Yesterday my granddaughter and I had lunch together. I fixed the toasted cheese sandwiches and prepared the cantaloupe while my two and a half year old grandchild set the table. I’m not kidding! She did this task on her own. She put placemats out, placed a fork on them (which she got out of the drawer on her own), and finished up the job by putting a napkin beside the fork. I was quite impressed, and it reminded me of how helpful her own mother has always been around the house. Except for that one time she protested.
When our children were growing up, kindergarten was a half day affair. You either went to the morning session or the one after lunch. I still think it’s a better plan. That means a 5-year-old only spends half the day away from home. But I’m admittedly old fashioned when it comes to caring for children.
Our daughter was in the morning session and loved every minute of it. Her teacher was a wonderful woman who was old enough to be her grandmother. She was everything I wanted for our daughter’s first teacher. Kind, strict with a sense of fairness, and a handle on the fact that kids need to have fun.
The 4 hours of school were wisely planned each day. Some supervised play time to allow the children to interact with each other. There was the usual rote recitation of the alphabet and counting, and the favorite part for our little darling–story time.
The story was always the last thing of the morning so the children went home with what they just heard uppermost in their minds. Some times the story would teach a lesson about manners or morals and sometimes it was just a fun story. Our daughter always tried to get the most out of what was read to her.
Often she would share the story on our drive home but sometimes we never knew what she had just listened to. Then there were rare occasions when she would apply the story to her present circumstances. One particular day it was very easy for me to figure out what she had just heard.
Lunch always immediately followed our return from kindergarten. After lunch on the day I’m thinking of I asked my little girl to do what I had asked her many times before. But I was about to get a response that was entirely new. I said, “Honey, while I clean up the dishes I want you to go clean up your room and put your toys away, please.” She did not hesitate. She turned and walked to her room. In no time at all she was back in the kitchen. A very annoyed child was standing in front of me. Her little hands were on those little 5-year-old hips declaring, “Why do I have to clean my room? I feel just like Cinderella!”
Last evening we experienced another power outage. With the power off we had to remember which light switches to turn off. We didn’t want to be awakened by lights when the electric came back on.
As I sat in the dark I started to think about how we never lost our electricity when we lived in Oregon. It’s a good thing too because turning the light switch in the kitchen on and off was a bit more involved than flipping a switch.
As I mentioned in an earlier post I was a little disappointed with our first house. I know it was only a rental but somehow I expected more. For example the light switch I just mentioned. Actually there was no switch at all. But there were wires! True, there were only two, a black and a white, but still I was used to a switch to turn lights on. In this kitchen I had to connect the wires that stuck out of the wall together if I wanted light. (Trust me I wanted to be able to see.) I will say my husband had made convenient little hooks on the end of the wire so keeping them together was easier.
Then there was the way the washer was plumbed. I wasn’t a plumber but I still knew that the way our washer drained was not exactly going to meet any code (there weren’t any). Not to mention it was just so wrong. Here’s what happened when our washer drained. It ran out the pipe that was sticking out the side of the house. So every time I did laundry it looked like out house was urinating. It was downright embarrassing to be standing outside talking to the neighbors and whoops the house starts peeing. No one ever mentioned it so I guess they had the same fella install their plumbing.
The floors in houses where a logger lived were also a sight to behold. Did I mention that Herman was a logger? The best way to describe the floor in our little place was as if someone with a hundred nails sticking out the bottom of their boots walked on it for years. And you know what? That is exactly what happened! Logger’s boots have nails on the bottom of them for traction in the woods and on logs. More nails means more traction. And the little nicety of taking your shoes off when you come inside was not ever going to happen here. Logger boots went to just under the knee and no man that worked in the woods was going to take his boots off to go in and out.
I also had a shock when the winter weather came. Winter on the Oregon coast came and went quickly. I was used to winter settling in around Thanksgiving and not easing it’s grip until late March. The area we lived in on the coast had about 6 weeks of winter. It was cold, with snow in the higher elevations. Occasionally snow fell where we lived but it mostly rained. The shock was when our water pipe which came from a spring in the mountain above us would completely freeze. No water! It was never frozen the full 6 weeks but it was about half that time. I had to carry water from the little branch beside our house for necessities. To shower we packed up and went to a public facility. I guess the folks who ran it waited all year for people like us.
