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Monday, February 27, 2012

Roll of scotch tape; roll of linoleum.

I was thinking last night about how when I was small and we would move into a rented house what would transpire.  First the walls had to be repapered.  Before I could remember that part I understand sometimes the papering was with newspapers.  But we must have been rich because we had actual wall paper.  Usually it was some sort of flower stuff.  We did not always paper every room, but we did like the clean feeling new paper gave to the house.  After the rooms were papered came the most fun of all.

Off the parents went to the place, which was usually the furniture store, to buy our new floor.  Back in those days the furniture store was owned by Mr. Warn and his brother, Doc Warn, owned the appliance store and repair.  The furniture store also carried caskets, in case you died waiting for your new linoleum to arrive!  Did you ever hear of linoleum?  You measured your room and if it was 12' x 12' you told Mr. Warn and he would take you to the size you needed and show you a picture of it to make sure you liked it.  Sometimes there were several to choose.  The linoleum was rolled up and inside a big cardboard tube.  We usually carried it home since we did not have a car and the horses were supposed to be for work and this was fun!

When we got it home Dad would very carefully cut the tube.  Sometimes it would slide out the end and then we had the tube to play with which was way better than the linoleum to my way of thinking!  Any way, after it was out of the tube it had to lay there and rest and loosen up and we were not to touch it for any reason because if we did it would crack.  I think it was straight asbestos with a picture painted on one side.  As it relaxed it started to loosen and unfurl a bit.  At that point we were allowed to very gently unroll it.  If we met with any resistance we had to stop and wait some more.  This is the reason you only bought linoleum in the summer.  Cold weather slowed the process considerably.

After a couple days of tending to the roll it finally was completely unfurled.  It was rolled so when it was unrolled the design was on top.  Otherwise we would have had to flip it.  When it was all the way open we were allowed to walk very gently on it and finish flatening it.  Always in our bare feet.  Hell yes!  Well we never had shoes in the summer anyway!  So now the room was perfect.  And now the furniture could be brought back in from where ever it was.  Well, first, the wood stove had to be placed.  Moving into a new home always meant we got a new thing to put under the wood stove.  That was a big piece of asbestos covered with an enamaled piece of tin. 

You should make note here that asbestos is now illegal and is considered Hazardous Waste.  We did not know that when we were walking on it, setting hot pans on it, and generally using it for every thing imaginable.  Probably had a piece in each hand when we ran through the cooling mist of the machine spraying DDT to kill the mosquitoes on a hot summer night!

Ah, Home Sweet Home!!! 




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1 comment:

Lisa (Lou's Niece) :) said...

The cooling mist of the DDT spray. Funny! I loved that smell it meant summer.

Another year down the tubes!

Counting today, there are only 5 days left in this year.    Momma nailed it when she said "When you are over the hill you pick up speed...