of Sen-Sen.
Sen-Sen was a breath freshener, and still is according to Google. I remember buying it many times years ago to keep my breath fresh. It came in little black squares and had a somewhat sweet taste. It also had a kind of perfumey taste.
Sen-Sen was developed in the late 1800's by T.B. Dunn and Company. It was on the market list many years before that as a cosmetic in keeping with its perfumery roots. Although the ingredients are supposed to be secret they do say it contains licorice, acacia gum, starch, sugar and natural and artificial flavors. Google said the product is still being made on some of the original equipment that manufactured it in the late 1800's.
I have not looked for it for many years but I can still remember the perfumy taste it left in your mouth after you put the tiny black squares on your tongue to melt. I was then ready to kiss the handsomest man!
Preservation Hall in New Orleans
In the late sixties we visited Preservation Hall in New Orleans--The Big Easy.
It was a very unimpressive place on the inside and the outside but the music was fabulous.
As you can see in the picture, it was a plain, drab place with not very good lighting. But somehow, you didn't notice that once the music started.
The Preservation Hall building dates back to the early 1800's but the actual Preservation Hall was opened in the early 1960's as a way to preserve the tradition and style of the New Orleans jazz.
The hall is a weathered old building which gives you a true taste of the atmosphere of New Orleans at the time of the birth of jazz with its wooden floors, antique walls and furniture. There were actually no chairs. We just stood around and listened to the great music.
Preservation Hall has no drinks, no air conditioning 0r other fancy accoutrements, it is just pure music. Louis Armstrong, the king of jazz once said, "Now that's where you'll find all the greats."
I never heard if Katrina invaded that part of New Orleans, which was the French Quarter, or not. I am sure it has been rebuilt if it was destroyed. But it could never be the same again.
My Dreaming Makes me Tired
Me dreaming----------------------------------------- of this!
When ever I have a big project or job coming up, such as company coming, cleaning my house or any kind of work, I spend all of my sleeping hours doing it.
I don't mean that I just casually think of it, I mean that I do it in every detail in my dreams! I go over the job with minute details such as what will I do first, which tools should I use to do it and where do I begin?
When I wake up in the morning I am exhausted just as I would be if I had actually done the work.
I know this is a mental problem but I don't know how to solve it! I have tried taking sleeping pills and they may help a little but not completely. I still work on my jobs every night in my dreams until they are past.
I have to admit that It has been helpful in some ways. I have figured out how to do many things in my dreams that help me when I actually do the work. But I am so pooped from all of my dream work that I have to sit down and rest when I get up in the morning! Can you believe that?
Show me that psychiatric section in the phone book, please!
Men's Sock Garters
Have you ever seen a man wear this type of garter to hold his socks up? My Dad used to have garters like these. I guess they work fine for a man with muscles on his calf but if he were skinny I don't think they would work.
I can remember my Dad putting on his socks and then fastening the garter around his leg and attaching it to his socks.
That was when socks didn't have any elastic in the top of them as they do now. Nowadays elastic is woven into the top of the sock and it holds them up in the same way women's knee highs are held up.
I remember that not too long after the garters my Dad must have got socks that had the elastic in them because I don't remember him having the old kind for too many years. It must have been a pleasure to have your socks stay up without that tight garter around your calf muscle. I know that I was relieved to have pantyhose come along and I didn't have to wear a garter belt.
Elastic was a Godsend for everyone. Not only for socks but for many other things that we use nowadays. Hooray for progress!
Peeling Tomatoes
My Mom could not stand to eat a tomato that was unpeeled. I love eating them just washed and sliced with the peeling still on.
I feel it is a waste to throw away the best part of the tomato and a waste of the time spent peeling them. They tear up so easily without the peeling to hold them together. I also have heard that most of the nutrients are in the peel. So it is a double waste to peel them.
I love tomatoes and I have a garden every year and plant lots of tomatoes. I can juice and whole tomatoes for my use all winter in soups, stews , spaghetti and just for eating plain. I do peel the tomatoes for canning because the peels roll up and are not pleasant to eat canned.
