Saturdays When I Was Growing Up

Saturdays sure have changed a lot since I grew up. I don't know if I can put into words, but it was fun back then. We didn't have a Walmart or Mall to do our shopping in, but we did have a General Store where one could buy food, clothing, tools, feed for the animals and seeds and fertilizer. You could also buy candy and cookies from big glass jars. Sugar, flour, corn meal and dried beans, rice and peas could be bought by the pound or by larger amounts. Lard was sold in buckets. We only bought that when we had used up the lard we had rendered when we killed the hogs. Crackers were kept in barrels and you could buy as many as you needed. A few cracker and some cheese cut from a big block was a good lunch for a hungry person. Saturday was the shopping day for most country people. Since there wasn't a lot of cars during this time and the Great Depression had made everybody poor, travel mostly was done riding in the farm wagon pulled by the faithful team of mules. We would sit on our front porch and wave at the neighbors as the rode into town. We didn't ride into town, we lived close enough to walk there. Everybody went to town on Saturday afternoon. Some went early and stayed all day. Our little town had three general stores, a drug store, a barber shop and two doctors offices. The stores were lined up in a row with a common sidewalk. There were benches in front of each store. That's where all the people met to do their visiting for the week. The little sidewalk would be so crowded you would have to push your way through. But it was fun to be there. You would see friends you hadn't seen all week. In the summer when the church ladies made ice cream and sold it by the cone was a good time. They would set the freezer and all the fixing in a shaded spot and sell the cones for .05 cents? It would melt and be messy, but oh so good. At the end of the day everybody went home until next Saturday. It was nice to go visit friends and shop on Saturday. Nobody was in a rush, Oh well, times do change. S

Wedding Day.

This morning as I was tidying up my bedroom I glanced up and looked at the pictures hanging on the wall. There is a picture of myself taken when I was 21 years old. Beside that picture is one of my "Honey" in his Air Force uniform. We were not married when these pictures were taken, in fact we didn't know each other at all. I met him after WW2 was over. I was working as a bookkeeper at the bank and I had a friend that worked with me who was his friend. My friend asked me to go on a picnic to the lake and be a date with his friend Bill. That was the beginning of a long, long love affair. We had a very good time on the picnic. He had just returned home from being in the Air Force for three years. He enlisted when he got the letter from Uncle Sam saying that he needed him. All young and some older men got those letters, and they had to enlist or have a good reason that they would not be able to serve. Bill chose the Air Force because there was a base in his hometown, and he had worked on the base when he graduated from high school. He got his orders to report for training in December. He was sent to Colorado Springs, Colorado in the coldest time of the year. That was pretty hard on a southern kid. They had to take hikes in snow and rain. Their barracks were cold, the wind and snow would blow in the windows. When his training was over he was sent Kearney. Nebraska. He was assigned to office work and did office work until the war was over. In the last months of the war he was sent to Guam. He worked on the island where they were getting ready to bomb Japan. He was never in or saw combat duty. After the US bombed Japan the war was over. He said he typed up his own discharge papers. The pictures on the wall brought back memories of seventy years. I can remember the little wedding we had at a friends home with family and friends there. We stood before the fire place in the living room. There was a big spray of gladiolus on each side on the mantle. We were so nervous, I got the giggles when I had trouble slipping the ring on his finger. The minister was a friend of ours. Our wedding cake was made by Bill's mother. Everything was so simple, but so sweet. We were married for 51 years,7 months and 12 days.

Fourth of July Picnic.

Fourth of July has always been a special day in our family and since this Thursday is that day, it's a good time to tell you about how we celebrated one year when I was a kid. We didn't have a fancy outdoor cooker or grill. We didn't have a car to take us to the lake. We didn't have bathing suits, but we had fun. On that morning we were all eager to go on a picnic to the lake. We had dug worms and had plenty of the wiggly, slimey little worms in a can ready to put on the hook. Mama packed some grease in the big iron pot that she usually cooked our meals in. The grease was from rendering the fat from the pig that was killed in the winter. It was called lard. She packed some potatoes to fry in the grease, just in case we didn't catch some fish. She also had a chicken prepared and ready to fry. and for a special treat she had baked a cake. Since we needed to ride to the lake, Daddy harnessed up the mules and hooked them to the farm wagon and we were on our way. We rode the five miles to Chalk Lake sitting on boards laid across the sides of the wagon. Our family filled the wagon up. We were a big family. This will be a great day for all of uss. When we got to the lake we all got a fishing pole and started to fish. My daddy found a good place to fish. He found an old log that had fallen into the water. He found a place that he could ease out and catch fish in deeper water. We were only allowed to fish in the shallow water. None of us smaller kids could swim, so we had to be careful where we fished. It seemed that Daddy had a magic touch. He caught enough fish to fry for our picnic. He scaled and gutted the fish and prepared them for the big iron pot. They made a fire and cooked the fish, fried the chicken and potatoes. We had a feast and it was wonderful. After we had eaten we were allowed to wade in the water. It was very shallow near the banks. We were having so much fun that Mama decided to join us. We were all playing in the water in our clothes, and we were all soaking wet. We delighted in making Mama as wet as we were. She had a lot of fun, too. Everybody went home wet and happy.