Sorry, I got side tracked!

Well, right in the middle of the mess came World AIDS Day and now that is over and for some ungodly reason known to no one in the whole world, I decided that the garage has got to be emptied.  See, my dear husband passed to his heavenly reward 10 years ago and left all his tools, truck parts, peg board, wood working equipment, nails, grease and dust behind.  Now in all fairness, I did sell what ever anyone was interested in at the time, or gave it away.  That was long ago.
Now PFLAG is storing stuff in my garage for the scholarship yard sale in the spring.  Bear in mind that this garage is large enough to park a semi with a long dump trailer attached and still have room for 4 full sized cars.  Getting the picture?  So a friend of mine moved from Vineland to Pueblo West and needed temporary storage.  The a son-in-law came dragging in a great big bunch of racks.  And lord only knows who stuck that pool table in the corner!  Are you getting the picture?  Forgot to tell you that this thing also has a loft!
So they been hauling stuff in and putting it in the garage and the center is now full!  And it is creeping towards oblivion. Along the south wall are steel shelves 3 deep and about 2' x6'.  On the said shelves were broken chains. lug nuts, valuable stuff and total crappola all mixed together.  Since my back has gone south long ago, I got my friend Dan over here and pointed and he carried.  I began to find stuff that I knew was good, but I had no use for it so I called my friends, Frank and Cliff.  These guys have been my friends forever and when I need something they are always there to help.  I knew they were still out and kicking because I had lunch with them last spring.  We had all started Colorado Dirt many years ago and they are frustrated "pickers".  And here they came in their car.  We checked the garage and the next day they returned with a truck and trailer.  Yesterday the returned with a truck, trailer and a bobcat!  Today will be the third day of actual loading and I can see bare floors popping out everywhere!  This is wonderful. 
Today they are on their own because I have to take the dog to the groomer and I just happened to notice that my drivers license expired 3 months ago, so I will be setting in that little room with the hoards waiting my turn.  The dog takes about 3 hours so this should all work out well.  At least it would in a perfect world.  Then it is off to lunch with my friend Linda at SCAP.  Then home to see if I can install Microsoft Office on this computer from Hell!!  And I have satin sashes to finish sewing for the rodeo club.  And listings are running out on ebay so I need to take care of that!  And I want to get a warp measured out for a set of towels.  Wish there was two of me.
In the meantime, I am neglecting the story on the Chapter One Blog and the desk is piling up again.  Good news though!  I did get the cookie bags ready for the SCAP clients and Sherman left me a new pair of jeans and I have those marked and ready to hem.  And did I tell you I have the old computer set up down stairs and the printer is working and God is Good!

I know I showed you this, but...

I just want to point out some things of interest.  Like see that thing in the lower left hand corner?  Do you know what that is?  That is a sewing kit that sets on the cabinet or some where that it will be handy.  The whole thing is wooden and usually hand made.  The bird has a pair of scissors that makes up his head feathers and the blades are his beak.  Under the beak is various colored spools of thread.  In the center is a pincushion and in the pin cushion will be a needle.  I can walk in anyone's house now days and tell them I need to sew a button back on and I will be met with blank stares.  Needles and thread are just not the common items they were 50 or 60 years ago.
The couch they are setting on is a dark blue sort of plush fabric.  It is called an overstuffed divan.  The pattern etched in the fabric would have been some sort of leaf design or flower.  The walls are papered it is matched!  It is very neutral, because bold statements were not made in those days.  The pillows are of course, hand sewn, probably either by hand or on an old treadle.  I just don't remember the sewing machine at grandma's , but I am sure there was one there.
But the crème de la crème can be seen on the back of the couch between mother and grandma Haas.  See those white round things?  Those are crocheted sets that go on the back and arms of anything you set on.  These particular ones are made by first crocheting the round things.  They are made up of probably 85,000 tiny crochet stitches and probably in a size 20 thread.  Back in those days these were considered necessary.  If they were not on there the couch was "naked."  And trust me, it would have been more acceptable for me to cavort naked in the street as for that couch to not be finished with it's crocheted trimmings.  And the matching overstuffed chair would have a set that matched.  Heaven forbid that it looked any different.
And any table that was in any room would have a doily on it.  The center of the dining room table, a very large,heavy, round oak table had a big pineapple doily as the centerpiece.  It was about 2 feet across and the pineapple ruffles stood about a foot high.  When this was "soiled" it was washed and then "finished" by soaking it in a very heavy sugar water and then placed on a towel to dry.  The ruffles were pulled to full height as it dried and when it went back on the table it was perfect and looked like it had been ironed.
So that is it for this picture.  Oh, one more thing.  See how they are dressed?  Dresses, aprons, hose, shoes, the whole nine yards.  When those women came out of the bedroom this is how they looked.  They were dressed "for the day" and that was that.  You might catch me in my jammies at about any hour before 10, but not them.  I do not think I ever saw grandma in her night gown any time except when I put he in it at night and took it off in the morning.
So much for the grandma's for today.