That little house was always giving me surprises. After surviving the winter, getting a light switch installed, learning to live with a house that had no bathroom manners, I figured I had weathered the worst and could laugh about it. And then came the flying ants!
The flying ants were a real phenomenon not to mention scary and nasty too. These particular ants apparently had a previous lease on the place. I didn’t realize they were sleeping the whole time until they woke up. In the bathroom! Hundreds of hundreds of flying ants greeted me one morning when I opened the bathroom door. They hatched out of the walls and were going stir crazy in that small space. When I pulled the door open they came at me like an army. These ants must have been on steroids or at least multivitamins. They were the biggest flying ants I have ever seen. Their wings resembled bi-planes. I screamed like I was being attacked by an army. My screams got easy-going Herman shook up, until he saw it was only the return of the ants. He almost acted like he missed them. He calmly declared they would only be around for a week or so. Ten days at the most. He explained how they were hatching out, how it happened every year about this time- nothing to get upset about. He told me I would probably want to wait a bit to shower, you know give the little creatures time to get their wings and move out into other areas of the house. Did he think this was really calming me?
Or we could kill as many as we could. This was the route I took. I stomped, swatted, beat, and battered every place that even looked like an ant to me. Then I swept up the remains and waited for it to happen all over again. It was a long week and at the end of it I was sure of one thing. I hate flying ants!
But I have never hated old houses in spite of my first experience. I still notice old fixer-uppers and wonder what they would look like given half a chance.
I always appreciate it when someone gives me something. I especially like it when the gift is actually useful. A few weeks ago one of my daughter-in-law’s gave me a gift that fits this description perfectly.
As I wrote in an earlier post, I have made and still make a lot of pies. The last of this summer’s blackberries went into 2 pies yesterday. I shared one with my granddaughter and her folks since she has become my biggest pie fan. So the gift I received has made making pies even more fun.
It’s a Pastry Cloth and Rolling Pin Cover and I highly recommend it. The concept is so simple and yet has eluded me all the years I’ve made pies. The cloth is made of canvas and the rolling pin cover is like a cheese cloth. You sprinkle the cloth and the rolling pin (in it’s cover) with flour. It creates a non stick surface to roll out the dough. The idea is you won’t need to use more flour to roll the dough. We all know tough crusts are are the result of overworking the dough. This cloth allowed me to roll the dough with no more flour than I covered the cloth with. And it only took a few minutes to get the dough rolled to the correct size and thickness. It makes for a very flaky crust without the work. I bet Betty Crocker had one of these years ago!
I love it when I learn something new. This little gift has given me new joy to something I have always loved doing. I’m not planning on making a pie a day but maybe once a week. I need to consider that my sweet husband’s metabolism has changed a bit since 1972.
Earlier this evening my daughter and I went shopping. She was a bit flustered from getting herself and her daughter ready to go. She called it a wardrobe crisis and I knew just what she meant.
I have always enjoyed clothes. I was one of those little girls that wore a dress all the time, no matter what the activity or season. Dressing nice was important to me as soon as I became cognizant of dressing. I think it might be genetic because my daughter at 9 months crawled to her room, took dirty clothes from her hamper and managed to pull them over her head. I figured she was letting me know she didn’t like what she was wearing. My granddaughter is just over 2 and has been seriously interested in clothes for a long time. She also likes to choose what she wears.
My mother also took great care to dress nice. She always made our clothes. That meant my wardrobe was one of a kind. When I did get a dress that mom didn’t make we called it a ’store-bought’ dress. I had very few of these.
When I was 7 years old my mother taught me to sew. By the time I was 11, I was the one making my clothes. In high school I had to wear a uniform. Talk about thwarting the fashion sensibilities. But in many ways the uniforms were a help because I would sew during the week and wear my creation to the Friday night dance. Every week it was a different outfit. I was comfortable with clothes. I knew what I liked. I knew what colors looked best on me and I had a very large wardrobe. Sewing enabled me to become a clothes horse.
Then I got married. Yep, I married a wardrobe wrecker. A wonderful fella who thinks he has fashion sense.