My Mom used to spend quite a bit of time peeling the tomatoes. I tried to tell her about the nutrients but she didn't care, she was not going to eat tomato peelings! She felt the same way about peaches. I can understand the peaches a little easier than the tomatoes but I still just wash my peaches and eat them unpeeled--YUM YUM!
My Accent
I was born in Texas and thus I have a Texas accent. I moved to Indiana in 1946 when I was about 19 years old. Since then I have never tried to change my accent or keep it--I am just me and I talk the way I always did.
However, I know that in spite of living here in Indiana for some 60 years I have never lost all of my southern accent because I never meet someone new who doesn't ask me if I am from the south.
I did drop some of the expressions that were deeply instilled in me from the south; such as y'all. The very first time I came to Indiana one of Ford's friends picked us up at the train station for a ride home. Immediately he started saying to me "How y"all doing?" I was greatly insulted and never liked that guy after that. I am sure he was just trying to be friendly and funny, but I was very upset by it!
For some reason I have always felt inferior because of my southern accent. Probably because of the way TV has portrayed people from the south as being hillbilly and dumb. I know that I am as smart as the average person from the north, certainly not any dumber, but I still feel slightly inferior to a person having a northern, or Yankee, accent.
There are others who say what the sign above says, Everyone loves a southern girl. That makes me feel some better but underneath it all I can't completely lose that background feeling of inferiority.
I hope y"all do understand that I am not dumb and I do still have a southern accent! I will probably die with it because I am never going to change! Yea! Hooray for me!
Selling Cream to Swift & Company
When I was just a little kid my Mom used to sell cream to Swift & Company. We had a cow and she had more cream than she could use. She would collect the extra cream and put it in a large bucket. When it got nearly full she would put a big lid on it and set the bucket in a little red wagon and I would pull it up to Swift & Company, which was about maybe a half mile up the street from us. My sister would sometimes help me pull the wagon. It was kind of tricky pulling it without turning the wagon over, we had to be careful not to do that!
The Swift man would take the bucket and empty it into a big vat and then steam clean the bucket. They would do some testing on the cream and then about half an hour later he would bring me the money for the cream. I think they tested for the level of fat in the cream or something like that.
After some time they told us that we had to have a certain kind of bucket, like the one in the picture above, so we had to buy one of the buckets to sell the cream with. I am shocked that they would buy cream from just anybody as they did then. We never got rich from it but the money did help out because we were on a very limited budget at that time.
I am sure that now Swift would not do business that way. Everything has to be tested and done in a certain way. But at that time it was a Godsend for us. But then, who nowadays has a cow and wants to sell cream to anybody? Maybe the big dairy farms but not the average person like we were then.
I think of us selling the cream to Swift's every time I buy sour cream at the grocery store.
Jim Davis--Garfield creator
Don't you just love Garfield? It is one of my favorite comic strips.
I was fortunate enough to meet Jim Davis, Garfield's creator, many years ago at a writing seminar at Ball State University.
He was one of the featured speakers at the seminar. He was a very down to earth guy. I can't remember if I got his autograph or not. He was somewhat famous then but not as much as now.
That was about 1976 or 1977. Had I known how famous he would become I certainly would have pursued an autograph!
Jim Davis was born in Marion, Indiana on July 28th, 1945. His first Garfield comic strip was published in 1978. It was an immediate hit.
Oh, that reminds me, I have an urge for some Lasagna!
Nylon Stockings
Stockings with seams up the back
Back in 1946 I went to work at the Wayne Knitting Mills. They made nylon stockings there. I worked on a sewing machine making the seams up the back of the stockings. Stockings now do not have a seam in the back. It was a very hum drum job since all I did was sew the seams up the back of each pair of stockings. If I made a mistake or got the seam a little crooked I had to rip it out and start all over. Ripping it out was very time consuming because you had to work very carefully with the nylon to keep from tearing it. So you tried to make sure to get it right the first time.
I worked there for about five years. I got pregnant with my first child and had to quit about 5 months later. For a while, I was doing the sewing at home ( they brought a machine out to my home) but that got to be too much for me to handle so I stopped that before too long.
I was on piece work and had to reach a quota of a certain number of stockings before I got paid on the piece work pay. After I reached that, in about three months, I made very good money. However it was nerve wracking work and I had problems with my nerves for a while. Finally, I got over that and did fine.