(I know there are some of you out there who read this blog as a means of keeping up with family history.  You should know that I have my blog converted into a pdf. file  regularly and if you would like I can send it to you as an attachment.  I have not done it for this year, but just let me know if you want one and I will make sure you get it when it is ready.)









 

And we "settle in".

The next morning arrived, as mornings have a way of doing.  John Britan and Ed Crissman came by early to get the cook stove unloaded and the pipe put through the hole in the ceiling.  It was heavy work, but accomplished very quickly.  I am sure mother hustled around and built a fire so coffee could be made.  This was done with a large enamel coffee pot, water, grounds and an egg shell.  Egg shell was to make the grounds settle better.  I do not remember what our first meal in the new house was, but I am willing to bet it was some sort of "mush."  Mush was made by boiling water and stirring some sort of cornmeal into it.  I think today it might be called "grits".  I have since perfected this recipe.  Mine is called "Scrapple." 
First I boil some kind of pork or beef until it is very tender.  I season it with a bay leaf, some sage, maybe salt and pepper or chicken broth.  Then I fish out the meat, add coarsely ground yellow corn meal (grits or polenta) and cook that until it is done.  Then I stir the meat in and pour the stuff into a loaf pan that is lined with wax paper.  When this cools it will set up and be firm.  Then I take it out of the pan and slice it about 3/4 inches thick and fry it in hot oil.  Serve that with Maple Syrup and  you have some happy people on the other end of the forks.  Hard to believe that recipe came from the heart of the depression years.  We just didn't put meat in it back then.
So with the cook stove cooking away, the next item in was the "heating stove" or parlor stove or what ever.  Since the linoleum in the front room was still in very good shape, we did not need to replace it.  The first thing to go down was the 4' x  4' square of asbestos that was clad in tin.  Usually the tin was painted so it was pretty.  The purpose of this was to keep the stove separated from the linoleum cause the stove would get very warm.
 ( A little aside here!  The Environmental Protection Agency and every one else in government would have us shut down today.  Asbestos is now hazardous waste and I am sure that linoleum under it was a case of lung cancer waiting to happen.  But in those days all this was considered luxury. )
The stove needed to set about 2-3 feet from any wall, so our metal mat was placed accordingly.  Then the stove was carried in and placed exactly in the center with the door facing into the center of the room.  Do not ask me why, but that was how it was.  Step ladder was brought back in and the pipe installed connecting the stove to the hole in the roof.  Always amazed me how that worked out every time, but apparently there was some sort of plan.  There was no chimney, just poke it out the hole and we are good to go.  The wood box in the kitchen was located just inside the door.  The one for the front room was just outside the door.  Hey!  Do you think we were hicks? 
Then everything left on the hay rack and the trailer was carried in and taken to the room where it belonged.  The zinc tubs were put in the kitchen, because that was where the washing machine would go and that was where we would have our weekly bath.  In case you missed the blog on the bath, I will tell it again later.  The three legged cast iron kettle that was the mainstay of life was placed out back near the pump. 
I have  got to extol the three legged kettle.  It was about 3 feet high and 3 feet across.  The sole purpose was to heat water over an open fire, hence the legs that held it up out of the ashes.  See, it set there and a fire was built under it and buckets of water were carried from the pump and poured in it.  About anything could happen in that kettle!  Mother raised geese, ducks, chickens and rabbits.  When it was butchering time for the geese, ducks and chickens the water was heated in there.  Off came a head and in went the body.  Geese and ducks had to have a little soap added so the water would penetrate.  Then the feathers were plucked off and the "down" saved.  Down is the light feathers under the wings and inside of the legs.  It is used in Down Comforters, pillows and stuff like that.
The kettle was also used to heat water for washing clothes, washing kids on Saturday night, rendering pork fat into lard, dipping the pig during butchering and lord only knows what else the inside of that kettle seen! I do remember many years later when we moved to the big city of Hutchinson, mother left that kettle.  Her words then were, "I am so happy I will never have to heat water in that thing again."  We also left the stoves, but that was many years later. 
Father strung new wire on the clothes lines.  We never hung curtains, because we didn't have them.  Someday we would, but not now.  And since we mostly used a kerosene lamp, we usually went to bed early. Back in those days, most people functioned with the sunlight, so who was going to see us anyway?
Want to tell you just one more thing for today.  The ice box was just that.  It was a big brown box that was insulated with, you guessed it...asbestos.  The ice man drove by the house with his ice wagon once a week.  We had a card that went in the front window.  The number that was up was how much ice we needed.  Usually 25 pounds was what we got.  When he saw the 25 on top, he would stop and get his ice tongs and pick up a 25 pound block and carry it into the house, open the ice box and set it inside.  The money was always left laying there and he would pick it up and leave.
Bet you wondered how he got in without a key, didn't you?  Every house in town had a door with a lock and the lock could be opened with a skeleton key.  I mean every house could be opened with the same key.  If you lost your key, you went to the hardware store and bought another.  Doors were rarely locked.  I do not think we even had a key.  Back in those days there was a whole different breed of people.  We still had "vigilantes" and if some one did something the town did not approve of, there was talk of "tar and feather and ride him out of town on a rail."  Never knew it to actually happen, but heard it a lot.  If you were out and needed a drink of water, just go in someone's house and get it.  Of course there were the codes of honesty, common courtesy, decency and all kind of things the new world does not understand.
Guess maybe that is why it is called "the good old days."

