Memories: Ironing

It is hard to believe that at one time, almost everything had to be at least ironed, if not starched and ironed. There was no taking it out of the drier, giving it a shake, and hanging it up. No, taking the clothes down from the outside clothesline was just one step in the process of doing the wash. Sheets and towels came in off the and were folded and put away; I know many people ironed their sheets but we only ironed pillowcases and we didn't starch them as many did. 

 Pretty much everything that was worn, other than underwear, was starched and ironed. After washing and before hanging on the clothesline, the clothes were starched. There was the box of Faultless starch that was used to make the starch base, then depending on how stiff you wanted the article to be the base was diluted. What, you say, where is the spray can of starch?? Ah, my dear, there was a time even before spray starch, hard as it is to believe. Anyway, after the clothes were washed and starched and dried on the line, and brought in, it was time to start dinner and ironing would have to wait until Tuesday (because washing day was Monday, as everyone knew.) The damp clothes would be rolled up and put in the ice box to await ironing. 

 The next day, the ironing board would be set up near a window or in front of the fan if it was summer and the radio would be turned on to music or a soap opera and ironing would commence. If the clothes had dried out too much, there was the Coke bottle with a sprinkler head corked on the top and filled with water to dampen the clothes. Shirts and blouses, then skirts and petticoats, slacks and jeans, and last pillowcases and any crocheted doilies. It was a good days work and then it was time to make dinner. 

 No wonder our mothers told us to take care with our clothes!

Memory: Playing before there were screens

 

Memory: Playing before there were screens

I am remembering all the things we played before everyone got their own personal screen. I am excepting the movie screen and the one small black and white television screen. I don't remember ever being unhappily bored as a child. There were times when there was nothing special going on but it was a pleasant poking a twig in an ant nest to see them come out kind of bored. 

So what did I do:

I played jacks on the front porch with my friend Kathleen for hours. 

I played hop scotch on Kathleen's wide driveway. 

I liked to jump rope by myself. I didn't like to jump rope with 2 people on either end turning the rope. From a young age, I wanted to control things.  And how someone could jump more than one rope being turned in opposite directions was nothing short of a total mystery to me. 

Bike riding was almost always fun. The exception was when the horrid boy across the street would run me off the street with his bicycle.  I have often wondered if he ever went to prison when he grew up. 

Hula hoops were the craze one summer.  That was fun. 

I never learned to roller skate although Kathleen was a whiz on them. 

Playing cards: Fish and Old Maid and sometimes Canasta with the grown ups. 

Board games: I know we played checkers but never chess. I played Monopoly but it was never fun after about the first 30 minutes. 

Pick-up sticks, well you can imagine how well someone as uncoordinated as me would do at that!

Playing the piano. I was never really good but I could entertain myself for a good while playing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes or Harbor Lights. 

Reading, always. 

What I didn't play with: 
      Anything involving a ball.
      Red Rover
      Chasing or being chased

That's what comes to mind but I'm sure I have forgotten a bunch of games. What did you play before screens took over the world?

Memories: Observing

One of my favorite things to do when I was growing up was to be very still and quiet and just observe things. 

Our house had a lot next door which was vacant until I was in high school. During the summers the lot was covered with morning glories. I loved to go in the cool mornings to the middle of the lot and sit very still and watch the bees and bumblebees going from flower to flower. It never occurred to me to be frightened of the bees and bumblebees. They were obviously too busy to be interested in me. Occasionally I would see a little green grass snake but it was always gone too quickly for observation.  There were lots of grasshoppers too but they didn't hold my interest like the bees did. We had a big honeysuckle vine on the back fence and there were lots of bees there too but only sitting right among the morning glories could I really watch and be part of their world. 

There must have been ants in that sandy soil but I don't remember them. 

Another thing I loved to observe was clouds. On hot summer afternoons before air conditioning, I would take a quilt out under the big tallow tree at the back of the house. I would take a couple of books too but what I would actually do is lay on my back and look up through the leaves and watch the clouds. 

I still love to watch the bees on my salvia plants and I still love to look up through the big old oak trees and watch the clouds. Both make me feel part of real things. 

