Archive for the ‘mom’ Category

I Love My Sister’s Words

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008


This is the second time my sister (yes, that one) has gifted me and my readers with memories that I don’t have or don’t remember as well. I do remember some of the things she talks about below but I have only heard about some of the others. I particularly remember the rabies shots, though. I have included her words without edit. She’s really pretty cool.

Her words:

“Hey, I was checking out your blog for something new today and saw the picture of you on the pony. Can you believe I remember that picture being made that day. A man would come around to the neighborhood with that pony and take kid’s pictures. I was so jealous. I think I would have looked very cute on that pony too. Also, I remember the drum major outfit mother made for you to be in the toy band when you were in elementary school. I was jealous of that too!! For some reason I always felt you got all the attention and I was just there. I am telling you – you made a mark on my life for ever!!! Also, I read about the dog with heart worms. Do you remember your dog named Corky? He got rabies and you and daddy had to take shots, I think in the stomach, I WAS NOT jealous of that. Do you remember the “Ladies Aid” that would meet at our house from the church? We lived on Pine Street then. They would come and stay all day and make quilts. They all would bring a “covered dish” and we would get to eat lunch with them. I can still remember that being the best food ever. They all brought their kids, (no sitters back then) and we would play all day outside even it rained. I would like to play in the rain again!! I can also remember they cut up old sheets and made bandages during world war II, That was 1941 to ‘46 I think. I would have been about 10 and you about 5. Can you remember any of this? Do you remember the cellar under that house where mother kept all the stuff she canned. She would put a cloth on the big crocks of kraut and a big rock on top of the crock. I can remember sneaking down there and removing the rock and putting my hand in that big crock until I found the big core that came from the cabbage. Loved that part! Also, remember on Pine St. we lived across from a railroad and “hobos” would ride those trains and they all knew they could drop off at our house, because mother would feed them. I remember she always had “soup beans and corn bread” to feed them. She had these special dishes and forks she kept just for them to eat with. It is strange to think back on these things now as we now have to tell our children not to talk to strangers, but mother and daddy would have them on our front porch and we all talked to them.”

That ends her memories and this is Earnest writing now. One thing I wish is that I could remember those days on Pine Street. However we moved from there when I was three. I love thinking about my mother feeding “hobos.” That is so much not something I remember about her.

Here are some of my sister’s words about her marriage. They are worth adding.

“We went to the Greenbrier this week for our 53rd anniversary!… We have had many many things to overcome. It has not been easy to say the least, but we never gave up and we now enjoy a wonderful life as old people together! My husband is the BEST!”

I remember when her husband first came into our family. I thought he was really cool. Mom and dad didn’t feel that way, to say the least. I’m glad my sister decided they were wrong. Congratulations to the two of you. 53 years! That’s amazing.

Oh, I had dinner with my niece this week. She told me her dad was the one who gave me the 50 cents I used to buy my croquet set. Imagine that.

Posted in Shorty, childhood, mom, sister | 3 Comments »

Traveling With Mom And Dad

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008


The deeper I get into this blogging activity, the more surprises I find.

I have a traveling Jones. That’s pretty well-known in the family. Throughout my life I have believed this to be due to all of the reading and dreaming I’ve done. Through my reading I’ve visited places and times and worlds and characters that often transcended the world in which I lived. Who wouldn’t want to travel to as many of those places as possible?

I was talking with Earnestine about traveling with my mom and dad when something struck me – they loved to travel! I had never thought about it. I knew they traveled quite a bit after all of us kids left home but I just assumed it was only to come see us and their grandchildren. When I stopped assuming, however, I immediately remembered my experiences when I traveled with them.

In my lifetime they didn’t own a car until the early fifties (there was one before my birth) when they bought my brother’s 1949 Chevy from him. Until that time they both rode the bus to work and when we went somewhere we walked or rode the bus. Then they got the car and things changed. We began going to my grandmother’s house a lot (I got sick in the car.) When my sister (not the evil one) moved to Ohio we drove there (I got sick in the car.) Then, she moved to New Mexico.

I remember our first trip to Albuquerque – it took five days (I got sick more than once.) There were no interstates. Highways were mostly two lane and went through every small town from West Virginia to New Mexico. My memories of that trip have always related to the destruction of my ukulele (due to the evil sister) and getting sick. This recent revelation, however, gives me so much more to think about.

