Friday, September 10, 2010
Tip of the Day
Be sure to check the label of the aerosol can twice to be sure that you have spray starch instead of bug spray before ironing. If you don’t check twice, the result could be limp curtains. On the positive side, bugs won’t come near your windows.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
WABAC trip - Part III
I don’t know how long we lived the little shack. We stayed until a better house was available. The new house was within walking distance to the school with the bad water. I found the house easily because it was on the main road. The road to the school ran beside the house and the little grocery store across the way, Elliott’s, was still there. At least, the building was there, but it appeared to be empty.
The house was four rooms with an indoor bathroom and great hardwood floors. Mother would wax and buff them, and Gary and I would slide across the living room in our socks. It was like ice skating. We had to be really careful or one could fall and break her, hmm, neck. It was a bit of a letdown to see that the house had been allowed to run down so badly. It appears that it has been vacant for a long time. It was also a lot larger in my memory.
I actually had a girl to play with, Patricia Elliot. (It’s strange I remember a name from 60 years ago, but the names of my grandchildren are difficult to bring to mind sometimes.) Her grandparents owned the little store.
Sixty years ago the road leading to the school had only one or two houses on it. Now there are houses built on very small lots all the way to where the school was.
The school is no long there. A church now sits in its place. The pump with the terrible water is also gone. I was so disappointed.
Dad was transferred when I was in the second grade. We had finished our first six weeks grading period of the school year. We then moved to Rogersville, Tennessee. Mother must have been thrilled. The house they found had all the modern conveniences including a bathroom and running water. We lived there from my second grade year until the summer before I was going into fifth grade. We lived in a total of four different houses during that short time.
Maybe a trip to Rogersville will be next on the agenda, but that’s a bit further away. It may be too far away to be a day trip.
(I had a terrible time inserting the picture of my friend and me. Darn, Mr. Microsoft and my lack of foresight. I saved a lot of pictures in Power Point Format, but Power Point is not installed on this computer. (It's far too expensive.) I had to perform several feats of computer wizardry using two computers just to include this picture. It also looks as if I have another gigantic project to "undo" and save the hundred of photos I saved using PP. Damn, damn, double damn!)
The house was four rooms with an indoor bathroom and great hardwood floors. Mother would wax and buff them, and Gary and I would slide across the living room in our socks. It was like ice skating. We had to be really careful or one could fall and break her, hmm, neck. It was a bit of a letdown to see that the house had been allowed to run down so badly. It appears that it has been vacant for a long time. It was also a lot larger in my memory.
 |
| Side View |
I actually had a girl to play with, Patricia Elliot. (It’s strange I remember a name from 60 years ago, but the names of my grandchildren are difficult to bring to mind sometimes.) Her grandparents owned the little store.
 |
| Patricia (Standing) and Me Circa 1951 |
Sixty years ago the road leading to the school had only one or two houses on it. Now there are houses built on very small lots all the way to where the school was.
The school is no long there. A church now sits in its place. The pump with the terrible water is also gone. I was so disappointed.
Dad was transferred when I was in the second grade. We had finished our first six weeks grading period of the school year. We then moved to Rogersville, Tennessee. Mother must have been thrilled. The house they found had all the modern conveniences including a bathroom and running water. We lived there from my second grade year until the summer before I was going into fifth grade. We lived in a total of four different houses during that short time.
Maybe a trip to Rogersville will be next on the agenda, but that’s a bit further away. It may be too far away to be a day trip.
(I had a terrible time inserting the picture of my friend and me. Darn, Mr. Microsoft and my lack of foresight. I saved a lot of pictures in Power Point Format, but Power Point is not installed on this computer. (It's far too expensive.) I had to perform several feats of computer wizardry using two computers just to include this picture. It also looks as if I have another gigantic project to "undo" and save the hundred of photos I saved using PP. Damn, damn, double damn!)
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
WABAC Trip - Part II
Since we were given very little time to move, Mother and Dad had to take whatever housing was available. That turned out to be a shack. As I remember, it was only three rooms with no running water or bathroom. Gary and I slept in the living room; he had a single bed and I slept on the couch. Mother and Dad’s bedroom had no ceiling. When you looked up you saw the rafters and the tin roof. The sound of rain hitting that tin roof was so loud that it scared me.
