memoir

One Man’s Trash

Inspired by the story of the woman who sold a piece of cheese toast on eBay for a monumental amount, I realized I might be able to score big time with this starter kit for hoarders.  The most desirable piece might be the brown wooden toilet seat cover.  It matched my bathroom redo and looked great in the store.  It turns out, brown is not the ideal color for a toilet seat.  Turns out, brown Is not a color that I really felt comfortable with, once in place.  Not only that, in an effort to ensure hygiene, I wasn’t satisfied with cleaning instructions and ramped it up with an improved cleaning regimen.  Sadly, it sprouted splinters, resulting in considerable complaints.  It had to be replaced.

The collection includes several cracked flower pots which would still be useful if you put them in place before filling with flowers.  The ugly gourd blue bird nest has hosted a family of wasps.  and will probably be  non-toxic to birds in a few years.  I blasted it pretty hard with wasp spray.  The kneeling pads are cracked, but probabaly wouldn’t pinch if the gardener covered them with a towel before use.  The square plastic container is leakproof.  It has held chicken-poop tea for my ferns for a couple of years. The miasma of poop is still quite pungent.  Maybe other men wouldn’t object to it the way Bud does.

The ragged soccer ball is an adored dog toy, barely past its prime.  I am sure a crafty person could find a good use for the ragged bathroom rug and broken brick.  Be sure to get your bids in as soon as possible, or I’ll have to stuff it all in the two mulch bags and dump it.

The new series of the Smorgasbord Sunday Interview – Getting to Know You! – And I will go first!

Bird Dog

I was greeted by the desperate fluttering of a bird trapped in my fireplace this morning.  Shutting the doors to adjacent rooms, I went for a flashlight and dish towel before opening the fireplace doors.  Fortunately, he was blinded and clung fearfully to the bricks when I shone the light on him.  I was so relieved he easily disengaged from the wall when I grasped him with the dish towel.  My heart soared as he winged his way to freedom like so many others I’ve released from my chimney trap.  I was reminded of another bird experience.

Annie, our Dalmatian dog once alerted me to a bird on the fireplace.  That time it didn’t go so smoothly, since I hadn’t yet learned to shine the light on the bird to confuse it.  The bird escaped into the living room.  It took me a few attempts before I caught and released it.  During the melee, Annie bonded with the poor, terrified bird.  She clearly enjoyed seeing its return to safety.  Lest you think a lot of kind thoughts about Annie, I need to let you know, that’s the only non-despicable she ever did.  She was sweet about the bird.

The next day, I went to visit my sister.  Marilyn had just gotten a bird.  That poor bird must have thought it had gone to Hell.  Marilyn’s cat  had his hissing face pressed into the cage with his front paws clutching the cage in a death grip.  The traumatized bird had backed as far away  as the cage would allow.  Marilyn was tired of pulling the cat off the bird’s cage, so when she offered me the bird, I took it.  The weather was fine, so the bird stayed on the patio for the rest of our visit with the disappointed cat’s nose pressed against the glass the whole time.

Annie assumed ownership of the bird, greeting it every time she walked by and napping by its cage.  The bird enjoyed her company chattering merrily when Annie greeted it. They were friends for several years until the bird’s death.  It was a heartwarming friendship.

 

Washday Blues

Image courtesy of The People’s History

Mother had some bad luck, then some good.  She was a  passenger in a car hit by a drunk driver and sustained a cut over her eye.  The good news was, she wasn’t badly scarred and got a two-thousand dollar settlement from the driver’s insurance.  Daddy and Mother were rich!  (He was the man and what was hers was his.) That was a lot of money in 1956.  She said the first thing she wanted was an automatic washing machine. She and Daddy made for the local furniture store.  When Daddy saw what a new Maytag cost, he balked. The set pictured above retailed at $494!  Of course, purchase of a dryer would have been ridiculous, since she had a clothesline and nothing but time, but the price of a new washer alone was outrageous!  They had a lot of better places for that money!  The upshot was, the salesman finally admitted he had taken a used Maytag in trade.  That was more like it.  Daddy always went for used.   That fine, used washer came home with them, for only fifty dollars.  It took place of pride on the screened-in back porch and Mother’s old wringer washer became a trade-in.

