MAIL CALL

Guess what I got in the mail the other day. 

A letter! 

Not a request for money, or a bill, or news about the latest health publication.

It was an honest to goodness letter, hand written, from a friend!

Do you realize how seldom this happens anymore?

I remember when that used to be the only way, besides the telephone, friends could stay in touch.  It was an economical way of keeping friendships alive, of letting your friends and relatives know about special events…weddings, graduations, births…or of encouraging fellowship by inviting them to a party.

It was economical in that the post office would deliver these missives for the grand total of three cents, if you licked the flap and sealed the envelope.  If you just tucked the envelope flap inside and did not seal the envelope, the cost was one cent.  Mail was delivered by an honest to goodness mailman who walked his beat—not once, but twice a day!

Letter writing takes practice to become an art.  When we were kids and had to write thank you notes for gifts, along with grumbling and complaining, we made them as brief as possible.  They would be printed in pencil on a thank you card given to us by our mother and go something like this:

Thank you for the gift (sometimes we even named what it was.).  As we got a little older, we would add the name of the gift and say that “It was very kind of you” or even “I shall enjoy using it.”

Usually our mothers would address the card, stamp it, and make sure it got in the mail—either by sticking it under the corner of the mail box on our porch for the mailman to pick up, or by sending us to the “mail box” that was not too far away.  This box not only held letters we wanted sent out, but also the mail to be delivered to our area.  That way, the walking mailman could refill his bag and not have to carry all the letters the total distance of his local.

For those of us starting out writing “newsy” letters to friends or relatives who lived away, our early letters usually went something like: 

“Hi.  How are you?  I am doing fine.  What is your new school like?  Do you have a football team?  Write soon.”  There were several different scenarios that could take place here.  Such as we would ask what our friend had done that summer, or if he/she had read any new books, or that you had heard they had gotten a new pet and asked how it was doing. 

One day it occurred to me, if I was asking all these questions because I really wanted to know what was going on in my friend’s life, then perhaps she wanted to know what was going on in mine.  That was when my letter writing changed.

I filled the pages with what I had been doing—making a new outfit, what had happened in school, reading a new book, telling about the playground parade, or how sunburned I got swimming at the park.  I would share about the sock hop after the basketball game, or how the ice skating on our local dam was.  My writing size was small to middling, so it took a lot of writing to fill up a page or two, front and back.

The letters I would get back still asked a lot of questions about what I was doing and said very little about their life, but eventually their letters started to get more informative.

One of the people I used to love writing to was Jerry’s Aunt Bonita.  I have often felt sorry for her, having to read my epistles!  When they visited us once, Aunt Bonita and I went grocery shopping.  She spent time explaining to me how to know when oranges were ripe—the fact that the skin was stretched making the natural pits in it more smoothed out.  Also, you could tell how juicy they were by whether they were soft of hard when slightly squeezed.

I just had to write to her and tell her all about my shopping expedition to the grocery store, how I had followed her advice, and how the oranges I had picked out were so sweet and juicy.  With some additional “news” about what was happening, I think that letter was something like thirteen pages long!  I do not remember if it was thirteen pages, numbering each page or numbering the pages front and back, but still, that was a lot of reading for that poor lady!

But I think it was writing all those long letters that got me interested in writing stories.

I didn’t use to understand my mother’s excitement at Christmas time when the cards started coming with letters tucked inside.  Who cared about the letters?  It was the card that was so pretty.  Of course, things change in value as we get older, and those letters have become very special to me, too.  So often we are caught up in our lives that we do not have time to share our joys and daily happenings with friends and relatives.  These little missives at that special time of year catch us up and keep us in touch.

Yes, we can keep in touch with the telephone now.  In my younger days, people could not afford making calls outside their local calling areas.  Long distance added up to an unexpectedly large phone bill!