The water supply came from a spring in a nearby river and was piped to a spigot in the front yard. When there was a heavy rain and the river ran more swiftly, the concrete slab covering the spring would slide and the water from the spigot would be muddy. Mother strained it through cheesecloth and boiled it before using it.
The house was heated by a coal stove, but I think there must have been an electric stove for cooking because I don’t remember the house being extremely hot as would have been the case if she had used a wood stove. The house had never been painted. It was that weathered gray color. Next door was a barn that stabled a mule. It’s funny, but I don’t remember ever seeing anyone taking care of the mule.
The house was located on a dirt road that intersected with a blacktopped highway. I also don’t remember any other houses on our little road. A bit past our house was the river with an old grist mill and dam. Behind the house was an open field where Gary and I found lots of arrowheads. There was also a pond where we could fish. This was where we had a UFO sighting.
I have mostly fun memories of living there. I don’t imagine my mother had such great memories. She was a city girl and probably a bit spoiled. I know that my grandmother always had “help” for the housework, and she did all the cooking. (Like me, my mother hated housework and cooking.) Can you imagine how hard it must have been for her just carrying the water into the house for cooking, cleaning, and bathing? Doing laundry must have been a major undertaking. I don’t know if I could have coped with the primitive conditions. She even made jelly for the first time in her life. There were blackberries and muscadines growing along the road. She would send Gary and I out with buckets to pick whatever was ripe at the time with the warning to watch for snakes. I hated that! I can remember the fear, the heat of the summer days, and the feel of the silky dust of the road on my bare feet. I hated picking berries, but I never said anything.
The lady who sold us milk and hand-churned butter gave me a chicken for a pet. I always thought that chicken was as dumb as stump because it would never some when I called it. I thought it would be like a dog.
Gary had a bb gun. I almost cut my finger off trying it out. I begged for days for a chance to shoot it. At last, Dad said I could try it. He showed me how to use the lever to cock it and how to aim it. The first time I tried to cock it, somehow my finger got between the gun and lever. When I released the lever, it cut my finger almost to the bone. My dad put a popsicle stick splint on it and bandaged it. I never asked to shoot again.
We had to walk out to the highway to catch the bus. Dad also waited there for his ride to work. He carpooled. At the intersection was a turkey farm. Those darned turkeys hated Dad and I. As soon as they saw us, they would come running up to the fence gobbling like crazy. I thought if they ever made it across the fence, I would be pecked to death. They did the same to Dad. Gary was completely ignored by the turkeys, but he took great delight with my fear.
I don’t know how long we lived there, but it couldn’t have been long because we had moved to a nicer house before the start of the next school year, The new house had an indoor bathroom! Yea!!
Mr. Fixit and I found the road where the house was. The house and barn is gone, the road has been paved, but is almost one lane in places, and there are several houses there now. I was surprised that I found that little road--60 years is a long time.
The water supply came from a spring in a nearby river and was piped to a spigot in the front yard. When there was a heavy rain and the river ran more swiftly, the concrete slab covering the spring would slide and the water from the spigot would be muddy. Mother strained it through cheesecloth and boiled it before using it.
The house was heated by a coal stove, but I think there must have been an electric stove for cooking because I don’t remember the house being extremely hot as would have been the case if she had used a wood stove. The house had never been painted. It was that weathered gray color. Next door was a barn that stabled a mule. It’s funny, but I don’t remember ever seeing anyone taking care of the mule.
The house was located on a dirt road that intersected with a blacktopped highway. I also don’t remember any other houses on our little road. A bit past our house was the river with an old grist mill and dam. Behind the house was an open field where Gary and I found lots of arrowheads. There was also a pond where we could fish. This was where we had a UFO sighting.
I have mostly fun memories of living there. I don’t imagine my mother had such great memories. She was a city girl and probably a bit spoiled. I know that my grandmother always had “help” for the housework, and she did all the cooking. (Like me, my mother hated housework and cooking.) Can you imagine how hard it must have been for her just carrying the water into the house for cooking, cleaning, and bathing? Doing laundry must have been a major undertaking. I don’t know if I could have coped with the primitive conditions. She even made jelly for the first time in her life. There were blackberries and muscadines growing along the road. She would send Gary and I out with buckets to pick whatever was ripe at the time with the warning to watch for snakes. I hated that! I can remember the fear, the heat of the summer days, and the feel of the silky dust of the road on my bare feet. I hated picking berries, but I never said anything.