Not long after our wedding I was making a dress to wear to church. I had everything finished but the hem. Standing in front of the mirror I was deciding where to hem it when Herman came in. I was loving this little dress. It felt good on and looked good too. I stood in front of the mirror happy with my newest creation when he said, ” Is that the way it’s supposed to look? ” Now what did that mean? I said, “Yes, it’s really cute isn’t it?” He said, “Well, I guess it will be okay.” What exactly was he talking about? I said, “Don’t you like it?” His answer, “O yeah, it’s a really nice dress.” That was the first time I felt my clothes sense going off kilter.
I left the room, took the dress off and threw it in a box of fabric scraps. I never finished it. From that moment on I haven’t had the same sense of comfort with my clothes.
We discussed the whole issue shortly after. He apologized for not telling me how cute the dress was. But by then the seeds of doubt had started a garden in my mind. I had doubt flowers about my sense of fashion blooming everywhere. My shoes, my hairstyle, my make-up or lack thereof. I was a crippled clothes horse! I still loved clothes but had lost my ability to know what I liked or looked good in. And it took years to even diagnose what crippled me.
The problem was my desire to please my husband, to be a good wife and listen to his advice. In most things it’s been important to listen to him. Like when I don’t get enough salt on the potatoes or the tire needs more air. But when it comes to my clothes I wish I had never asked him the first time, “Honey, how do I look?” He’s just not qualified to answer. It’s like asking a dentist if you need glasses or a mechanic to fix your plumbing. Their expertise is in another field altogether.
When did I discover this? This evening when my daughter who has a great sense of fashion said she tried on 5 different outfits because one by one her husband said they didn’t look good on her.
It only took 35+ years to realize Herman doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He wants to help. He doesn’t want to let me down by simply saying, “You know what I have no idea about this kind of thing.” So instead he answers.
What was I thinking?
(Here’s the song “What Was I Thinkin’” by Dierks Bentley)
Whenever we make a change in our lives we can sometimes feel like we are in a new world. Getting married was like that for me. I not only became a wife, I moved all the way across the country to the coast of Oregon, a place I had never seen before. It was a new world for me.
A world without thermostats. A world with wood stoves. I learned quickly how to build a fire in a wood stove. Our stove was not airtight so it had a burn time of about 2 hours. That meant if you left for longer than 2 hours when you returned it would be cold. I always tried to be home in 2 hours.
It was also a world of eating fish and venison. My husband was an avid hunter and fisherman. His reason for hunting and fishing was for the food it provided. I didn’t know what to think when he informed me shortly after my arrival that all we would be eating was either salmon, trout, deer, or elk. How long would I survive was the question because I didn’t eat any of those things! But again I was amazed at how quickly I adapted to my new world. I learned to eat (and eventually love) fish and venison. The will to live trumped the taste buds.
It was a world with out television. No kidding, there was no signal. It was before satellites and the mountains that rimmed the valley were so high no antennae would work. I was glad I enjoyed reading and found the library, which I visited once a week.
It was also a world without radio after 6:00 PM. I found one radio station that came in but promptly at six o’clock it would play the national anthem and go silent. If you weren’t comfortable with yourself or your spouse there weren’t a lot of things to distract you. For entertainment the first year, Herman and I read the entire Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs together. I mean we read each page at the same time through all 24 books. He always had to wait for me because he reads faster, even Tarzan books! Talk about bonding, huh?
It was a world without a lot of sunshine. The months of November through March are when it rains more. I arrived in very early October so I saw more rain and less sun the first six months. I learned to do everything in the rain because it doesn’t quit. I bought a rain coat and read more books.
It was a world with party line telephones. A party line telephone was like having all of your neighbors on your telephone line. I grew up with that in Pennsylvania but by the time I had reached my teens we had a private line. Nowadays every line is private. Being on a party line meant I had to be courteous and careful all at the same time. I learned to pick up the receiver and quickly determine if the line was free to make a call, in other words if I didn’t hear a conversation. I also had to be careful to never leave it off the hook. This would effectively render every telephone on the line useless. The careful part was I listened through my own conversations for that telltale sound of someone picking up. Nosy people stayed on the line to listen to what was talked about. It was a great tool for gossipers. I guess they were disappointed progress brought privacy to the phone system.
It was a world with nice, friendly people. I can honestly say I never met anyone who wasn’t friendly except maybe my neighbor Hannah.