That is one thing that is so nice about today’s cell phones—unlimited calling.  Of course, our monthly bills are paying for the privilege, but it sounds good, anyway!  The thing that is exceptional are the “face time” calls we can now make.  Jerry and I are currently living in Pennsylvania, but we can not only keep in touch with our families in Alabama and Florida by quick calls on the phone but also with our “face time” calls.  It is nice to be able to keep abreast of the growth and development of our great granddaughter, or share some of the sights of trips to Disney, or see the engagement ring of our granddaughter!

Besides E-mail, other social media are avenues of communication available today like Face Book, and Twittering.  Some of the social media is sorely abused, as is cell phoning and texting.  Things that are better said in private, if they need said at all, are blazoned across the atmosphere without a moment’s thought of appropriateness as to what is being broadcast or even of the place it is being spilled into.  Frankly, I don’t appreciate hearing about last night’s conquest when I am stuck in a slow moving aisle at the grocery store!  Stranger or not, good manners used to keep some things private.

Yes, things change and move ahead.  But there is just something about a handwritten letter…

When was the last time you either received a letter from—or better yet, wrote one to—a friend?

…PEDLERS THREE

My apologies for no new blog entry last week.

Single digit temperatures with sub-zero wind chill factors.  A gap in the neckline of a coat found by an icy breeze.  Snowy wet gloves ineptly protecting frozen fingers.  A perfect formula for a severe January cold, if not the dreaded flu bug!

Chills, light-headedness, nausea, inability to calmly sit at the computer to write a blog, headache, uncontrollable runny nose, continuous deep-chested coughing followed by…well you know the drill. 

A phone call to the doctor.  A trip to the pharmacy.  Did you know that now-a-days your doses of amoxicillin can be made tempting in several different flavors? 

When my husband needed and antibiotic several weeks ago, the druggist gave him this pink liquid instead of the gigantic pills Jerry would never have been able to swallow.  It is the first time in almost sixty years he not only finished a prescription, but enjoyed it!  He kept wanting me to “just taste it.”  Being raised by a registered nurse of the old school, I wasn’t about to taste someone else’s medication.

So when I had coughed enough and blown my nose enough, and felt really lousy, on top of his nagging, and realized I just couldn’t hold off for the two weeks I knew I would have this cold, I finally placed my call to the doctor requesting the famous pink stuff.  Although my amoxicillin was white instead of pink, I was assured it was flavored the same way my husband’s had been, with—bubble gum.

It has been two weeks, and I am doing much better now.  Either the medication—or time—did its work.  Thinking back, I am happy that there is bubble-gum flavored antibiotics instead of some of the “home remedies” that used to be depended upon.  As a child, my husband remembers the old-time, old-faithful mustard packs.  He also tells me of sugar cubes dipped in kerosene.  Thank goodness, my mother never resorted to either of these remedies.  I don’t know if it was because we were never that sick or I just don’t remember.  Either we might have inherited healthier genes, or her constant vigilance over her family caught the germs before they could take up residency.

Although I really did not care to drink the milk that I had noticed her adding something from the “blue bottle” (also known as Philips Milk of Magnesia) kept on an upper shelf, I didn’t mind her home-made eggnog at all!  However, like most mothers, she did have her favorite remedy—Raleigh ointment! 

She used it liberally with a deaf ear to our often loud, squirming protests.  When we came in from playing in the snow, after the coats, scarves, mittens, boots, and snow pants were removed, that flat, round can came out and a liberal amount was spread on cold cheeks, chaffed wrists, half-frozen hands, and sometimes even our ankles.  And if there was a sign of a runny nose or a cough, when we went to bed, that round can was there to “put a little in our nose” and to rub on our congested chest.

Why did I hate it?  Because after it was on a little bit, wherever it was got really cold and a tingly sting would start up.  After that, it seemed to warm up and by then we had even gotten used to the smell.  Of course, by the time this metamorphous had taken place, we were usually asleep.  I have to admit, though, come morning we had forgotten all about the discomfort and were ready to brave the cold (and Raleigh ointment) for another day’s adventure.

Another remedy Mother used was plain old aspirin.  No ibuprofen for us.  No, sir!  We took the real stuff, and healed a lot faster.