The lady who sold us milk and hand-churned butter gave me a chicken for a pet. I always thought that chicken was as dumb as stump because it would never some when I called it. I thought it would be like a dog.
Gary had a bb gun. I almost cut my finger off trying it out. I begged for days for a chance to shoot it. At last, Dad said I could try it. He showed me how to use the lever to cock it and how to aim it. The first time I tried to cock it, somehow my finger got between the gun and lever. When I released the lever, it cut my finger almost to the bone. My dad put a popsicle stick splint on it and bandaged it. I never asked to shoot again.
We had to walk out to the highway to catch the bus. Dad also waited there for his ride to work. He carpooled. At the intersection was a turkey farm. Those darned turkeys hated Dad and I. As soon as they saw us, they would come running up to the fence gobbling like crazy. I thought if they ever made it across the fence, I would be pecked to death. They did the same to Dad. Gary was completely ignored by the turkeys, but he took great delight with my fear.
I don’t know how long we lived there, but it couldn’t have been long because we had moved to a nicer house before the start of the next school year, The new house had an indoor bathroom! Yea!!
Mr. Fixit and I found the road where the house was. The house and barn is gone, the road has been paved, but is almost one lane in places, and there are several houses there now. I was surprised that I found that little road--60 years is a long time.
 |
| Front View of the Mill The wooden structure was not there originally. It looks like a gazebo-like structure for picnics. |
 |
| Back View of Mill The waterwheel is gone, but the dam remains. |
 |
| Dam To see young man walking across, click to enlarge |
 |
| The old swimming hole This looks as it did when I was a child. The water appears to be low, making the "beach" area much bigger. The fall of the dead trees and brush wasn't there either. |
Sunday, September 5, 2010
A Trip in Mr. Peabody's WABAC Machine
Mr. Fixit and I decided to take a daytrip to explore a little of my history. The trip took us to Whitwell, Marion County, Tennessee where I lived for about a year and a half when I was five years old. Forty years ago when we were visiting my family in Kentucky, we took a trip to see the Whitwell area. I wasn’t driving during that trip so I had no clue now how to find the houses where we had lived. On this trip all we had to rely on my 60 year old memories to find the little community, Sulfur Springs Crossroads, where we lived. It wasn’t on the map.
I don’t know where my dad worked immediately after WW II. I know that he managed a small grocery store in Paducah, Kentucky, when I was three or four. At the time, TVA was building power generating plants in Kentucky and Tennessee, and I suppose that he wanted to make more money so he applied at TVA. He was hired and sent to the southeastern corner of Tennessee. I don’t know for sure the name of the plant in Tennessee, but I think it was probably Hale’s Bar Dam. We moved there the summer when I was 5.
The house we found to rent was very nice. It was furnished and had a nicely appointed kitchen with running water, a “cow patch” across the road, and a mountain in our backyard. There was no indoor bathroom or its own outhouse. We had to use the outhouse of the landlord’s house which was next door. Another drawback was the coal mine trucks and the lumber trucks that raced up and down the road.
Gary, my older brother, learned to milk cows and to trap mink and muskrat. I learned to trap minnows. I also discovered whittling. I traded my cap gun and holster for a pearl handled pocket knife and spent many hours sitting on the porch whittling blocks of wood and sticks down to nothing. We also learned to run into the house when the bobcat who lived on the mountain came to visit. I learned to walk on stilts that my dad made, and I learned to ride my bike. We played cowboys and Indians with the boys across the road and explored the woods. Dad checked us for ticks on a daily basis.
The school we attended had two classrooms which served six grades taught by two teachers. It also had an outhouse and the water was from a pump fed by a sulfur spring. The water was almost undrinkable. And the smell! Horrible!! Miss Wilma, my teacher, wasn’t great, but I learned to read and spell above my grade level. My math, however, was terrible. My dad took over teaching me to add and subtract.
We lived there until after Christmas. I remember the presents I received that year. We had to move when the landlord’s son was unexpectedly discharged from the army.
The house was no longer there when we looked for it on that trip 40 years ago; there was only an empty lot. I was a bit disappointed that Mr. Fixit and I couldn’t locate where the house had been. I remember details about the location, but I had no idea where to start looking.