I met Hannah one day when I was baking a pie. My hands were covered in flour and dough when I heard a pounding on the front door. Not a polite knock but an angry pounding. I quickly went to the door and as soon as I turned the knob it was pushed in by a rather stout woman. She stood about 4 and a half feet tall and was about 3 feet wide. She did not introduce herself but with hands on her hips she demanded to know where our telephone was. I didn’t understand but meekly pointed to the corner where our black desk phone sat on a little table. In spite of her girth she moved quick to look closely at the phone. What she saw took all the wind from her sails. She turned to face me and what I saw was a different woman. Her angry countenance was gone. She looked ashamed and contrite. She immediately began to apologize for her behavior. She explained that she needed to use the telephone. Every time she tried to use it, it was busy. The logical conclusion was someone had left their phone off the hook. Since I was the new to the neighborhood she made the leap that I was the guilty party. Since she couldn’t call me and ask, she had to come in person. By the time she actually got to our house she was whopping mad!
I accepted Hannah’s apology. We introduced ourselves and began anew. She was now part of my new world and I wanted all the friends I could get.
It’s amazing to me how much of my first few years of marriage I remember. Maybe that’s because it was unlike any thing I ever imagined it would be. Sometimes when I think back on those first few years I wonder how I lived through them and then I know. Laughter. O yeah, it was the best way to deal with things.
The day my husband and I married we put all of our wedding presents and other worldly possessions in the back of a new pickup truck. The truck was a 4 wheel drive International and it cost $3,500. We drove from Pennsylvania to the coast of Oregon non-stop. I thought we were forgoing a honeymoon because my husband had to get back to work. It wasn’t work we were rushing back to it was fishing and hunting. And hunting and fishing. It was important stuff!
All the way across the country, all 3,000 miles of it I had a picture of the place we were going to live. I don’t know where it came from, perhaps something my husband said or maybe didn’t say. But it was a cute little white country house, one that needed work but had great promise. When we arrived at my husband’s house (soon to be mine) at 2:30 in the morning, he pulled up to the mailbox and checked to see what was in it. The headlights from the truck were illuminating the house that was about to become my home. I didn’t like what I saw. In fact I didn’t believe what I saw. So I said, “Good joke! Now take me to your real house.” But it wasn’t a joke. It was really his house. It was butt ugly and not a thing like I imagined!
It was October and chilly. The house was cold and I immediately looked for the thermostat to turn the heat on. I couldn’t find it so I asked my new husband to please turn the heat on. He said, “No problem.” He turned on his heel and went outside. I thought this was odd but maybe in Oregon thermostats were outside. In no time at all he was back inside but his arms were full of kindling wood. I recognized kindling because we had a fireplace at home. We put a fire in it at Christmas and a few other times a winter but we didn’t heat with it. With his kindling he was building a fire in a small wood stove. I had never seen one. As he built the fire he was explaining to me that if I wanted to stay warm I would need to know how to do this. O great I thought, there is no thermostat.
While the fire was warming the stove that would in turn warm the house, I was checking the place out. And I must say I was not encouraged. I was a country girl accustomed to hard work and I don’t think I was spoiled but I really wondered if I was up to this. A new bride, 3,000 miles from home, and if I wanted to stay warm I had to build a fire in something I had never seen before. Actually, it was good I was 3,000 miles from home.
The house had 3 bedrooms and one bath. It was a small bathroom with one of those metal shower stalls that they no longer make (for good reason). The front bedroom is the one my husband had chosen to sleep in, so that’s were we spent the night or what was left of it. I was not about to get in sheets that I did not know were clean. That meant he had to unpack most of the truck to get to sheets I would use. With our new sheets on the bed I was ready to sleep. I decided to take Scarlet O’Hara’s advice- I’d think about all the rest another day. Even if that day was as soon as a few hours away.
I woke up to a noise in the house. When I opened my eyes I saw a girl about my age (21) standing in the doorway with a box of socks. She was just there. No knock, no hello I’m coming in. She was just there. And when I looked at her she began to explain that she had washed my new husband’s socks but there were a lot of mismatched ones. Fascinating information for me on my first day in my new home with my new husband. I felt like I had jumped into another dimension. The conversation woke up Herman (the guy I married) and he introduced me to his best friend’s wife. And then he realized he needed to go see his buddy right away. So he got dressed and left me alone with the sock lady.