In those days, there was only one place Mother could get her tins of ointment—direct from the Raleigh man!  That was part of the era when peddlers would come door-to-door hawking their wares, and services.  Kind of like I did when I had my Avon route years later.  The Raleigh man would come with his big black bag and Mom would have him come in.  My, the stuff he had in his bag…combs, ointment, even flavorings were among his wares.  Mom would calculate when he would be around next, and purchase the ointment and flavorings she felt she would need till he came back again.

Another peddler I remembered making rounds every now and again, was the knife sharpener, who also sharpened scissors.  He’s set up his wheel and all the ladies on the block would bring their kitchen knives and household scissors for him to sharpen.  Although my mother used a whetstone to sharpen her knives in between times, she did appreciate the new edge for her scissors, especially her sewing shears.

Our best loved peddler was Billy.  For many years, he sold boxes of greeting cards.  He’d come staggering down the street on his twisted legs, two big cloth shopping bags loaded with cards hanging from each outstretched, twisted arm.  The first time we, as kids, saw him, we were quite afraid of him.  You see, Billy had MS, and his walk was different, his talk was different, the look of his face was different, but his smile that was plastered there, we did like that.  Billy was well known in all the little towns for a radius of probably twenty-five miles from his home.  He supported himself with the sale of his cards.  Of course, Billy didn’t drive, but he didn’t need to.  He was so well liked that just about everyone on his route who had a car available, offered to take him wherever he needed to go.  I remember seeing him walking along the highway, and if one of the cars in front of us didn’t stop to pick him up, we did.  It was a very sad day for the whole area when Billy was no longer able to peddle his wares.

Now-a-days this unique flavor is missing from our lives.  If we can’t get to the store, we go to our computers and order whatever it is we need and either pick it up postage free at the store, or take advantage of free postage to our homes.  Sometimes it is even worth paying the postage, just so we do not have to go out.

Part of the reason peddlers no longer have a place in our lives, is the danger and lack of trust involved.  Not only the danger as a homeowner of opening your door to a stranger, but also the danger of being that hawker and being invited into the unknown homes on your route.  It is a changing world we live in, where innocence and ingenuity have been replaced by suspicion and fear.  And a possible friend and service by the tap of a computer key.

       

HERE A STICH, THERE A STICH

I got my portable sewing machine out to sew some winter drapes for our living room windows that face north.  Since both my husband and I have picked up the habit of not using top sheets from our grandsons, they are perfect for the job…and I get much more material at a much cheaper price, whether they are twin, double, or queen sized sheet sets!  When I began making curtains for our windows, my husband informed me he did not like the outside looks of a house with different colored curtains at the windows.  To appease his “artistic” eye, I started lining my curtains with—what else—white sheets.  I’m a “recycler,” so I have also taken apart the corners of “contour” bottom sheets and used them.  As I got my sewing equipment ready, including plaid flannel sheets and white cotton sheets, I got to reminiscing about when I started sewing and the changes in both the machines I’ve used (along with those I haven’t) and the skills I’ve learned along the way.

I remember sitting on our porch summers with my good friend Neila, whose family was also our next-door neighbors, each of us working on a new skirt.  We were probably somewhere between eight and ten years old and had watched our mothers sewing for years.  In those days, you could get a yard of good cotton material for as little as twenty-nine cents a yard, and patterns were often between ten and twenty-five cents.  We would go shopping at either Montgomery Wards or Troutman’s, or one of the five-and-dimes, and buy two-and-a-half or three yards of twenty-four inch wide material fresh off the bolt.  Since we usually made simple “gathered” skirts, the width of the yard goods became the length of the skirt, which cut down on the hemming.

