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. THE
BASIC RULES FOR CLOTHESLINES:
1. You had to wash the clothes line before hanging any clothes - walk the entire lengths of each line with a damp cloth around the lines. 2. You
had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang "whites" with "whites,"
and hang them first. 3. You never hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail! What
would the neighbors think? 4. Wash day on
a Monday! . . . Never hang clothes on the weekend, or Sunday! 5. Hang
the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your "unmentionables"
in the middle. 6. It didn't matter if it was sub zero weather . . . Clothes
would "freeze-dry." 7. Always gather
the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left on the lines were
"tacky!" 8. If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item
did not need two clothes pins, but shared one of
the clothes pins with the next washed item. 9. Clothes
off of the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready
to be ironed. 10. IRONED?! Well, that's a whole other subject!
author unknown/thanks to Patricia
Greer for sharing this
.
A clothesline
was a news forecast To neighbors passing by. There were no secrets you could keep When clothes were hung to dry. . It also was a friendly link For neighbors always knew If company had stopped on by To spend a night
or two. . For then you'd see the "fancy
sheets" And towels upon the line; You'd see the "company table cloths" With intricate designs. . The line announced a baby's birth From folks who lived inside - As brand new infant
clothes were hung, So carefully with pride! . The ages of the
children could So readily be known By watching how the sizes changed, You'd know how much they'd grown! . It also told when illness struck, As extra sheets were hung; Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too, Haphazardly were strung. . It also said, "Gone on vacation now" When lines hung limp and bare. It told, "We're
back!" when full lines sagged With not an inch to spare! .
New folks in town
were scorned upon If wash was dingy and gray, As neighbors carefully raised their brows, And
looked the other way.
. But clotheslines now are of the past, For dryers make work much less. Now what goes on
inside a home Is anybody's guess!
.
I really miss that way of life. It was a friendly sign When neighbors knew each other
best By what hung on the line!
author unknown/thanks to Patricia
Greer for sharing this
I don't think our kids know what an apron is.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash
aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans
from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out
dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes
half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.
And when the weather was cold,
grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried
all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the
apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up
the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When
dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields
to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron'
that served so many purposes.
author unknown/thanks to Patricia
Greer for sharing this
. Claudette came to sit a spell and tell us about her times gone by... .
Just read the good ol' days and what
a treat to walk down memory lane. My mother was so short the clothes lines had to be low for her to hang out the lundry
but would take a long board with a notch in the top, put the line in the notch and prop up the clothes line. Remember
helping my dad's mother do laundry. She carried water from a neighbor's for all of their water needs. Would carry
buckets of water to fill up the old black wash pot, build a fire under it, shave homemade soap in the pot and boil the clothes.
Dip out the clothes with an old broom handle, then rinse and wring them out. Hung some laundry on a clothes line
but most were hung on barbed wire fence. .
My dad's mother never washed her hair with anything but homemade lye soap and when she died
at 63 years of age she did not have a gray hair on her head. Gorgeous dark brown hair. She had 2 bad bouts with
cancer in the late 40's and early 50's. She was very ill for over 2 years before she died and her hair was still
beautiful. The best memories of her I have when I was a young child is her gorgeous hair and her wonderful love of family.
. Love your website and what a refreshing treat
to read it over and over. This time is especially wonderful with the beautiful art work. I used to paint every week
but has been years since I went to art class. Need to get well enough to go back and enjoy oil painting again.
. "Grandma's Lye Soap"
John Standley and Art Thorson, 1952
Do you remember grandma's lye soap
Good for everything in the home
And the secret was in the scrubbing
It wouldn't suds and couldn't foam
Then let us all sing right out of grandma's
Of grandma's lye soap
Used for, for everything
Everything on the place
For pots and kettles
The dirty dishes
And for your
hands and for your face
Shall we now sing the second verse
Let's get it with great exuberance, let's live
it up
It's not raining inside tonight
Everyone, let's have a happy time
Are we ready
All together, the
second verse
Little Herman and brother Thurman
Had an aversion to washing their ears
Grandma scrubbed
them with the lye soap
And they haven't heard a word in years
Then let us all sing right out of grandma's
Of grandma's lye soap
Sing all out, all over the place
The pots and kettles, the dirty dishes
And also
hands and also f.....