Growing up in the 1950’s, was an unusual time I think. World War 2 required so much from our country and its’ citizens. I think the memory of it made people appreciate one another more. People were willing to be involved with each other in a way that we do not see today. I know this was true in our neighborhood.
My neighborhood was just a street with houses on both sides. Most people had an acre or two of property although some folks had more. A lot of the neighbors were related to one another which sometimes made for interesting dynamics. Two families with small farms gave property to their children as they married. That meant sisters and their husbands or brothers and their wives were also neighbors. My dad’s nephew was our neighbor. It was a close little community for a good while.
When i think ‘neighbor’ the lady who lived in the house next to us comes to mind. Her name was Aggie and she was old enough to be my mother’s mother. Every morning at as close to 10:00 am as circumstances would permit, Aggie would knock on our back door while opening it at the same time. These actions were accompanied by her hollering, “Yoo Hoo!”. She did not wait to be invited in, she knew she was welcome. My mother would stop whatever she was doing and the two of them would share a cup of coffee and visit. Looking back on it she must have been a great help to my mother. I’m sure she shared her own experiences on running a house and raising children. The visit between these neighbors was quick, only long enough to drink a cup of coffee. The amazing thing is the very next morning around 10 it would happen all over again. Every day of the week (except Saturday and Sunday) we would hear the “Yoo Hoo!” and there would be Aggie to visit for a few minutes.
Our neighbors helped each other. My mother became the neighborhood beautician when I was around 5. I guess the other mothers were afraid to cut their daughter’s hair. Mine was not. My mother was well acquainted and very comfortable with scissors. My bangs were the shortest on any girls forehead on the North American continent. I cried myself to sleep more than once after my mother cut my bangs. She would use four fingers from my eyebrows to measure where they should end and then she would clip away. I warned my friends about the bang debacle. Goodness they could look at me and see it. But my mother did hair cuts for free and how could their mothers resist that. So all the girls in my neighborhood had the same hairstyle, with bangs 3 inches off the forehead. If my mother cut your hair it was the style of her choosing you went home with. No one cared when they were really young and so she was always clipping away at some body’s head. Once the girls got older they didn’t want the four finger bang and went elsewhere or cut their own hair. I on the other hand had an exposed forehead for many years! In spite of my dire warnings, my mother saved our neighbors a lot of money.
Children were a big part of the life and activity on our street. We were always in each others yards or houses. My parents never left us home alone but T]that wasn’t true for some of the other folks on the street. Sometimes the kids from across the street would be locked out of their house in the evenings while their parents were gone. When this happened my dad would go over to their house, crawl through a window and unlock the door for them. He would turn on the lights and make sure the kids were okay. Nothing was ever said by anyone but everyone knew that my dad would watch out for those kids.
I spent hours and hours with Aggie’s daughter. She was about 15 years older than I was and I thought I was so important when I was with her. As a married couple, her and her husband asked me to be their very first dinner guest. I had to sit on Sears Roebuck catalogs to reach the table but I didn’t think of myself as a little kid at that dinner. This gal treated all the neighborhood kids special and we loved her for it. In the summer we would all pile in her car and go to Twin Lakes to swim. She would pack a picnic supper and off we’d go. In the winter she’d take me ice-skating. I hung out with her while she ironed and dusted for her because I wanted to. We were neighbors and friends.
I know there has to be some neighborhoods today that would rival the one I grew up in, I just haven’t seen one myself since I was a little kid.
Last evening we had a thunderstorm seemingly centered directly overhead. The lightning was sharp and close and the thunder was deafening. The rain was intense and since we are in a severe drought it was much appreciated. The storm came as we were getting ready for bed. The noise of the storm made a nice background to fall asleep to but when I was a child there was no such thing as sleeping during storms.
When a storm would come up in the middle of the night my father would awaken everyone in the house. It did not matter to him what the time was or how fast asleep we all were. He would insist we get up and then he would usher us all into the living room. If we were old enough we would be given a candle in case the power went off. Sometimes we would pray. We had to wait until the last clap of thunder and the last bolt of lightning before we were allowed to return to bed.
My dad was not in fear of the storm. He had survived World War 2 after being wounded in Europe so he wasn’t scared of the thunder and lightning. No, what bothered my dad and made him take such extreme measures was something very simple. He was preparing. Some families have fire drills that show everyone where and how to get out of your burning home. We never had one of those. Until we were older we didn’t even know why were getting up except that’s what we did. His plan was simple-if our house was hit by a bolt of lightning and caught fire, we would already be awake, dressed and downstairs. We could all escape unharmed by simply walking out the door. If it ever happened, which it didn’t.