It depended on which store we went to how they cut it from the bolt.  The clerk at Troutman’s would feed the folded edge of the material into a machine and then pull it through till the gauge on the machine said the length we wanted.  Then she would press a little lever on the side of the machine and the material would be cut at that spot.  After slipping the material from the machine she would either tear or cut it widthwise.  The clerks in some of the other stores would physically measure the material by simply laying it across yard-sticks glued to the counters.  We usually liked it done that way because the clerks would put the material across the measure with a thumb holding the material on either side.  We always felt we got “more for our money” because they did it this way.  If we did, it was probably just one thumb-width!  Then they would nick the material with their scissors and tear off our piece.  Torn material tended to have a straighter edge than the cut pieces.  After buying a spool of matching thread, we were armed and ready to sew. 

When we got home, we would cut five-to-six inches off one end—that became the belt.  Using our own mother’s machine at our own house, we would open the material and pin the two ends of the length of material together and sew up all but about six inches of the width.  In those days, mothers were a little more particular about who used their machines, which was fine.  My mother had an electric Singer that was housed in a cabinet.  To use it, we would of course open the cabinet and raise the head of the machine and rest it on the holder.  To run the machine, we would press our knee against a lever that was chair level.  Neila’s mother had a treadle machine that she kept open all the time.  It ran by pressing her foot up and down on the treadle.

When the machine sewing was done, we would grab scissors, thread, pins, our material and get together on the swing on my porch.  We would chat while we hand gathered the length of material with the needle and thread.  After we had it all gathered and pinned to our belt, we would again go to our own mother’s machine and sew it up, including finishing off the belt.  Once again we would meet and sew on hooks and eyes or snaps for the closing.  Sometimes we sewed a button from the “button box” on the outside over the hook or snap head, just for looks.  Eventually we each learned how to hand-sew a buttonhole and finished the belts with buttons and buttonholes.

The last year of Junior High, we ninth grade girls would walk the half-mile to the Home Ec building at the High School.  In both ninth and tenth grades Home Ec was a regularly scheduled class.  Half the year was sewing and half the year was cooking.  Its floor plan was recorded in my Lessons from the Sheepfold book.  That is when and where Neila learned to use an electric sewing machine.  It is also where we learned to pre-wash and square our material before laying out patterns and to iron seams as we went along. 

I learned how to use a treadle machine after I had been married about a year.  We moved to a farm house that stored its old furniture in two of the bedrooms on the second floor.  Our landlady gave me permission to use the treadle machine they had in storage.  It took a while, but I finally taught myself how to thread and set the bobbin, adjust the tension, and sew more than two inches before breaking the thread.  I think one of my proudest days was when I finally was able to sew a complete seam with perfect stitch and tension.

When our second child came along, my husband bought me my own machine.  It is a Sears portable with disks I could use to decorate the children’s garments and make machine button holes!  I was in seventh heaven.  Over the years I made diapers, shirts, dresses, jeans, and even suits.  In fact, I made the suits our younger son wore to his piano recitals.  And I’ve made an assortment of things for our home.

Through time I absorbed many tips.  I learned how to match plaids at seams and arm-holes by using the little printed vees on the pattern, and how to adjust patterns so they would fit much better.  On the early days of television, they used to have sewing lessons, our local agriculture groups held sewing classes, and Lois, another friend who is an avid sewer, taught me new techniques.  I have taught all three of our children to sew, including the two boys, and I have even taught sewing in 4-H.

I understand that now many of the high schools have eliminated sewing and cooking classes from their regular schedule of classes, although some of them still offer these as either clubs or electives.

Our children are grown now, and sewing is still changing.  There are new machines that will surge, embroider, and/or quilt.  But my trusty old Sears is still my one-and-only favorite.

Sewing, itself, is getting to be a thing of the past.  It is usually the older female population that still clings to this craft.  Sometimes you do see some of the younger generations browsing the material selections.  But it is like my daughter said:  the price of patterns and material has gotten so expensive, it is cheaper to just go to the store and buy ready-made.  I fully understand her reasoning, but I hope I never lose interest in this craft.  I just have to find time to use up all the yard goods and scraps I have stored over the years!

Do you sew?

What are your favorite projects?

What project you have done are you the most proud of?