Landowners at last.

We arrived at the "new" house in grand style.  Our first act as new tenants was to check out the place.  It consisted of 4 rooms and a kitchen area across the back.  Enter the front door of 709 Strong Street in Nickerson, Kansas.  Nothing was to be brought in until the room was "repapered".  This was always the first thing that happened when you took possession back then.  Wall paper has always fascinated me.  You first measure the room and figure out how many square feet of paper you need.  This leads to another conundrum.
You figure how many square feet of paper it will take to cover all four walls of the room.  It matters whether or not it needs to "match" but only when you go to buy it. For the record it usually does need matched, so there you are.  Ceilings were about 10 or 12 feet up there in those days.  This is something I never understood.  No one ever grew to 6 feet in those days, so why the ceiling needed to be so high was more than I could fathom.  These rooms were about 12 x 12.  So 12 x 12 x 4= 576 square feet.  Wall paper is sold by the single roll, but is packaged in one big roll that is called a double roll.  So say a single roll contains 36 square feet then a double roll would contain 72 square feet.  So this job would need 16 single rolls, or 8 double rolls.  Now you have to add a roll or two extra for "in case ofs", and there are a lot of those. 
See this is what happens, you lay a bunch of newspaper, or old towels or sheets or something on the floor.  You then measure you very first strip of wall paper.  It will need to be cut a few inches longer than the wall height, in case you measure wrong.  Then you take the roll and the next strip will be "matched" to the first strip, and make it just a little longer in case you are off a little.  You will do this for the first wall.  So there they lay face up.  One person on each end and flip the whole pile so it is now backside up.  Now the fun begins!  And I really to love to hang wallpaper.  Well, I used to. Little old for that crap now.
The step ladder is brought in and placed in the first corner.  The paste is mixed and the paste brush laid out.  The decision is made that Father will climb the ladder because he is the only one that can be trusted that high up in the air.  The paste is applied to the back of the first strip being sure to "get the edges good."  This is a job for Mother.  The strip is then folded and readied for transport up the ladder.  The top of the strip is folded to the middle paste sides together and then folded back up so the very top edge is free.  The bottom is folded accordion style with the paste sides together leaving a strip that is now about 7 feet long.  Father slides his left arm under the middle of the strip and catches the top free edge and up the ladder he goes.  The first piece is hung in the corner, and then they realize that the room is not "plumb" so an adjustment is made while a string is hung from the ceiling.  The first strip is crucial because if it is not straight, the whole room is "off".
Father pats the first strip overlapping the top where it meets the ceiling.  This is folded down straight and cut so it butts nicely against the ceiling.  While he is doing that Mother is "matching" and us kids are patting and smoothing.  The brush is then brought into play and the strip is smoothed and all bubbles worked out and then Mother cuts the bottom straight with the mop board.  We admire our "new wallpaper" and then in a frenzy we attack the job of "finishing what we started."  With all of us working it is done in just a few hours.  Many hands make light work!
The moving and the papering took most of the day, so we did not completely unload the belongings that night.  We did bring in the beds.  Two for the front bedroom and one for the middle bedroom.  One bed in front for Father and Jake and one for Josephine, Donna, Mary and me.  Mother had the other bedroom with Dorothy.  Sometimes Mary slept in there also since she was "almost" a baby.  Sometimes Mary slept with Father.  And mostly Jake slept on the floor behind the stove.  Sleeping was just something that had to be done in a prone position.  Nothing special about that chore. 
Now I am sure sometimes Mother and Father were at least more than casual acquaintance's, but I was never privy to that!  (Just want to clear that up.)
So ended the first day at the Bartholomew residence on Strong Street.  We would live there many years and make many memories, but tonight we were tired and the front room was papered and we were in our own beds.    So as I lay in my bed I began to worry about what we would have for breakfast since there was no stove to cook on and no pans were inside the house.  While far away in another place kids were dreaming of sugar plums and stuff like that I was dreaming about survival.