Nylon stockings now are seamless and I don't think too many people wear the kind I made. Mostly, I wear knee highs or pantie hose occasionally. Wayne Knitting Mills went out of business long ago. But I did get my first experience at working there.
January 21. 1899
Daddy at 8 months
Daddy at about 18
January 21, 1899 is the birth date of the best man I ever knew. I know you would not find anyone who would disagree with me.
My Dad was not a big talker but he did manage to say what had to be said.
I never saw my Dad angry. He did sometimes get a little irritated but the most he ever said was, "Now I wish you hadn't gone and done that or said that." He never spanked me in my whole life when I am sure that sometimes I needed it!
My Dad has been gone for many years but I still feel his presence and love as if he were here.
I hope he has a very happy birthday in his heavenly home and he will forever have them there! Daddy, I love You!
The Deep Freeze
We have had an unusually long streak of cold in our area. It has been below zero, about 14 below one morning, and we also have a good amount of snow on the ground. Even the high temperatures in the middle of the days are only in single digits.
Fortunately, it is supposed to warm up a little by the end of this week for about two days and then go back to the really frigid temperatures again (by warm up I mean into the 20s).
You people who live in the south don't know how it feels to walk outside in 14 below zero and take a deep breath! It hurts your lungs. You also get frost on your nose and mouth If you are out more than a few minutes. I don't go outside in this kind of weather unless I absolutely have to.
I sometimes wonder why I am living here--then I remember--I have a daughter and grand kids that live here and my home is here. So that is why I live here.
I sit on my couch by the window and just look out. I am waiting for spring. It will come one day, it always does! Then when it is in the 100 degree range this summer I will think of this cold and wish I had some of it.Why is it that we are never satisfied with what we have?
More about Roosters
One Cocky Rooster
My Dad had been burning leaves one fall day and most of the leaves had burned but there were still some hot embers in among the ashes.There was this one cocky rooster which my Dad disliked because the rooster was a very feisty and king of the hill type rooster. He fought with the other chickens and just was one ill tempered guy.He was walking around the ashes and suddenly he walked into them after a bug or something. He started really jumping and squawking. My Dad laughed his head off, the rooster had walked into some of the hot embers and was getting his feet singed. He was not crowing so loud then, he was squawking and fighting to get out of that hot spot! My Dad thought it was hilarious since it was the one rooster that he despised. Mr Cocky was not so cocky after that. My Mom said that was the most she had ever seen my Dad laugh in her whole time of being with him.Poor Mister Cocky!
Mr. Cock-a-Doodle-Doo
When we had chickens back when I was a kid, I remember every morning hearing the roosters crowing. It was their job to wake all of us up and get us to hit the floor running--at least my Mom and Dad. I usually didn't get up when they did but soon after.
It was irritating to be so snug in my bed sleeping and to hear that shrill, "Cock-a-doodle-do." I would turn over and pull the covers over my head and try to get my last few minutes of snoozing.
Usually we had more than one rooster so we heard more than one feisty wake up call. Most of the time they paid for their wake up calls because my Mom would kill the roosters first, before the hens, for our chicken dinners.
It has been many years since I have heard a rooster crow. Somehow, I don't really miss them!
Hula Hoops
Remember hula hoops? They were introduced back in the late 1950s. I remember that I was never able to keep the hoop going but for a few seconds. My kids could go on and on as long as their energy held out.
I did read somewhere that there was a physical reason that grownups--at least most of them--were unable to do the hula hoop thing. Something about how your body is made. I know that I never could do it and most other adults I knew also couldn't.
But it was a fun thing to try and I watched for hours while my kids and others kept that hoop twirling fast as possible forever, it seemed.
The fad soon played out but the man or whoever invented the hoop became a millionaire. In fact the man who invented the hula hoop was Richard P. Knerr. The hula hoop craze sold more than 1oo million hoops in the first 12 months after it was introduced to the public and indeed made him a very rich man.
I still can not keep the hoop going except for a few turns. Part of that may be age but I still like to think it is because an adult's body is not made to do it!
Whoops!
This is how I felt like my hair looked after the accident!