I don’t know where my dad worked immediately after WW II. I know that he managed a small grocery store in Paducah, Kentucky, when I was three or four. At the time, TVA was building power generating plants in Kentucky and Tennessee, and I suppose that he wanted to make more money so he applied at TVA. He was hired and sent to the southeastern corner of Tennessee. I don’t know for sure the name of the plant in Tennessee, but I think it was probably Hale’s Bar Dam. We moved there the summer when I was 5.
The house we found to rent was very nice. It was furnished and had a nicely appointed kitchen with running water, a “cow patch” across the road, and a mountain in our backyard. There was no indoor bathroom or its own outhouse. We had to use the outhouse of the landlord’s house which was next door. Another drawback was the coal mine trucks and the lumber trucks that raced up and down the road.
Gary, my older brother, learned to milk cows and to trap mink and muskrat. I learned to trap minnows. I also discovered whittling. I traded my cap gun and holster for a pearl handled pocket knife and spent many hours sitting on the porch whittling blocks of wood and sticks down to nothing. We also learned to run into the house when the bobcat who lived on the mountain came to visit. I learned to walk on stilts that my dad made, and I learned to ride my bike. We played cowboys and Indians with the boys across the road and explored the woods. Dad checked us for ticks on a daily basis.
The school we attended had two classrooms which served six grades taught by two teachers. It also had an outhouse and the water was from a pump fed by a sulfur spring. The water was almost undrinkable. And the smell! Horrible!! Miss Wilma, my teacher, wasn’t great, but I learned to read and spell above my grade level. My math, however, was terrible. My dad took over teaching me to add and subtract.
We lived there until after Christmas. I remember the presents I received that year. We had to move when the landlord’s son was unexpectedly discharged from the army.
The house was no longer there when we looked for it on that trip 40 years ago; there was only an empty lot. I was a bit disappointed that Mr. Fixit and I couldn’t locate where the house had been. I remember details about the location, but I had no idea where to start looking.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
It's the Little Things
Sometimes it the little things that give me pleasure:
The smell of freshly mown grass.
Getting into a bed with fresh, crisp sheets on a hot, summer night.
Walking into the air conditioned house when the outdoor temperature and humidity are almost
unbearable.
The smell of freshly mown grass.
Getting into a bed with fresh, crisp sheets on a hot, summer night.
Walking into the air conditioned house when the outdoor temperature and humidity are almost
unbearable.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Follow-up Pics
These photos are a follow-up to my post of August 2, 2010, in which I showed the neighbor's tree after the yard guys had merely clipped the muscadine vines climbing it. I also included some pictures of our cats.
A few days after clipping the vines the young men came back and pulled down some of the dead vines making it look a little better. You can see how the vines killed the foliage on the lower half of the tree.
Little Girl
Little Girl, our inside cat, takes my afternoon nap time reading time as her time to have her tummy
rubbed. Mr. Fixit says she is the spoiled. Nah, not a bit.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Hi!
I'm back! I've tried over the past couple of weeks to leave blogging behind, but here I am again. I discovered something rather alarming. Blogging has become one of my few conversational outlets; it's also a little sad. Even if no one ever comments, it feels like I'm a little more connected to world, and I don't feel so lonely.
While taking this short leave, every day I would see or experience something and think, "Wow, that would be a good subject to blog about." (Are the grammar police out there? I ended that sentence with a preposition.) Now that I'm sitting at the keyboard, I only have a few ideas. Also, I have a bunch of chores to do today so they will have to wait.
The weather has cooled a bit; the forecast calls for a high of 95 degrees today. The humidity is down a bit. It has been possible to sit on the deck in the late afternoon without sweat pouring and gasping for breath. I'm so glad.
While taking this short leave, every day I would see or experience something and think, "Wow, that would be a good subject to blog about." (Are the grammar police out there? I ended that sentence with a preposition.) Now that I'm sitting at the keyboard, I only have a few ideas. Also, I have a bunch of chores to do today so they will have to wait.
The weather has cooled a bit; the forecast calls for a high of 95 degrees today. The humidity is down a bit. It has been possible to sit on the deck in the late afternoon without sweat pouring and gasping for breath. I'm so glad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)