It worked okay for a few weeks and Mother dealt with her disappointment at not getting a new Maytag.  Soon, it revealed its true nature.  Apparently, the switch was moody.  It began to protest moving between cycles.  Sometimes it made a grinding nose, sometimes it meditated.  Eventually, it died.  Mother was livid.  They had wasted fifty dollars on a piece of trash.  At least her old wringer washer was dependable.  Of course, by now, the two-thousand dollars was history.  They’d paid some bills, and Daddy had purchased a small sawmill so he could go in the cross-tie business.  It looked like a great deal till the bottom fell out of the cross-tie business.  Money was tight as always.  Daddy had heard that a neighbor, J. D. Offut, worked on appliances, so he sent a kid over to ask Mr. Offut to stop by when he got off his day job.  This was before we enjoyed the luxury of a telephone.

I have no idea what Mr. Offut’s day job was,  but his hobby was soon performing CPR on Mother’s chronically ailing Maytag washer.  He always tinkered long enough to revive it for a few days.  Invariably he’d leave Mother with a handful of small unnecessary parts.  “I bypassed the such and such, so I didn’t need these.  You might want to keep them, just in case.  I don’t know how long it will hold up.”  His confidence in his work was well-grounded.  It rarely ran more than a few days, leaving Mother to  fish out a heavy load of cold, soggy laundry in anticipation of Mr. Offut ‘s call.  Sometimes, he had a previous commitment, so she’d have to finish the load by hand.  It was unfortunate she didn’t swear.  I believe it would have helped her feelings as she truminated on Daddy, the washer, and Mr. Offut.

Mother never did learn to appreciate that washer.

Oilcan Harry and the Washing Machine

imageMother was stuck taking us everywhere she went, even to buy a new washing machine just days before her fourth baby was born. She never asked anyone to keep us since that would have insured she had to return the favor and keep someone else’s monsters in return, probably some of our killer cousins. She was always on guard against that. We followed her into to appliance store. It was maddeningly dull to me and my Brother Billy. We wanted to ride in the dryers and jump on the doors, but she put a stop to that pretty quickly, making us sit on our hands with our backs to each other where Phyllis could watch us. Eventually, she made her choice and went to sign the mortgage papers. I knew all about mortgages! I was an avid fan of Mighty Mouse! He’d saved Sweet Alice countless times when Oilcan Harry was about to do her in all on account of that danged mortgage, and here my own sweet mother was about to sign a mortgage. I set up a protest, as only a righteous eight year old can do!

“Mother, Mother, don’t sign it. We’ll lose the house! Please don’t sign a mortgage!”

She was infuriated, as only an overwrought pregnant woman can be, snarlingly at me hatefully through clenched teeth. “Go over there and sit down. If you say another word, I’ol tear you up right here in this store!”

I do believe she meant it. She got her washer and Oilcan Harry didn’t get the house.

Let me cut it

Mother doesn’t eat dessert.  When she was pregnant sixty years ago her doctor told her to watch her sugar.  She might be diabetic one day.  Since that day, I don’t believe she’s eaten a whole cookie, piece of cake, or slice of pie.  She never makes or buys dessert, hardly surprising, since she won’t buy anything she can help. Also, as long as she doesn’t buy it or make it, she is watching her sugar.

Naturally, she can’t resist desserts when visiting.  Adamant that it is off limits, she refuses to be served along with everyone else.  “I don’t eat dessert.  Don’t cut me a piece.  I just want this little corner.  It looks like she wields a power saw!  Normally, round items don’t have corners, but cakes or pies under Mother’s knife are transformed.  Cookies have to be broken.  The best I can tell, bizarrely-hacked goodies have no calories.  It takes a trip or two to satisfy her.  Bud is particularly offended by this callous treatment of HIS desserts.  All the desserts at our house are his.  This doesn’t mean he prepares them.  He just cherishes them.  God help the person who gets the last bit!

Anyway, Mother messes them up!  Before leaving, she takes a final whack at them.  After all, she doesn’t eat dessert.