Ring! Ring! Oh hell! Sorry about that.

Mother worked at that time cleaning houses for people in town.  Mrs. Hawk, the dentist's wife, Mrs. Massey, and I forget who else.  Our means of communication was a black telephone that was in a wooden box that hung on the wall.  To call some one you needed to pickup up the ear piece and then turn the crank on the side.  This would ring in the telephone office down town and the "operator" would put a plug, the other end of which was attached to her head piece, into the circuit which was lit up and say,  "Number please."  The person calling would then say the number which was usually two digits.  Later it changed to three.  The operator would then plug the wire that came from your number into the number you were calling.  And thus a call was connected and would ring and some one would answer.  I know all this because we took a tour of the phone company.  You could call it a tour if you want, but that place was so small that we could only get in two or three at a time.  The operator set on a little stool and could connect the whole town without having to move.
At that time there were "party lines."  A party line meant something way different then than it does now.  Take our phone.  We were on a party line with the Rumble' s and several other people.  Only rich people could afford private lines and we were far from rich.  The way the calls were handled was this, each person on the party line had their own distinct ring.  Ours was two longs and a short, Rumble's was one long and two shorts, and so forth.  We knew when someone got a call cause it rang in all the houses on that party line.  These means of communication were rather primitive, but they did work and they called for a certain etiquette.  If we wanted to place a call, we picked up the receiver and first listened.  If some one was talking, the line was in use, so we should hang up and try later.  If the line was free and we wanted to call some one on our party line, we simply turned the crank and rang their ring.  Like Rumble's.  We rang one long and two shorts and Mr. Rumble would answer.
Or if you are little kids home alone and bored you could pick up the phone and "listen in" which was not only rude, but illegal.  So one day we were rather at loose ends and the phone beckoned to us.  Now I say "us", but I am pretty sure it was Jake and me.  Donna may have been involved.  So we kept picking the phone up and some one was talking to some one else.  We may have tittered and they heard us.  This made it more exciting.  We were eavesdropping and they did not know who we were (or so we thought at the time.) or where we lived.  Then we discovered that if we turned the crank the phone made a very loud noise in their ear.  They were getting very upset and made threats about turning us in to the phone company.  We knew there was no way the phone company could track us down.  After a while they got tired of our shenanigans and just hung up.  So we moved on to more exciting things like wallowing in a mud hole.
And then mother came home.  So and so up the road had stopped her and told her about what her babies had been up to while she was at work and Josephine was laying around some where reading.  We, of course, pointed at the younger kids.  They did it, not us.  They were just playing and we were doing our chores and knew nothing about that.  Those kids were just trying to get us in trouble.  Mother had not forgotten when we hid behind the tree and threw rocks at every car that went by and we had tried to blame them innocent babies for that too.  I began at that time in my life to think that mother was clairvoyant and I resented those little kids because they were always trying, and succeeding, to get us into trouble.  Had we had the mindset, we might have murdered them and hid their bodies in Bull Creek, but we were just a couple ornery kids trying to find our way in the world with very little actual guidance.  Back then kids just kind of raised themselves and fathers were mainly "head of the family" by sheer virtue of having been born men.
And so I close the door on the Ailmore Place and lock it against intruders.  There are things I can see that when I went back years later were not there.  The long walk to town was maybe four blocks.  The big bridge over Bull Creek is actually a culvert.  The big beautiful home of Roy Keating, the pig farmer was just a little house with a couple of sheds out back and a couple pig stys.  The Rumble's house had collapsed and where had they gone?
I think not long after the big storm, Doc Ailmore died, so we were on the move again.  I remember that my dad had horses and a hay rack and a hay wagon.   These were pulled by a team of horses.  I was too young at the time to realize that the tractor was an up and coming thing and horses were on their way out.  All of our belongings were loaded on these two conveyances with the kids thrown on last and the horses pulled us through the edge of town to the other edge and to our new home. This one my father would buy.  We had not seen the house until we pulled in front of it and began to unload our precious belongings. 
I had way more important things to worry about because I was in school and I had to learn my ABC's and numbers and lots of other really important stuff.

Still on the Ailmore place.