In that five days we stopped at almost every historical marker and state line monument along the road. About half of the trip was on Route 66 and we stopped at most of the tourist attractions that are now part of the Route 66 folklore. Snake farms, tepee motels, buffalo ranches, caverns, and whatever else appeared before us. I’m surprised we got there in five days. I even remember my first experience with “Mexican” food. We stopped in Tucumcari, New Mexico for dinner and I had Mexican spaghetti. Hot! Hot! Hot! It’s over 50 years later and I still remember that meal.

There was another trip to New Mexico before I left home. It was just mom and dad and me but the trip experience was more of the same. After that mom and dad visited us kids wherever we were. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. New Mexico several times. Birmingham, Alabama., Springfield, Massachusetts, New Orleans, Louisiana, and more. But there came a time when they began to just stop by to see us as they traveled through.

On one trip they stopped in New Orleans to see my family and went on to New Mexico to my sister’s home. Then, for some reason, they went on to the Grand Canyon and California and back through the upper Midwest before returning home. Why? They didn’t have any family in any of those places. Until now I always thought they were just taking another way home.

But what came to me in the past few days is that my sister and I had no interest in historical markers on the way to New Mexico. We didn’t care much for Route 66 “tourist traps.” We certainly were not impressed by the monuments that told us where each state line was located. (or how high above sea level we were as does the picture above.) It was also a pain trying to get each of those little state decals to slide off the wet cardboard onto the rear window of the car without tearing or wrinkling. My sister and I could have cared less, not to mention how tacky they looked. We just wanted the trip to be over. Have I told you the car was not air-conditioned?

My mom and dad, however, loved all of this. I didn’t realize that at the time, but certainly do now. They were both raised on farms and probably never thought they would see much more than where they lived. When they were able to travel, however, they did! As I think back, I realize their traveling gave them an opportunity to live a life they might never have thought possible. They were having fun! What a concept!

At some point they stopped traveling. I don’t know why and don’t know if one or both of them made that decision. It doesn’t matter, though, because in their life they were able to go places and see things they had only dreamed about. They enjoyed life outside of the five kids and all of the grandchildren. I’m sad this has occurred to me only now. I’m glad I do finally get to know, though.

So, yes, I come by my traveling Jones honestly. That little small town West Virginia boy always dreamed of traveling but never really expected it to happen. But, like mom and dad I have had the opportunities and have taken them. I’ve traveled the world, as have some of my siblings and children. I actually scheduled one business trip so that I literally took a trip around the world, just so I could say I have done it. But I’ll bet nothing I saw on that or any of my trips was more exciting to me than the Grand Canyon or Golden Gate Bridge or Mount Rushmore was to my mom and dad.

I haven’t finished traveling yet. I hope to never reach a stop. I wish I could take mom and dad on a trip, though. I wish they could have gone to Paris with us. I would have loved to buy them one of those little plastic Eiffel Towers! It would not seem at all tacky if I was handing it to one of them.

Posted in Chevrolet, France, New Orleans, Paris, childhood, dad, evil sister, mom, sister, ukulele | 4 Comments »

Mom’s Black Sheets

Sunday, July 20th, 2008


Oh, how I loved those steam engines. They had sounds that were so unique. As the wheels turned you could hear the steam escaping. As they neared railroad crossings you could hear their whistles shouting “get out of my way!” At times you could smell the sulfur in the coal that powered these monsters.

We had two major railroads passing through our town, the Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio. The N&W passed about 100 yards from my home. There were several men in the neighborhood who worked for the railroads. One was actually an engineer. All of the little boys, including me, looked up to these men who kept the railroad running.

My mother hated those steam engines.

I don’t think we had even heard of a clothes dryer when I was a kid. We had four long, wire lines in our backyard on which mom hung freshly washed laundry to dry. I remember watching her do laundry and sometimes helping with the rinsing and “wringing.” The washer was on our open back porch, exposed to the weather. There were also two large, galvanized wash tubs. One was the first rinse as the laundry came out of the washer. The other was for a final rinse to be sure the soap was gone. Then the laundry was fed between two rubber rollers that squeezed out the water (wringers.) Finally, mom would hang the clean clothes on the freshly cleaned lines. They would stay there until they dried.

So, what does this have to do with mom hating the steam engines? Well, when one came roaring through our neighborhood 100 yards from our house it usually left a black layer of soot on her clean laundry. The sheets would often be almost black. Of course she hated them. Wouldn’t you? Oh, I forgot. There are no more steam engines and it would be hard to get soot into your clothes dryer, anyway.

Posted in anger, mom, neighborhood, steam engine | No Comments »

DON’T

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

Don’t speak to strangers! Don’t go out unless one of us is with you! Don’t cross that street alone! Don’t play with that …, it’s dirty! Don’t… Don’t… One of the most repeated words heard by a child today is don’t. There are such a wide range of don’ts that I couldn’t begin to repeat them all here.

