Faz

Faz is our family cat. He is a big yellow Tom cat that has been a member of our family many years. I'm not sure just how old he is, but comparing years, I'll say we are about the same age. I must say he gets around a little better than I do. He can climb up to his hi-rise appartment and get in his bed. There is where he relaxes most of the day. His cat bed is located on the top of the shelves located in the garage. His food bowl is located on the ledge near by. Nobody has it so good. It is a safe place. Nothing bothers him, he just does his own thing. Faz is a loving creature, he loves to snuggle and rub his face or tail around your legs. He is friends with the three dogs on the property. He adopted the new cat Rudy when he came to live with the family. Rudy is a short tailed tabby. He was only a kitten when he was rescued from the animal shelter. Faz and Rudy became friends right away. Faz let this little neutered Tom cat sleep in his bed with him. Fax is also a neutered cat. They were instantly friends. Last week the family went on a road trip. They placed plenty of food and water for the animals in their food bowls. They asked a relative to check on the animals to be sure they were not hungry or thirsty. When she came over to check on the animals and me, she found the cat bowl had a lot of food that had not been eaten. She opened the storage room to check and get more food for the dogs and she was greeted by Faz. He had gotten locked in the storage room when he got courious and went in to see what he could see. Nobody saw him go in, so he was locked in for two days. He was happy to be out and beat it to the food bowl. I'm sure the water taste good. We are all glad that he was found before he was harmed. The next day he was out letting the dogs love on him.

Sewing machine

My grandmother New bought this sewing machine when my mother was seven years old. the year was

1902. She used this machine until her death. My mother then inherited it and used it to sew clothes for

all of her nine children and my father. She treadles away. She sewed all of our dresses and shirts for my father and brothers. I made my first dress on this machine. I was twelve years old.

If this machine could talk what a story it could tell. My mother lived a long life, she was ninety eight years of age when she died in 1993. I am now in possession of this beauty. It will always have a place in my heart and my living room.

I Had A Dream.

Believe me this is not a Martin Luther King dream, I was not on a mountain top. I was not marching for a good cause as he was. I was fast asleep in my big bed, all cozy wrapped up with the sheet around my shoulders. It was a quiet night,even the dogs were quiet. The little wild creatures hadn't aroused them yet. Silence was golden. Suddenly I was awake. I wondered what had just happened. Then it occurred to me, this must have been a dream. I wouldn't call it a nightmare because it was a pleasant experience at times. I told myself that I must remember this dream, but when I awoke in the morning my mind was blank. I got out of bed and made my usual pot of coffee and then it came back to me. This is what I remembered. I was all dressed in my best Sunday clothes and I was in a large room with lots of people. I'm with friends or maybe relatives. There had been a convention and it was now over. Everybody was busy greeting friends and having a good. I remember visiting with some ladies that I hadn't seen in along time. We were having a good time visiting and I didn't see when friends I was riding with left the room. That's when I realized I had no ride home. I've never been one to get panicky, so I asked a young man who was talking to a young lady that I assumed was his wife or girl friend if he would drive me home. He immediately said sure and we started walking out of the room together. All of a sudden I realized the lady wasn't with us. What was I to do now. We had walked out of the building into the bad part of the city. I must get away from the man that was taking me home. I quickly ran down the street looking for a telephone. You don't see pay phones on the streets anymore. A lady came out of a place of business and asked me if I needed help. I asked to use the phone, and when I looked in my purse for telephone numbers I had none. I didn't remember any numbers of my family or friends. Then the phone rang, it was my brother-in- law saying where have you been. He also said that Kyle was sorry he had kicked me. So if you are reading this it is not a true story, it is just a dream.

We Have A TV At Last.

I watch too much TV. Since I am home alone so much of the time it helps me pass the time. I like to watch old movies.The old movies seem to have more good stories and I don't care to watch all the crazy car chases. I don't like all the violence, and I surely can't stand the four letter words. I'm certainly not a prude, but I've never thought they improved the thoughts in a movie. The movie " Gone With The Wind" one of the greatest, was the first to use a curse word. I must admit it was OK for Rhett Butler to say what he did. It was early in the fifties and everybody was buying a new TV. This new invention was bringing the world into our living rooms. Our friends were all buying TVs, but we didn't have one yet. We were invited to watch TV with our friends, but we not too excited yet. The reception was very poor, we watched through snow and listened to static. We waited until the reception improved. That's when we bought our first TV. We were so proud, now we had intertainment in our little house. We had this big piece of new furniture that we could watch the world in black and white. Colored TV was yet to come. I have some very fond memories of watching my little ones laughing at the " Howdy Dowdy Show" with Buffalo Bob, Clarabell the Clown and Howdy Dowdy in it. They liked to watch " Ding Dong School" every morning. We started our day with Dave Garraway and Fred the big chimp. That was the "Today Show" with the early news for the day. Our first TV picture was about fifteen inches and we could only get a couple of channels, but it was wonderful. At the time you could want no more.