This all changed one day when this dapper little man came knocking on our door. Our front door no less! He was about 5 and 1/2 feet tall, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and bow tie. He carried a large briefcase and when we answered his knock he said he was selling protection for our home from electrical storms. He was selling lightning rods. Well, let me tell you, he came to the right house. If anyone needed lightning rods it was us.
Normally a traveling salesman got zero traction with my parents. But occasionally there was a product that was being hawked that fit a need. And I think this fella knew it from the moment he looked at all of our pleading faces. Faces that said “Please help, so we can sleep through the night.”
My dad went through all the literature with him. They went outside to measure. They came back inside to figure. They had coffee to help dicker. And all the while, my mother, brothers, and myself were hoping a deal could be struck between this little man and my protective father. We called him ” The Lightning Rod Man.” After what seemed like hours, a receipt and check were exchanged, hands were shook and the deal was done. We were all going to sleep tonight. (as long as there was no storm that is)
What we didn’t realize was how long it would take for the lightning rods to come. And then how long it would take to install them. We were still in for a few weeks of sleep interrupted but it passed quickly. Mr. Lightning Rod came back and personally oversaw the installation of my dad’s new protection plan. He had supper with us when the job was completed. Everyone was happy!
We never again had our sleep disturbed by dad because of a storm. He trusted the rods completely and they remained on our house for many years. The copper coiled wire snaking its way down the sides of the house was full of yellow paint when they were finally removed. It was never fully explained why they were no longer needed but one day they were gone.
We all were grateful that the little man selling lightning rods found our front door that day. Perhaps that was what we were praying for when we were up in the middle of the nights watching the sky light up.
My father grew up on a farm and for some reason disliked a lot of things that are part of farming. One of those things was a garden that grew vegetables. This meant I did not grow up with a vegetable garden in the yard. The funny thing is that 3 out of dad’s 4 children as adults have all become gardeners.
I was 18 years old and wanted to try my hand at growing something to eat. Anything would do. I went to my uncle who was a big time (in my mind) vegetable grower. I asked him for help and he agreed. Knowing what I know now, I realize he did not expend much thought or effort but I was so excited and grateful. He came to our house with his rototiller and prepared a little patch of earth for me to plant. At his suggestion I planted onions!
My growing onions gave me a wonderful sense of accomplishment. I checked their growth every day and could not wait till I could put one in my mouth. I know it was only onions but for a girl who wanted to grow something I was completely delighted. I also learned that sharing your produce was nearly as rewarding as growing it.
The first place my husband and I lived had about 12 acres. With this much space I eagerly awaited spring so I could have my first honest to goodness garden. I purchased seeds in the late winter, carefully planning what we would plant. What I didn’t realize was I had married a man who did not share my enthusiasm for gardening. So spring and summer passed and the seeds remained in their packets. I thought, O well! I did plant onions once.
Little did I know that my gardening fortunes were about to change. It was probably the economics of it, after all you can save a lot of money if you produce your own food. At any rate, after waiting nearly 5 years my husband decided a garden was a really good idea. I have never done a cartwheel but I wanted to! We were going to grow stuff we could eat. My husband comes from a long line of farming and gardening folk. His paternal grandfather had a truck farm, his maternal grandfather a dairy farm. His father had a degree in Horticultural and loved to garden (both food and flowers). So I guess it was inevitable that my man would wake up one day and say, “Let’s plant a garden.” And I thank God he did!
Our first garden was not big but quite adequate. We decided on the usual things- tomatoes, lettuce, onions, peppers, beans, and corn. A trip to the feed and seed store was exciting. So many varieties to choose from and I knew so little! What I never knew was the knowledge that this man I married had on the subject. It was amazing and comforting to know that only one half of the garden team was a greenhorn. He walked up and down the aisles like a pro. He picked out bush beans, not pole. He wanted a butter and sugar corn. He didn’t forget the fertilizer either and he knew what kind to get. O Yeah, this guy was a gardener after all!