Laundry in the Old Days, Part 3

 

See how happy this woman looks while washing clothes.  She is obviously demented.  If memory serves, when Mother ironed, stringy hair dangled in her scowling face, her dress front was wet. Most often, she was barefoot, since since it was common for the drain hose to slip out, drenching her.  Image from Smithsonian Files

 

Above you can see my proudest possession, my 1940s model America Beauty iron.  I’d looked in resale shops all over till I found this one. I like an iron that gets super hot to iron jeans.  This one has to move constant to avoid scorching.  It does a great job.  I need to be on the lookout for another, since it’s a possibility this one won’t last forever.

 

Ironing in the 1950s was a huge chore. As soon as breakfast was over, and the kitchen tidied, out came the ironing board. A stack of wire hangers hung on the doorframe, waiting to be pressed into service. Mother pulled a few pieces of balled up clothing from the pillowcase in the freezer. Her coke bottle sprinkler was at hand just in case a piece had dried out too much. It could be re sprinkled and balled up to go back in the freezer till it was just

Mother always attacked Daddy’s clothes first since that was the biggest and most demanding job. With a freshly cleaned iron, she went for the white shirts Daddy wore for casual and dress. They had to be spotless, crisp, and perfect. The iron temperature had to be high to do the job, but a bit of hesitation left a dreaded scorch mark. A time or two, Mother hung a shirt in his closet with a little scorch she hoped he wouldn’t notice, and he’d throw a fit, wad it up, and throw it down. “I can’t wear a mess like this!” I don’t know why she never killed him. His khaki pants had to have perfect creases. She starched them and put them on pants stretchers to ensure proper creases They dried hard and could stand alone when she took them off the line. His blue work shirts were hard work, but not so challenging as the pants and white shirts. His five pair of pants and five to seven shirts must be been an exhausting challenge. He would sometimes wear his pants twice without laundering, so he did help a little with the laundry. His handkerchiefs made quick work.

The dresses and school clothes came next. I can assure you, after Mother took the time to iron all those frilly little home-made dresses, we changed as soon as we came in from school, so we could wear them at least twice. When we put them on, she had to rough up the underarm seams to soften them.  Otherwise, they’d scratch at our tender flesh. The skirts were so stiff, they belled out even without a petticoat. My brother’s pants and shirts were less challenging, which was fortunate, since he normally got the knees of his pants so dirty, he could only wear them one day. Naturally, last of all, she ironed her cotton housedresses, since she was a lady of leisure and didn’t have to “work.”

Before she had five children, I remember sheets and pillow cases coming at the end of the ironing list. Over the years, she got lazy and those fell by the wayside. Little girls were taught to iron hankies and pillowcases first. Ironing was “women’s work” not just something a boy needed to know. How fortunate for them!

Usually by the end of ironing day. Mother had thirty-five to forty crisp pieces hanging on the threshold of the doorway, seasoning and waiting for the closet. Every week, she counted those pieces without fail, proudly cataloging her work. I thank God, we don’t have to do that now!

Affirmations for the Resistance #8

Pulpwood Joke

Two Louisiana gentlemen who’d always worked in the pulpwood industry found themselves in a bad way when the pulpwood industry fell off.  Hearing of a state employment office, they headed down there, hoping for work.

Joe saw the counselor first.  “I see you’ve always worked in the forestry industry.  Exactly, what did you do?”

”I cut pulpwood!”  He answered proudly. “When I get going, can’t nobody keep up with me.  I’m the best pulpwood cutter in the country.”

”I’ll bet that’s something to see,” answered the counselor “but the pulpwood industry is dead around here.  I don’t have a single job for a pulpwood cutter.  Hope it picks up soon.”

He showed Joe the door.  “Next!”

Bubba followed him in. He was out in just a few minutes.  “I got a job!  I start tomorrow or the next day!”

Joe couldn’t handle that and stormed back in, confronting the counselor.  “What’s going on here?  How come you found him a job and not me?”

“We don’t have any jobs for a pulpwood cutter, but he’s a pilot.  We have lots of jobs for pilots!” answered  the counselor.

“That don’t make no sense!  If I don’t cut it, how’s he gonna pile it?”