Come on Baby, Let's Do the Twist!
Remember the Twist? That was in the 60s. Right at the peak of the Twist craze we visited in Texas with my Sister, Mary Ruth. One of us, I don't remember which, had the Chubby Checker Twist album.
One night we put the Twist record on and began to do the Twist. It was very catchy and fun music to listen to and to dance to.
Right there in Mary Ruth's living room we put on a fascinating dance show with all of us doing, or attempting to do, the Twist. We spent a couple of hours having fun and wearing ourselves out .
I am sure we all slept very good that night because we were so tired out from all of our wild partying!
I still have my Twist record and every once in a while I put it on and listen to it and remember our Twist party back in the olden days! If we had a Twist party now it would last, maybe, about ten minutes!
My Charm Bracelet
Back in about the 1970s I decided to get myself a charm bracelet. I had my two children and my five grandchildren and I wanted something to remind me of them. I got the little heads with their name on the front and their birth dates on the back. I got little mementos from places I visited and events that were important to me such as Las Vegas, the Capital in DC, a horn from new Orleans, my birthstone , a yellow rose of Texas (ME!) , a memento of my graduation and a couple of other things.
One thing I bought and unfortunately lost before I got it home, was an image of the Super dome in New Orleans. I searched all over for it but, alas, it was lost!
You do run out of space on a charm bracelet so there are many other places and events that I would love to have added to it but it is full, as you can see.
So every once in a while I get the bracelet out and reminisce about the places and events that meant so much to me at the time. Ah, thank God for memories!
Hooked on Nose Drops
There was a time back in my younger days when I had a problem with my nose getting stopped up and I had trouble breathing. I think it all started with a cold. Anyway, I bought some nose drops and began using them to unplug my nose. I was very pleased with the results of using the Privine nose drops.
It seemed that my cold never went away and I was really into using the drops to keep my breathing working well. Soon I was keeping a bottle of Privine in my purse, by the bedside, by my chair where I sat most of the time and in the car. I was terrified of not having a bottle wherever I happened to be. I was spending a fortune on nose drops!
Several people told me that I should stop using so much of the drops because I could get hooked on them. Hooked? Not me. I had to have them to breathe.
This went on for a couple of years and I was beginning to get concerned about it. Finally, I realized that I had to use more and more of them to do the job.
I did try to lessen my use and finally, for some unknown reason I had a spell of seeming to get better. I actually tried to go without using any drops. I had a hard time but I did manage to stop using any at all. Then I finally stopped all together and I lived!
I have not used any nose drops for many years. A while back I got a bad cold and I went to buy nose drops and I found that there was not any Privine at all on the drug store shelf. I don't know if the drug store was out or if Privine had stopped making them. Whatever, I ended up buying a bottle of Afrin and it worked well.
But I made sure to not use them except for a few days until my cold was gone.
Now I just checked and I have a bottle of Afrin on my medicine shelf but it has not been used for a long time. In fact the expiration date has probably run out and I will have to toss it .
I really believe that I was mentally hooked on those nose drops and I will never let myself get to that point again.
Whee! Free Candy
When I was a kid and we always had a running grocery bill, I loved it when my Dad got his check and cashed it and then paid John Griffis, our grocery man, some money on our grocery bill.
As a sort of Thank You for our business, Mr. Griffis would get a small paper sack and go to the candy counter and fill it with all kinds of penny candy for us kids. It was not a lot, probably about a quarter's worth, but we kids could hardly wait until we could get that sack open and tear into the candy. There would be jawbreakers, tootsie rolls, caramels, lollypops, gumballs, gum drops and all kinds of delicious penny candy.
That really was small payment for all of the groceries that we bought there. That was before Kroger and all the other large super market stores that are now available for shopping. So we paid premium prices for our groceries, though prices were lower(much lower) than they are now. It was a very small store but it was very near our house and since we had no car it was convenient for my Mom to do her shopping there. In fact she even did a lot of it by phone. They had a delivery man who would bring the groceries right to our kitchen and unload them for us.
We charged all of our groceries and then each pay day my Dad would pay a certain amount on the bill. Mr. Griffis was very agreeable to letting us do that. Many other people did the same thing.