Memory: Thoughts on God

Thoughts on God

When I was a child, my mother and I attended a little, independent Baptist church. We didn't attend every Sunday but we were members and I was baptized there. It was about the only social group my mother attended. My father was nominally Catholic but I can only remember him attending a Catholic church once. I was not overly enthusiastic about Sunday School or the church service except for the rollicking Baptist singing. We had a pianist who could rival Jerry Lee Lewis. Our preacher wasn't a fire & brimstone type but when we held a revival, all bets were off. There would be singing and preaching and pounding the pulpit and much weeping and repenting. We would occasionally have dinner on the grounds and that would be fun--lots of food and the best iced tea have ever tasted. 

The trouble started when I was in junior high school and it dawned on me what "Virgin Birth" meant. I remember thinking, "That's not right. That's not the way it happens!" I doubt if I had all the facts of life down pat then but I was a lot happier when it was Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus. It was all rather disconcerting. Maybe I wasn't a Baptist after all. But that was like saying maybe I wasn't a girl--it was who I was, who we were. 

Now in the 1950s and 1960s in our little community there were Catholics and Baptists and Jews. At least that was all I knew about.  I knew I wasn't a Catholic, although I loved the inside of the Catholic Churches that I had been in when attending a wedding or funeral; they were beautiful and mysterious.  Our little Baptist church was poor and plain and not beautiful at all. And I was sure I wasn't a Jew because we had bacon and shrimp and Christmas and Easter. But it would be a lot simpler, I thought, if all you had to do was keep the 10 commandments and not worry about virgins and rising from the dead. 

By the time I was in high school, I had discovered Methodists and Presbyterians and Lutherans. I was especially taken with the Episcopalians because they had all the beauty and ceremony of the Catholics without the Pope or nuns. One of my friends was a member of the Assembly of God. She invited me to attend a Sunday evening service at her church. All was well during the singing and those people could sing and the pianist could rival ours. But then they started praising God and speaking in tongues. Well, to this little Baptist, that was Satanic or witchcraft or something I didn't want to have anything to do with. I left before the preaching started. Still don't understand glossalalia but it sure wasn't for me. 

Then I went to college and lost interest in religion for a while. I was married in the little Baptist church. The dear ladies of the church were like family to me. They gave me a wedding shower in 1968 and I still use some of the things they gave me. They prayed every day for my husband while he was in Vietnam. They gave me a baby shower when I was expecting our baby. 

In the end I never found the perfect church but I did learn to appreciate the love and kindness of the people in that little Baptist church.

Memory: Meeting the Ship

Memory: Meeting the Ship

My father was a Merchant Mariner who sailed from Galveston on the U.S,S. Stella Lykes. He usually departed from and returned to Galveston. But sometimes the ship would return to New Orleans and my mother and I would meet the ship in New Orleans. Since New Orleans was where his family lived, it would be a time to visit all the Aunts and Uncles and cousins.  But that was not the best part. The best part was the trip to New Orleans on the overnight train. Now that my friends was adventure!

We took a taxi to the train station. I had a little yellow overnight case with a brown deer on the front in which I carried my nightgown and a few other things. I felt so important at the train station. I was helped up the big steps onto the train by a porter. I had to sit on my overnight bag to get a good view out the window. I was not frightened at all, just very excited. I remember the dining car but I don't recall if we ate or not. What I remember so well is the sleeping arrangements. The porter pulled the bed right down from overhead! I was astonished! Who would have guessed there was a bed up there!?! I loved the clickety clack sound of the train on the track and the gentle swaying motion. I must have slept because the next thing I knew, we were getting up and dressed and coming into New Orleans. Time to visit Aunt Beulah and Uncle Edwin and cousin Joan and Grandma. I don't think I went to see the ship but I do remember my father coming in with a big doll. (I named her Wanda but I can't imagine why because I knew no one with that name.)

We must have taken the train back to Galveston but I don't remember that so well as the trip to New Orleans with those remarkable beds overhead. 