(clapping fades)
Well, let's sing what's left of the last verse
Let's have a happy
time, everyone
The last verse, al-l-l-l together
Ev-v-v-very one
Mm-m-m-m, thank you kindly, kindly
M-m-mrs, O'Malley, out in the valley
Suffered from ulcers, I understand
She swallowed a cake of grandma's lye
soap
Has the cleanest ulcers in the land
Then let us all sing right out of grandma's
Of grandma's lye
soap
Sing right out, all over the place
The pots and, the pots and pans, oh dirty dishes
And the hands.
.Tattered Old Home: A PoemApril Higney
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The heat of the summer sun,
Lilac dancing slowly, clinging
gently in the trees embrace.
Barely a movement in a soft breeze,
Such a quiet place.
In the not so far
off distance,
An old tattered home,
Boarded up windows,
It stands so alone.
Wondering who could
have lived there,
An old tree house nearby,
Miles from everything,
And the birds swiftly pass overhead in
the sky. The days of
old fill the imagination, An elderly
lady sewing in her rocking chair, Her
husband and a fiddle in a porch sweing in front, Playing a turn that fills a void in the loneliest of souls. I could imagine it there. Grandkids playing out in a field catching frogs, The smell of fresh baked cookies and bread. Windchimes add to the fiddlers tune, And
a smile for the thoughts that pass through my head.
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The front
porch — an American icon on par with baseball and apple pie — came into vogue during the middle of the 19th century,
thanks in part to Andrew Jackson Downing, a landscape architect and influential tastemaker. Downing advocated the front porch as a way to distinguish American architecture from English design, during a time
when America was still seeking to define a unique national identity, says David Schuyler, a professor of American Studies
at Franklin & Marshall College and author of a biography on Downing. “Downing said a house without a front porch was as ‘incomplete, to the correct eye, as a well-printed
book without a title page,’” says Schuyler, quoting Downing during a phone interview from his side porch. newsadvance.com/Front porch life:
Best Seat in the House —by Liz BarryJuly
9, 2008
another thought about the front porch...
Origins of the front porch
Like the United States with its melting pot
of immigrants, the great American front porch owes its origin to several countries, including Italy, Spain, India and Africa,
says Michael Dolan, author of The American Porch: An Informal History of an Informal Place. African slaves were the first
in America to universally build houses with porches. By
the 1880s, nearly every house in America, whether it was a humble shotgun-style or a Queen Anne mansion, boasted a front porch.
The porch served as a cool and comfortable gathering spot that encouraged socializing and relaxing. The porch was so popular
a setting that James Garfield waged a “front-porch campaign” for the U.S. presidency in 1880, meeting and greeting
farmers and other folks from his own front porch in Mentor, Ohio (pop. 50,278). “Nobody wanted to be in the backyard where there were horses, stables, manure and outhouses,” says Dolan,
58, who lives in a 1920s bungalow with a porch in Washington, D.C. After
a long day, families retired to the breezy front porch to sip cool drinks and talk. They brought out guitars and harmonicas
and sang and told stories. Women snapped beans into a dishpan on their laps as they sat in the porch glider or swing. Couples
courted on the porch until a parent signaled with the porch light that a beau had overstayed his welcome. The front porch remained popular until World War II, when several factors contributed
to its decline, including automobiles, air-conditioning, television and, most of all, suburbs. Backyard patios and decks and
a desire for privacy spelled the end of the front porch. via American Profile; The Front Porch by Marti
Attoun
Long ago and far away, in a land that time
forgot,
Before the days of Dylan, or the
dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me, For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were
for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn. . We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn. We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since. We danced to 'Little Darlin,' and sang to 'Stagger Lee'
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me. . Only
girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore
flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney. And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me,
Me. We fell
for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
they never made it twice. We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me. - Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
- And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.
- We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,
- And Oprah couldn't talk yet, in the Land That Made
Me, Me.
- .
We
had our share of heroes, we never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby
Darin, or Marilyn Monroe. - For
youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
- And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.
. - We'd never seen the
rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson , and Zeppelins were not Led. - And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me. - .
- We'd never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And
babies might be bottle-fed, but they weren't grown in jars. - And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant fancy-free,
- And dorms were never co-ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.
- .
- We hadn't
seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
- And
microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.
- And
Hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
- And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.
- .
- Buicks
came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
- And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.
- And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
- And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.
- .
- There
were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
- And fish were not called Wanda , and cats were not called Bill.
- And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,
- And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.
- .
- But all things have a season, or so we've heard them say,
- And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.
- They send us invitations to join AARP,
- We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.
- ,
- So now we
face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
- And
wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.
- And we tell our children's children of the way it used to be,
- Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.