I wonder if my super market would give me a candy bar and let me just pay a part of my bill the next time I shop? No way!
No Carnival Rides for Me!
THE OCTOPUSBack when my kids were teenagers we attended a carnival that had set up in the parking lot of our Grocery store. I was just along to watch--and pay!
However, when we came to the octopus they wanted me to get on and ride also. I was never a real enthusiast for carnival rides but I had, over the years, ridden most of the different kinds of rides. I had never gotten sick on any of them. I said, "OK I will do it!"
I bravely got into the seat and braced myself for the wild ride.
After just a few rounds of the ride, I realized that I was not as young as I used to be. I was so dizzy and discombobulated that I wanted off that thing badly! But I was on for the whole ride and I had to finish it.
For the rest of the afternoon I was dizzy and nauseated and felt very out of this world. I decided then and there that I would never get on another carnival ride in my life! And I haven't!
Roller Skating
When I first met Ford, at the Barrett's Roller rink back in 1942, I could barely skate. I could only skate forward and could not even think of doing any dance steps . I began seeing a lot of the soldiers doing fancy dance skating and I was fascinated by it.
Then after I started dating Ford I realized that he was a very good skater and he could do a lot of the fancy dancing on skates. He began teaching me some of the dances. We could do the waltz, the Flea Hop, which was a kind of jitterbug thing, another dance called the Collegiate and I learned to skate backwards. I had to learn that in order to do some of the dances we did.
I was never as good as the people in the pictures above but I always strove to get that good!
After some time I learned to skate good enough that we put quite a show on when we skated. I loved it. However, I never in all my years of skating was nearly as good at it as Ford was. I managed to hang on to him and do the things we did but I never was very good at skating alone.
We went to some skating classes after we came to Indiana and got some medals for our participation in them. Then we had kids and the skating got kind of pushed into the background. I still have our old skates on a shelf in the garage but, sadly, they will never get used again.
But I still think of all the fun we had when we did skate. I guess memories are better than nothing!
Washcloth Between Toes!
Once many years ago we had a good laugh at my sister, Sara. She had told us this story about herself.
She had been going through a nervous spell and was very edgy and uncomfortable. She said she felt like her toes needed separated. So she got a wet washcloth and folded it into a narrow strip and wound it around between her toes. She said it was very comforting for her. So when she got a nervous attack like that again she would do the washcloth thing. We thought that was hilarious.
Something like the devices in the pictures above might have helped her if she had tried them. However, I guess the washcloth worked fine and was probably a lot cheaper!
I figure it was something similar to writer's cramp when you can't stand to have the pencil touch your fingers or your hand touch the table to write, although I didn't know there was a toes cramp.
What would make your toes feel like that? We will never know!
Anyway, Whatever makes you feel good, do it! That is what she did!
ELVIS PRESLEY 1935-1977
Elvis at his peak.
Elvis as a small child with his mother and Dad.
Today is the anniversary of Elvis Presley's birthday. He would be 74 years old if he were still living! Doesn't that sound impossible? I can not even begin to think of Elvis as a 74 year old man!
Elvis did a concert, at least one and maybe more, here in Fort Wayne back in the late fifties. For some reason I failed to attend that concert. Had I known how famous he would become, and in fact already was, I would have done whatever it took to be at that concert. I guess I thought I would have another chance sometime. In fact, I could have gone to one in Las Vegas later on but never got around to it.
I am one who likes to say, "I've been there and done that," But I am sorry to say that I can not say that about Elvis.
We did visit Graceland after his death and saw his grave site but the living King was not there!
I often see his wife, Priscilla Presley or his daughter, Lisa Marie on TV and I wish every time I see anything to do with Elvis that I had taken the advantage to see him while he was still alive.
Folding Towels and Washcloths
My Mother was neat in some ways but when it came to folding towels, washcloths, pillowcases and any flat item, she was the world's sloppiest!
She would take the freshly laundered things and fold them to put away. They would have a million corners sticking out on all sides and drive me crazy! When I fold towels and other things I match the corners and make them look neat, like the ones in the above picture. I like to see the neatly matched corners on my shelves in the closet. But I don't think that mattered to my mother at all. Her towel stacks didn't look like stacks at all--they looked like a pile of something that had been just thrown on the shelf.