Next came the soil preparation. We borrowed a rototiller and worked the ground. Back and forth, tearing up the grass and weeds and softening the earth to lay our seeds in. It was hard work because it was a new garden spot. We had to rake out the clods of grass, rocks, and roots. Once it was clear of these things we smoothed it all over. Our next big decision was what went where. Again this guy I married happily surprised me. I was just going to take the hoe and carve out a line in the soil but he showed me the way real gardeners accomplish this task. We took string and tied it between two stakes. Then we positioned the stakes where we wanted the row to be. We pulled the string tight and that created a nice straight line to follow. I was impressed.
We dropped our seeds in, spaced according to package directions. Next we put fertilizer right down the side of the rows after the seeds were covered with soil. We were busy as can be.
Meanwhile our children were right beside us. Not only were they helping, they were learning how to garden. That is how my husband learned so much. He was with his own father from the time he was a child and now he was the father.
Our children thought it was a great adventure. They understood clearly that we were going to get the things we wanted to eat from planting the seeds of those things. To make it more special we set aside a little space for our daughter and son to plant their own seeds. They were allowed to choose what seeds they wanted to put in their little patch. Our daughter wanted to plant beans. We found the bean seeds and she carefully placed them in the ground, gently covering them with dirt. She was the oldest and had already put some of the seeds in for our garden.
Meanwhile, our son was busy going through all the seed packages trying to find the one he wanted. He was not able to read but he was looking at all the pictures. When we asked him what he was going to plant he looked at us with exasperation asking, “Where are the hamburger seeds?” I think he understood the concept of having a garden to feed your family better than we did.
He never did find hamburger seeds.
Since that first little garden we have had many more. And my husband has worked very hard in every one of them. All of our children have gardens of their own. Our granddaughter (age 2) helped her mom and dad plant theirs this year. And so it goes.
Toys are a big part of any child’s life. We all start out with a rattle and progress from there. Some of the toys I played with as a kid were home-made, one of a kind. They would have never been part of my life if I didn’t have my older brother who included me in the things he did.
The Soap Box Derby was a big event in our town every year. My older brother never ran a car in the race but he did build a few cars. We actually called his “crates” since they were constructed a bit differently than the regulation Derby car. They were made from things that he was able to gather from what my dad had laying around.
His crates usually consisted of a plank for the body. I don’t know where he got the wheels or what he used for axles but I was the gofer (go fer the hammer, go fer the nails, etc) not the engineer. His steering system was 2 ropes attached to the front axle. Pull right to go right, pull left to go left. His design was all about simplicity. Brakes are always an important part of any moving object you’re riding on and the crates were no different. The first few that were constructed had the simplest method of stopping. We’d put our feet down and dragged them till we stopped. Obviously there were some problems with this- ruined shoes, sore feet and legs and sometimes it was ineffective so the second option was used. Crashing! The cars improved a little every time they were built or re-built. (after crashes). Manufacturers know their products are only as good as the materials used to make them. My brother learned this when my dad brought home a set of real Soap Box Derby wheels and axles.
That wonderful gift caused him to aspire to a whole new level of engineering capabilities. There was a steering wheel to consider- gone were the ropes! And a real brake seemed important with real axles. He also created backs so that we could lean back while we rode.
The place we rode the crates was the same place we picked huckleberries. It was called ‘The Cuts’. It was an old abandoned strip mine. It’s not easy to describe what it was like but I’ll try. Holes were dug in the ground and the dirt from the hole was piled right beside it. Most of the dirt piles were very high which meant the holes were very deep. Lots of times the holes were filled with water. And it covered a very large area. What made this the perfect place to ride a crate was the hills. We pushed the crate up the hill and rode it down. (Playing was not easy, it was exhausting!) Sometimes, if we gained enough momentum on a hill and the next one was fairly small we could coast to the top and ride 2 or even 3 hills without pushing. The problem came it we chose the wrong hill. The wrong hill being one with water on the other side. I don’t know how we never got hurt or killed except our guardian angels were with us. We really had great times there.
I know my mother never knew what the place looked like or she would have forbidden us to ever go near it. But we would truthfully say to her “we’re taking the crate to The Cuts to ride”, and she would always answer, “Okay, have fun and be careful or be home for lunch.” I have no idea why she didn’t investigate or why my dad didn’t inform her. But if she had, I would have missed out on some of the best memories, not to mention the fun.