, MORE MEMORIES FROM CLAUDETTE
I remember
as a child we would kill hogs on a very cool day and render the fat which was used for cooking the meat later. But most
important, it was used to make homemade lye soap which was mixed with ashes, lye and hog fat. The soap turned out an
ugly light brown color and was very strong for cleaning and used for every day cleaning from laundry, to washing of hair,
washing dishes, scrubing floors - very all-around cleaning product. We would cook it in the big black wash pot,
then poured into used cardboard boxes, allowed to cool, then cut into bars and stored for use later. I am remembering
back almost 60 years of doing this with my mother. The best part of the hog killing was the cracklins and I was always anxious
for the first bite and would be reminded it would burn my mouth but I could hardly wait to get the first bite and burned my
mouth every time. . Another
favorite memory was of my grandfather Levy's cousin, Tom, who was a close neighbor with sheep in a pasture next to our house.
It was a very cold snowy day and Tom knocked on the door and had a tiny newborn lamb that he wanted to give to Claudette.
The lamb was a twin and the ol' ewe would not accept this twin. That lamb was the dumbest animal ever. Always
getting into the dirty county road and my two dogs (a part pit pill and a golden collie - looked like Lassie) had to chase
her back into the big front yard. The 3 animals would wait at the gate each school day, at the time the bus would bring
me home. Fed that lamb with one of my old baby bottles, then had to teach her to drink from a pan of milk that I would put
the bottle nipple on my finger and stick it down in the pan to train her to drink from the pan. Finally learned to drink
from the pan. When the lamb got older, the man who gave her to me came wanting to buy her back from me for $5 which
was a lot of money to a 6 year old girl in the 1949 or early 1950. Hated to part with Lucy Mae but I had my eye on the
doll in town that was about $5.00,so Lucy Mae was sold. I loved living on the farm and it was lonely living far from
neighbors that had children, and I was an only child.
.
Dried Apple Pies I loathe, abhor, detest, despise,
Abominate dried-apple pies.
I like good bread, I like good meat
Or anything that's fit to eat;
But of all poor grub beneath the skies,
The poorest is dried apple pies.
Give me the toothache, or sore eyes,
But don't give me dried apple pies.
The farmer takes his gnarliest
fruit
'Tis wormy, bitter, and hard, to boot;
He leaves the
hulls to make us cough,
And don't take half the peeling off.
Then on a dirty cord 'tis strung
And in a garret
window hung,
And there it serves as roost for flies,
Until it's made up into pies.
Tread on my corns, or tell me lies,
But don't pass me dried-apple pies. unknown
1713 - The poem called Apple
Pye, by William King (1663-1712), English poet appeared in the pamphlet called The Northern Atlantis
(York Spy): Of
all the delicates which Britons try
To please the palate of delight the eye,
Of all the sev'ral kings of sumptuous
far,
There is none that can with applepie compare.
. History of the Apple in America
The
saying "As American as apple pie" is referred to as the symbol of America. The word "apple" comes from
the Old English word "aeppel." there are approximately 10,000 different kinds of varieties of apples grown in the
world with more than 7,000 of these varieties grown in the United States. Apples are a member of the rose family of plants
and the blossoms are much like wild-rose blossoms.
Native Americans appropriated what they liked, cultivating apples extensively. There are between 25 to 30 kinds of
wild apples grown throughout the world with seven kinds in the U.S. Most wild apples are crab apples with small, sour, hard
fruit. The crab apple is the ancestor of many of the varieties of apples grown today.
17th Century
When the English colonists arrived in North America they found only crab apples. Crab apple trees
are the only native apples to the United States. European settlers arrived and brought with them their English customs and
favorite fruits. In colonial time, apples were called winter banana or melt-in-the-mouth.
1622 - Most historians fail to mention that those early
orchards produced very few apples because there were no honey bees. Historical information indicates that colonies of
honey bees were shipped from England and landed in the Colony of Virginia early in 1622. One or more shipments were made to
Massachusetts between 1630 and 1633, others probably between 1633 and 1638. The Indians called the honeybees "English
flies" and/or “white man’s flies.” A description of New York in 1670 claimed: "You
shall scarce see a house, but the South side is begirt with Hives of Bees."
John Chapman, the real "Johnny Appleseed" One of America's
fondest legends is that of Johnny Appleseed, a folk hero and pioneer apple farmer in the 1800s. There really was a Johnny
Appleseed and his true name was John Chapmen (1774-1845) and he was born in Leominster, Massachusetts. His dream was for the
land to produce so many apples that no one would ever go hungry. Most historians today classify him as an eccentric but very
smart businessman, who traveled about the new territories of his time, leasing land and developing nurseries of apple trees.
