July 25, 2009

  • I Spend The Day Thinking

    No jokes now. It's not like I don't usually think but today was a day to really THINK about things...a lot of things. Oh, I did some other things, too. Like make my bed, do some laundry and even made lunch and dinner. Nothing complicated because I was THINKING about STUFF.

    I thought about stuff like living in a cold water apartment when I was a kid. My grandmother had hot water in HER apartment but we didn't. Yet, I really didn't think a whole lot about it except that it would have been nice if WE had it instead of having to heat up our water on the stove. Baths were a once a week affair for everyone because it meant filling the big galvanized tub up with water. Little kids first. Only dad got his own water but he took his baths after we kids were in bed for the night.

    I remember we had a fridge that required one of those big blocks of ice in it and had a pan to catch the water underneath. One of us kids had to run down to the alley to let the ice man know (he came through every day with his horse drawn cart) we needed a block of ice and he would carry it up the back stairs to the kitchen and Mom would pay him.

    I remember the rag man that came around every couple of weeks. He bought rags, which was usually old clothes and linens that couldn't be used any more. He would weigh them and pay per pound. The going rate I remember was .10 and, with seven kids, sometimes Mom actually made a couple dollars.

    We also had a man that came by on different weekends with fruits and vegetables. We kids were as fascinated by his horse as we were anxious to see what Mom would buy from him on those occasions she had extra cash. Fruit was a real treat for us.

    I remember Sunday dinners that were always Mom's special fried chicken, mashed potatoes, creamed peas and carrots and always enough to feed us and any unexpected company. We kids knew that if we had company, we had to be cautious about how much of anything we ate so there was enough to go around. The adults always got first choice on the chicken and we kids would fight over what was left. It was always a treat though and the house always smelled wonderful when Mom was frying the chicken and then would put it in the oven to *degrease* it, she said but it was really to keep it warm until everything was ready.

    I remember how my mother loved Christmas and all the decorating. She would go all out and the house would look so wonderful. She would make up little tiny decorated packages to go under the little artificial tree she would have as a centerpiece. The packages would be all different sizes and have tiny little ribbons around them and different paper even. It was a treat for us kids when we were finally deemed old enough to help put the tinsel on the tree. But, for years I remember going to bed on Christmas eve with decorations but no tree and waking up to find a decorated tree with all kinds of presents underneath. How my Mom and Dad managed that in our tiny apartment was a real puzzle but they did it for a long time. I preferred when putting up the tree was a family affair but that came when I was a bit older.

    I spent a long time today remembering a lot of things that we did without when I was a kid. It was more than no cell phones, microwaves, computers and TV's. It was being poor and not realizing it. It was realizing that people are actually able to get along without a lot of things than they might realize. Kids learn to play actual physical games together. They learn to use their imagination. As kids, we did a lot more physical things like bike riding, playing on the monkey bars and parallel bars that were in our city parks. We played baseball (not the little league stuff with all those fancy uniforms and referees). We played handball in the alleys against some building wall. We played hide-and-seek with a twist when we got older. The girls would hide and the guys would seek and the girl they found had to kiss them. It was all innocent fun. What a difference in today's society.

    There's a lot of talk about people losing their jobs and being in such hardships. I agree that not being able to pay bills that you made while times were good is tough but, if you give up a lot of those things you think are so *necessary*, you might just be surprised. Depending on your age, you might recapture or even discover about what a family is REALLY supposed to be all about.

    Those are just some of the stray things I was thinking about. I know. It's weird but maybe nostalgia for some of those times is something we *old* people do. I was just thinking about my Mother since her birthday was the other day and it kind of steamrolled into this jumble of memories. I hope you have some of your own that bring a smile to your face when you think back on those times.

    Time to get this posted. Love you all. Hope you have a wonderful day and remember to smile and laugh for your well-being.

    Here's the thought for today: You should hope for enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, and enough hope to make you happy