Aunt Mary's Cat

Our family has pets, there are two cats and three dogs, and they all get along together very well. It's fun to watch them and see how friendly they are with each other. One is a yellow Tom cat that is getting up in age, and the other is a bob tailed tabby. He is the latest member. He finally feels at home with the dogs, so now he doesn't have to run between his bed in the garage to the barn. Our animals are pets, but they are outdoor pets. Now Aunt Mary's Tom cat is a different story. Aunt Mary and Uncle Virge lived in a big city. They lived in a small house. They had no children, but they had this big cat. This cat was never allowed to go outside the house. He had never been with any other cat since they got him. He was well taken of. Aunt Mary bought fresh meat to feed him. He ate like a cat in the wild. He acted like a wild cat. I'm sure she loved him, but he didn't know how to act around strangers. When we would go there for a visit she would chain him to a chair leg. He would mew and hiss at the children. They and I were afraid of him. He was a pretty tabby cat. She treated him like this because she didn't want him to get with a female cat, or she didn't want him to run away. She was a lonely old lady. Our cats have been neutered. That wasn't done for Aunt Mary's cat. My children remember the visits we had, and seeing the cat tied up with the chain. They remembered the sweet little old couple and the cat.

Our First Garden

Our house was built on a corner lot in a little sub- division. The land was an open field and had never been used for gardening. I loved flowers growing around the house so that was my first project. I went to my mother-in-law's house and clipped branches from her rose bushes. These branches were planted in our flower bed on the south side of the house. I placed a fruit jar over each cutting to form a hot house effect. I then watched ever day until there was new growth on the plants. I planted these cuttings in the fall of the year and by spring I had rose bushes growing in my beds. I love colorful plants, so I planted seeds around the rose bushes. My flowers were beautiful. There was a dirt road or lane that ran by our house. I don't know here it lead to, but there was traffic there every day. Usually it was wagons and occasionally and automobile. One wagon got our attention,it came by every day. The driver of the two brown mules was a very polite little old black man. When he passed our house he would lift his hat and speak to us. One day we asked him if he would plow a garden spot for us. He said he would come back next week and do that for us. Next week came and there he was. He unharnessed his pair of mules and hooked them to the plow that he carried around in his wagon. He did odd jobs for people in the neighborhood. He first had to break up the hard soil with the plow an then lay the soil into rows. He did a good job. Now we only had to plant the seeds for our vegetables. We planted corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, string beans okra and zinnias. The zinnias were for color. I love color in my garden. We kept the weeds and grass from growing in our garden by chopping with a hoe. Our garden was beautiful. We had plenty of vegetable to eat,to share and to can for later. It was hard work, but it was also fun. Our good friend who plowed the garden for us confided to us later that never would have believed that we could make a thing grow in that soil. He was proud that he had been a part of it.

My Little Dream House

When you have lived in the house with your mother- in- law for three years you start to dreams of a place of your own. My mother- in- law wasn't the problem, it was the relatives. My mother-in-law was good to me and I loved her. I married into a large family. My husband supported his mother and took care of her. Her oldest daughter and her husband liked to live close, so they bought a new Airstream trailer and moved it into mother's yard. That made too much family so close together. There was no privacy for us. There was always someone coming through the back door. The house was small and we lived in one bedroom. Of course we had use of the rest of the house, but it was too crowded. In our second year of marriage our first baby was born. That made the little house seem smaller. There was never a quiet place for our baby to sleep without someone coming in and waking her up. And then I was pregnant again. This togetherness was getting the best of me. I started looking in the want ads for a house for sale. I found one.That day when it was time for my husband to come home from work I dressed my little girl up in her cutest little dress. I curled her hair and she was so cute. I then made my pregnant self look as pretty as possible and we went for a walk to meet daddy. I had the newspaper with the ad in it in hand. When we got in the car I showed the ad to him and we went to see the little house. The house was perfect for us. It had two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen, pantry and living and dining room combination. We bought the house for $6,500. The down payment was $75.00 which we didn't have to pay because there was a chip on the bath tub. We settled even for that. Furniture was the next problem. We had a table and four chairs, a console radio-record player and a lot of records, a chest of drawers and a baby bed. We went to Montgomery Wards and bought bedroom furniture and appliances for the kitchen. We didn't have cookware, so we bought as few pots and pans as we could get by with. My mother- in- law gave us a roll-away bed for our little girl to sleep on. We didn't buy living room furniture for several months, but that was fine with us, we were on our own. What a relief? One of the greatest purchases that we got was the washing machine. When you have two little ones and pampers had not been invented yet that machine was a blessing. My friend said she could find our house easily because the white flags were always flying. It was good to be home.