It is estimated that he traveled 10,000 square miles of frontier country. He collected apple seeds from cider
mills, dried them, put them up in little bags, and gave them to everyone he met who was headed West. For forty years he traveled
through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa (planting seeds every place he considered to be likely spots). He did more than
just plant apple seeds. He began nurseries to take care of the apple orchards as well as other fruit, vegetable, and herb plants. He walked alone
in the wilderness, without gun or knife. He chopped down no trees and killed no animals. He believed that God wanted him to
go around and read his Bible to people and plant apple tree for them. He was respected and appreciated by the native American
tribes and the new settlers alike. For the rest of his life, he traveled alone and denied himself the companionship of a wife.
He fully expected to be compensated for his celibacy on earth by expecting to have two wives in heaven. He was considered
"funny looking" because of the way he dressed and looked. According to the Ashland County web site, Johnny Appleseed, by
Marji Hazen: "John Chapman's appearance was variously described as humble and bizarre for he was scantily
clad summer and winter, without shoes except in the severest weather when he might wear sandals or moccasins as often as the
old pair of boots one pioneer writer claimed to have given him out of pity. . . A claim that he was occasionally seen wearing
his mush pot as a hat is likely a legend, but it is reliably reported that he would wear someone else's castoff hat or create
for himself a sun hat from cardboard. This writer would expect that he might carry his mush pot on his head if his hands were
full, but probably not as a substitute for 'real' headgear. Pots of that period were handmade, usually of heavy copper, iron,
or enameled iron. Such a burden would not long or comfortably serve the function of headgear. And above all, Johnny Appleseed
was a man with a practical sense of function."
whatscookingamerica.net
Apple Facts: Greek
and Roman mythology referred to apples as symbols of love and beauty. Today we call something we prize as, "The apple
of our eye!" Issac Newton is said to have thought up the law of gravity while sitting under an apple tree, observing the
falling of apples. The
expression "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" actually comes from an old English saying, "Ate an apfel
avore gwain to bed, makes the doctor beg his bread." (Eat an apple before going to bed makes the doctor beg his bread.)
The
apple is a member of the rose family, which includes over one hundred genera and over two thousand species of herbaceous plants,
shrubs and trees. Apple relatives include: the true rose, pear, plum, peach, cherry, blackberry, raspberry, strawberry,
spiraea, flowering quince, and hawthorn. Members of the rose family have flower parts in fives (multiples of five). The flowers are white
or pink and the fruit is a pome type, derived from the fusion of the ovary and the receptacle which make up the fleshy part
of the fruit. Cut the apple in half cross-wise to find a star with five chambers, with two seeds each. Apple blossom are the state flower of Michigan. April
28, 1997, marked the 100th anniversary of this official designation. The top apple producing states are Washington, New York, Michigan, California,
Pennsylvania and Virginia, which produced over 83 percent of the nation’s 2001 apple supply. The apple variety ‘Delicious' is the most widely
grown in the United States. Freckles (russet) on Golden Delicious indicate ripeness Fresh apples float because 25 percent of their volume is
air. Apples harvested
from an average tree can fill 20 boxes that weigh 42 pounds each. The largest apple ever picked from a tree weighed 3 lbs 2 oz, according to The Guiness Book of World Records. It takes about 36 apples to create one
gallon
of apple cider. Apples
are sometimes called "nature's toothbrush," Apples help clean the teeth and massage the gums. America's longest-lived apple tree was reportedly
planted in 1647 by Governor Peter Stuyvesant in his Manhattan orchard on the corner of Third Avenue and 13th Street. The tree
was still bearing fruit when a derailed train struck it in 1866. The first American to orbit the Earth, astronaut John Glenn, carried pureed applesauce
in squeezable tubes on his initial space flight. Ham with applesauce was served to Gemini astronauts.
Apple
Tips: To prevent discoloration of peeled apples, place peeled slices in a pan of cold water to which a pinch of salt has
been added (for each whole apple peeled). When making salads, dip apple slices in fresh lemon juice to prevent slices from turning brown. Discoloration of aluminum utensils
can be removed just as effectively by boiling a number of apple peelings in them as by the old method of boiling a little
vinegar in water. Sprinkling
salt on spilled juice from apple pies in a hot oven will cause the juice to burn crisply, making it easier to remove. To peel apples, dip them quickly
in and out of boiling water. The skin will come off much more readily.
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