I guess what mattered most was that they were clean and smelled good but they were not a pretty sight!
I think of my mother every time I fold my laundry to put away. She was a very good mother but she sure didn't care how she folded her towels!
HELEN KELLER
HELEN KELLER
Back in the late forties or the early fifties Helen Keller made an appearance in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at our North Side High School.
I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the event. She made a speech there. It was amazing to hear her speak. While she was deaf and blind she learned to speak in spite of her disabilities. She did not sound completely normal but you could understand her words and make complete sense of her speech.
Helen Keller was a brilliant woman and went far beyond what the average person could have accomplished in her condition. I think her accomplishments were far greater than she might have achieved had she been born with all of her faculties intact.
I am glad to say that I did see her and hear her speak. What an amazing woman!
Home Made Paste
When I was a kid in elementary school we usually bought a jar of paste for our school supplies, but if we wanted to use paste at home we made it ourselves.
The picture is of Elmer's school paste. I don't think that was the brand of the paste I used when I was in school but it came in a jar like the one pictured.
My Mother would make paste with flour and water. she mixed it up to the right consistency (only she knew that) and we used that to paste whatever we were making. Sometimes I think she used to put some egg white in with it also. But I don't remember why the difference, maybe the egg white made it better.
The paste we bought for school was always kind of a wintergreen flavor and I remember that we would lick our fingers to get rid of the paste from our hands; it tasted good! I think some kids really ate the paste. I never actually ate it but I did lick my fingers sometimes. I am sure it was made with safe ingredients for that reason.
Now, I have a bottle of Elmer's glue and it works for everything. I never lick my fingers anymore so I don't know how Elmer's glue tastes!
Cold Cream, Hot Butt!
When my daughter, Lana Kay, was about a year and a half old or so she got into quite a few things around the house.
Once she found my jar of cold cream in my dresser and was playing with it. I saw her but I thought that was OK because I didn't think she could possibly get the lid off--wrong--I underestimated her abilities!
I went about my duties and later I looked in on her and she had literally covered my recliner chair with cold cream. Of course, it was an upholstered chair and the cloth was by now fully absorbed with cold cream!
I spanked her butt good. She knew what it (the spanking) was for. After that I kept the cold cream in a place where she could not get it.
I cleaned the cold cream off the chair and it really didn't do as much damage as I had thought it would. Cold cream is to clean, isn't it? So maybe it cleaned the chair!
Another Toilet Tissue Issue
Over the top or off the bottom?
While I am on the discussion of toilet paper I will continue with this thought.
Do you put the roll of toilet paper on with it coming off over the top, or at the bottom? I have always put mine on with it coming off over the top of the roll. But I notice that a lot of others have it coming off at the bottom.
This is probably a moot question but one that I take notice of. I don't think it affects the world one way or another. There is no way you can save money on toilet paper. It is a very necessary item, and an expensive one no matter which way you use it.
When I have my company here in the summer we use at least two or three rolls a day. I always stock up on it before they come because it is one thing I don't want anyone to go without using!
My Pet Peeve with Public Restrooms
I have a pet peeve with people that design public restrooms. In fact I have several of them!
The main one is the fact that they place the toilet paper dispensers too far away from the toilet or they place them behind you so that you have to be a contortionist to reach the paper.
In the picture above how do they expect a person to reach all the way across the room for the toilet paper? You would have to get up off the stool and walk across the room to get your paper. Or, in the other picture the paper is so far behind you that you also have to stand up to get any of it.
Another peeve is when the paper is in a dispenser that will not let the paper come out freely. I am sure they think they will save paper that way but it is so aggravating to try to get enough paper out for one use.
My last peeve is not with the designers but with the people who own the businesses that have the restrooms. It is when the paper is just non existent. They just don't replace the empty rolls often enough.
I love my own bathroom but there are times when you are forced to use public restrooms. I remember it when a rest room is not designed with my comfort in mind and I refuse to go there any more. My peeves are probably the same that any person would have when they use the rooms . Bathroom designers, Take note of these peeves and let them lead you to design better restrooms!