I also grew up with don’ts. Don’ts like “don’t be late for dinner.” “Don’t go so far that you can’t hear me.” (I could hear my mother’s “EARNEST” from two or three blocks away. Maybe she was using the nearby hills to amplify her voice.) Don’t stay outside past your bedtime. Don’t forget to put your coat on before you go out in the snow.

Unfortunately, many of today’s don’ts are really necessary because of the risks to children that weren’t so prevalent when I was a child. Today more children disappear. Traffic is so much heavier. More people prey on children. Sure there were a few people that seemed too interested in us but we recognized them as “scarey” and stayed away from them.

I was talking with my son recently and could hear in his voice the sadness he has about how few of us know our neighbors. We’ve lost one of the primary things that kept me safe as a child. I knew all of the neighbors for blocks around and they knew me (not always a blessing.) My parents knew them, also, and knew that all of the parents kept an eye on all of the children in the neighborhood. A “neighborhood watch” before we knew what that meant.

I’m still not sure how I survived to adulthood, though. It wasn’t as if we didn’t have danger around us. Things like the coal trains that we liked to hang onto when they were going into the nearby rail yard. Or hanging onto the bumpers of cars and sliding on our leather soled shoes (didn’t take long to wear them out!) Or walking without escort into the local glass factory to watch the glassblowers work. Or watching the enormous saws ripping logs into lumber at the local lumber mill and then climbing the stacks of raw lumber. It is a miracle that I made it this far!

More than dangers, though, we had freedom and joy and closeness and trust. In the summer we didn’t stop playing until dark. We wandered the hills that were close to my house. We climbed the sandstone cliffs (about 20 feet high) and slid back down them. We sat in trees and ate apples and cherries as we picked them (and often paid with digestive issues.) I remember sitting in the street building dams in the gutter when it rained. Today, being in the gutter has very negative connotations. MY gutters were places to recreate the magnificent hydroelectric dams that I read about. And then I got to (figuratively) blow them up and watch the water rush towards the unsuspecting ants down the street.

I know we’ll never go back to those days but I surely enjoy remembering them for me, my kids, and both of my blog readers. I wonder, however, if we are slowly losing the adventurous spirit that grew in me and my friends during those carefree days. As they say back home, “it’s hard to tell”.

Posted in Apple, adventure, mom, neighborhood | 2 Comments »

Did You Ever Open a Door With Your Shoulder?

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008


Well, I have, although I don’t remember how old I was at the time. It was in the house in which I lived with 3 of my 4 siblings. My brother was not around a lot, or, this might have been during the time he was in Korea.

Anyway, two of my sisters were at home that day. One of them was my evil sister, of course. I can’t remember exactly what they did to get me going but they were always picking on me. I don’t even know how I survived to adulthood. They don’t tell these stories the same way, of course, but they don’t remember them like I do. Also, any bad things they say about me are lies!

On the day in question both mom and dad were at work. I don’t remember why mom had to go to work but I’m sure it was because we really, really needed the money. I remember her salary, though. It was $25 a week and, like other topics I’ve mentioned in my blogs, that’s for another story. So, they were at work and it was after breakfast because I remember my two sisters were in the kitchen washing dishes.

I’m sure they were taunting me about something or I would not have gotten angry. When they saw they had made me angry they closed and locked the kitchen door. This was an old house with skeleton key locks on every door. If I could have found a key I wouldn’t have had to break the door down. I couldn’t let them get the best of me, though. After all, I went to the movies every weekend and I knew how to open doors. I had seen my heroes do it many times with their shoulders. (Interesting fact: movies were 15 cents back then. Oh, Earnest, you are getting a little long in the tooth. We usually got a double feature, a serial and a cartoon for that.)

I remember the hallway being about 15 feet long. I went all of the way down the hall and then turned around and ran at the door as hard as I could. Well, I didn’t know my own strength. When my shoulder hit the door it immediately popped open and I fell onto the kitchen floor. The latch from the door frame fell onto the floor with me. I had ripped it out of the wall.

To make a long story short, I and my two sisters spent the rest of the day putting the door back together. Somehow we managed to make it look good enough that neither mom nor dad noticed it. I don’t know if we ever told them about it. My sisters missed a really good chance to get me in trouble by helping me. Maybe they weren’t always so bad.

Posted in Siblings, anger, dad, door, evil sister, key, mom, sister | No Comments »