I had only been out of the bathtub about 10 minutes when this picture was made. After that birthday party, this dress was never the same. I never saw that little purse again.
I first became aware of the Awfuls on the occasion of Jamey Awful’s fifth birthday. It’s significant that my first experience was quirky, setting the standard from that day forward . I was probably about four and totally ignorant of what birthday parties entailed. I only knew that Mother ruined a perfectly good day by calling me away from my sand pile to take a bath in the middle of the day, an unheard of event. I was disturbed especially since she insisted on washing the sand out of my hair. I’d just spent a good portion of the morning pouring sand on the top of my head, enjoying its powdery coolness showering down on my shoulders and the back of my sundress and saw no reason for her outraged reaction. “I told you not to get dirty. We have to go somewhere today.”
As far as I was concerned, sand was clean. Mud was dirty. Axle grease was dirty. Chicken poop on my shoe was dirty. Sand was white and dusted right off. It was not dirty. At any rate, Mother filled the tub with water and sprinkled in Tide Powder and plunged me in. That was what passed for bubble bath at our house. I would have been content to spend the afternoon there, but she washed my hair and hurried me out, ruining another good time. Then she brushed my stick straight hair and stuffed me in a fluffy petticoat, a white fluffy dress with red and blue polka-dots, white socks, and sandals. Worse yet, I had to submit to a photo session. Mother was a novice with a camera making me pose forever, staring into the sun. She’d gone to a great deal of fuss making matching dresses for me and Phyllis for Easter and was extremely proud of the effect. Too bad the confection was wasted on me. When she’d said Easter outfit, I’d envisioned a cowboy getup.
Then she walked us over to the Awful’s house. I doubt Mother knew Mrs. Awful, since we’d never been to her house for coffee, even though they only lived a couple of houses over. I guess the poor woman was scraping the bottom of the barrel to find enough kids for a party, since I was a year younger and Phyllis was a couple of years older and neither had ever laid eyes on Jamey.
Mrs. Awful met us at the back gate. There were a dozen or so kids running round in the yard, so once Mother made Mrs. Awful’s acquaintance, she headed home, promising to be back for us in a couple of hours. She couldn’t have anticipated the goings on at this quirky party. Mrs. Awful ushered us in the back gate and the fun began. I was in Heaven!
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I’d love to link to you.
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I enjoy your story telling!! Sand is not dirty~ but oh, it drives me crazy lol 😂 but when I was little it didn’t. Mrs. “Awful” and a bath in the middle of the day!! Gasp!
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It was a shame. We had played all the grass off under a big shade tree. There was nothing but sand. We played there all day.
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I bet! I felt like I grew up on softball fields and playing in sand, dirt, and by the river kept me loving being “gritty”.
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Sand is such a good, earthy feeling but not on sheets.
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Yes!! lol 😂 or trying to get it out of any vehicle I owned lol
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We got sand in our car in White Sands aNM and never did get free of it
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I sold my car to a fellow teacher~ “sand” included!! lol
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We all know, teachers can handle problems. She may have found a good use for that sand by now.
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Tide!
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Yep! Sometimes if we had bug bites she put in a capful of clorox to keep down infection. She didn’t want impetigo .
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Well, I have to say that the old fashion way did work. That’s how my Grandparents took care of me. Granny would use bubblebath, monkey blood, mericome, hydrogen process and alcohol. Almost all of the meals were cooked in cast iron and she had to clean the kitchen top to bottom after ever supper.
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I wanted Monkey Blood. Mercurochrome burned. Those red stains were something to be proud of! Ooh! I dreaded alcohol. It was brutal! I have some of my grandma’s cast iron. Oh that kitchen cleaning was a good habit!
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Granny was spot clean, she had so much energy, she never sat down except to eat, potty and watch a few minutes of the news. The entire vent-a-hood had to be cleaned, the grates had to taken off the stove and cleaned, she spent over an hour in there after supper. They never had a dishwasher, except Granny and I was her helper. Monkey Blood took forever to come off too.
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Surely she didn’t have to do special cleaning before company came.
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Granny was insecure because she was legally blind since the age of 3 so she wasn’t crazy about company and surely didn’t care for the hillbilly family members who would stay hours on end.
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We used to have that trashy company, too. They’d come in like a plague of locusts and eat everything in sight.
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Yep!
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One woman wiped her kid’s snotty nose on dishrag and dropped in back in clean dishwasher!
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‘Awfully funny’ story. I sure you have a part three as this left me wanting to know about the party. sweetly told.
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More for sure. Glad you are enjoying. It was great for a kid having them around.
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