Just read the last post I made before I wandered off to do my craft shows.  We were on the Ailmore place and had just had our cyclone.  I have a few more memories I need to share there and then I will move on. 
I mentioned Bull Creek being right by our house.  I am going to try to figure out my directions here.  Sorry, I got confused, but if you want to look just click here and you can figure it out.  Just know that the Arkansas river runs on one side of Nickerson, Cow Creek figures in there some where on the other side and Bull Creek is a little furrow you can step across most of the time and has no water in it at all.  But it is, or was at the time, a whole different story in the Spring.  I think it is still the same because I used to make several trips down there every year and some times I like to take 96 Highway just for a change of scenery.  Starting about in Rice County the sheriffs and volunteers would be out to make sure that when cars crossed the flooded parts of the road there were no casualties.  Just one of the hazards of the area.
I recall once leaving our house and walking to check on the Shultz family, which was about 3 blocks away, and wading water all the way.  As quickly as the floods came, they receded and we were left with puddles of water in all the low places.  So we built little boats and sailed them in the puddles.  As I recall, our house was set up off the ground so the water did not get inside.  Most of the houses there were that way.  I do not recall having a pet at the time, but I sure there was an old mangy dog around some where.
Back somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I can recall my father "pulling a prank" on friend of his or at least on his wife.  Her name was Salina.  I think she was married to John Britan, the guy my dad share cropped with for many years.  All I remember is waking up and hearing them laughing and John saying "Just look at the egg my chicken laid!  I am going to take it to the newspaper."  Then they laughed some more.  "Damn, Rueben, where did you get that turkey egg?"  I do not know if anyone ever told Salina Britan that her chicken did not lay that egg, but it was a source of amusement at gatherings for a very long time as it quickly circulated through the town, and I am remembering it over 60 years later.
There are a lot of things I remember on the Ailmore place.  Some one up the road had a car and took the children to school.  They would stop at the end of our drive and let us ride with them if we were out, but if not, then we walked to school.  There was a young man about Jake's age that sometimes hung out at the house, but he preferred to hang with us girls.  Mother, Dad and Josephine would run him off the place.  I did not understand then, but now I think I do.  I thought they were just being mean because he was my "friend", but looking back, that was pretty strange.
The man right across Bull Creek on the way to town raised pigs.  Right now his name escapes me    ( Roy Keating) but some times dad would go do chores when the man left for a few days.  We always went and gathered the eggs.  That was really nice because he had a special little shed built for the eggs to be taken into, cleaned and put in crates.  Our hen house had blown away and our chickens just laid where ever they felt like laying.  Oh, but there is nothing more terrifying than reaching under one of those hens to get the egg.  I lived in mortal terror that I would be pecked.  Still afraid to do it now, so I just don't have chickens.
Jake always wanted to be a mechanic.  I recall once he wanted me to blow in the gas tank while he looked under the hood.  Then he had the bright idea to syphon the gas out of the tank and coerced Donna into sucking on the hose to get it started.  She had no idea what she was doing so she got a big mouth full of gas.  Lordy, mother liked to beat that Jake to death!  And we had to make Donna throw up and maybe there was another trip to the medical place in Hutch.
Lots of gaps in my memory back then, but remember I was very young.  Life back in those days was straight out of a John Stienbeck novel; poverty in it's purest form.  But everyone was in the same boat, the war was just over, and better days lay ahead.  I know cause we heard the adults say so and adults knew every thing!  But we were about to move again.  I had been born on one place, moved to another and was on my way to a third.  I was 7 years old and the world lay before me like an open oyster, and sorry to say, smelled about the same...a little fishy!

From Vista to Windows 8 and so to the nut house!

Oh, I am way to old for the leap I made today.  I went Sunday, as you read, and came home with a new computer.  I finally decided to pull it out and hook it up when the other one completely refused to get online today.  So first I made a carrot cake and then to the business.  Have you seen Windows 8?  That is the one that opens with all the apps on little cards and you just take your finger and throw the one you want to the forefront and the rest disappear.  And when you are done with that one you throw it out and pick another one.  Not me.
I decided to go the mouse route as opposed to buying a new monitor for $300.  So I kept jacking with it and missing my AOL and I do hate that Bing.  I like Google and IE.  After many hours, a sugar free Pecan Pie and lots of coffee I am setting here writing you on my blog which I just found and added to my AOL toolbar which I also found and installed much to MSN's chagrin.  I feel like a genius!
So that is it for this little update.  I look forward to being back in my little rut after Thanksgiving since the craft fairs are over. 
Right now I have to go down and hook up the old computer and find the notepad and get all the addresses that I have in there so I can find all the places I used to go to.  Going to be a long night!