Memory--Old Yeller

Memory--Old Yeller

In 1957, when I was 10 years old, my mother and I went to see the movie Old Yeller. It was supposed to be a movie for children. I was so happy to go to the movies for that was quite a treat and didn't happen often.  We had good seats in the center section, not quite half way back. We may have had a bag of popcorn and a small CocaCola in a cup from the vending machine, I'm not sure, but we probably did.

 I loved the movie up to the point where the family dog gets rabies and has to be killed. To say I was stunned is an understatement. To this day I remember how horrified I was. I cried all the way out of the movie, all the way home, and much of the afternoon. My poor mother would never have taken me if she had any idea how it would affect me. Slowly she was able to help me calm down and get over the shock but I have never been able to watch a movie or read a book with any type of animal cruelty involved. 

56 years later and I still remember it clearly. 

Memory: The New House

The New House

My father was a Merchant Mariner who spent his working life at sea dreaming of retirement in the country. He bought property in the country near the small East Texas town of Etoile and planned a beautiful brick home surrounded by the piney woods. 
My mother grew up in abject poverty in the piney woods of East Texas and could not wait to leave for the city. She had no intention of ever returning. 
My father just knew that if he built the house, she would love it and be happy to move back. 
Long story, short-- He built the house and my mother wouldn't move. The house was sold to my Aunt Lillian and Uncle Marvin who lived in it happily until their deaths many years later. 
My mother and father stayed happily in their little house in Galveston until their deaths many years later. 

New Clothes

New clothes

When I was growing up in Galveston, shopping for clothes often began in the fabric store. My mother was a wonderful seamstress (as was her mother) and many happy hours were spent looking through the big pattern books--McCalls, Simplicity, Butterick, and Vogue.  Then we would find just the right fabric-- type of fabric, weight, color, and pattern.  Finally we would pick out the notions--zipper, buttons, interfacing, and trim.  I still remember carrying the fabric in a white paper bag out of the store. My mother always washed the fabric in cold salt water to make sure the color was set and that the fabric wouldn't shrink. 

I would carefully iron the fabric and the paper pattern pieces.  Sometimes the pattern would need to be altered slightly for a better fit. I learned how to place the pattern on the fabric with the grain of the fabric going the right way so that the finished garment would hang correctly.  My mother gradually let me take over cutting the fabric and sewing the straight seams. By the time I was in high school, I was a fairly competent seamstress but nowhere near my mother's skill. She made evening dresses and she even made my going away suit when I was married. (It was a gorgeous Vogue pattern.)

After the garment was finished, we carefully folded up the pattern pieces and put them back into the pattern envelope. Then all the fabric scraps would be rolled up together and put in the scrap bag to be used on the next quilt top that we would piece from scraps.  I loved seeing pieces of fabric from my skirt or nightgown being part of a new quilt. 

While it wasn't as quick as going to the clothing store to buy ready made clothes, the whole process was enjoyable and there was much excitement and anticipation as we would see our idea come into being. Good memories!

Summer Camp

I only went to camp once when I was growing up. It was a church Bible camp. I think it was called Peach Creek Bible Camp but I'm not sure. There was no air-conditioning and it was soooo hot!! The heat and being afraid of spiders was the down side. But the up side was the boyfriend I met at camp. It was a sweet little romance of walking along the creek and sitting together at the evening Bible study. We wrote to each other a few times after camp but that ended after a month or so. I heard nothing further from him for years until I got a letter from him from Viet Nam. He had been drafted and his wife had sent him a Dear John letter and he just wanted someone to correspond with. I wrote back that I was now married and my husband was also in Viet Nam. I never heard from him again. I hope he made it back alive and in one piece.

Shorthand

Does anyone remember learning shorthand?? I took a semester of it in high school along with typing. Those were the prerequisites for a secretarial job (just in case teaching or nursing didn't work out). I was never really proficient at it but learned enough to help me take notes in my college classes. About all I remember now are words like "and", "the", and "of". There's an article in the WSJ about a woman who runs a web based transcription service for people who want old shorthand documents transcribed.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703303904575292982869708158.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLETopStories