THE WAY IT WAS GROWING UP IN MY DAY

THE WAY IT WAS GROWING UP IN MY DAY

While my mind is still sharp and my memories still vivid in my mind I want to share with my children and grandchildren what it was like growing up in the country with 7 brothers and sisters and a stay at home mom and a preacher daddy. We were by today's standards considered poor but I never knew I was poor. Oh I knew some kids at school like the Babelays, Tiptons and Lays had more money than we did but I never felt inferior to them. The reason I thought they were rich is because they were the ones that their mothers came to the school for the parties and brought refreshments and help to build the Christmas Floats for the Santa Clause Parade. And while I am talking about the Santa Clause Parade it was the highlight of our Christmas. My dad worked downtown on State Street at Albers Drug Company and we would take the bus and go downtown on the night of the parade. We would walk up to Gay Street from where the bus parked and stand several people deep on the side walks to watch the parade. If you were early you would get to be in the front and have a good view of Santa when he rode by. The floats were beautiful and Ritta's float was always one of the prettiest. And speaking of Gay Street my dad ate lunch a lot at two different places. First was the S&W Cafeteria. He always got on those big scales inside and weighed and every time it would go up to 147. Never saw it go any higher. And he would also go to Kresses and eat lunch. He could make his whole meal with just rolls. They had the best.  Well back to the way it was. As kids our mom never asked us to do much as far as housework and laundry, ironing, cooking etc. Sometimes we would help out especially at night with dishes but for the most part my mom did the housework. I know now looking back with a family as big as what we had she did a lot of work and I am sure could of used a lot of help. But me and my brothers and sisters would go outside to 'play'. Now what play consisted of was building playhouses out close to the woods. We would take a broom (probably my moms good broom) and would sweep off the leaves and then we would gather up stones and make a layout of a house. It would be divided off with rocks and stones to make each room. And then we would find boards and buckets anything we could to make the furniture. We would use broken pieces of glass and cans, sticks and whatever we could find for dishes. And of course we always had some dolls because what is a home without babies and kids in it. My  brothers  would play cowboy and Indians and they always had cap pistols. We would also have church and somebody always got saved and then we would rake or sweep up a big pile of leaves and baptize them in the leaves. I also grew up in the days that a lot of women dipped  snuff. So what we would do would be to take sugar and cocoa and mix them together and put it in our bottom lip and pretend we were dipping snuff. Don't laugh. That was better than smoking rabbit tobacco.  In the summertime we could spend hours chasing after June Bugs and tying a string to their leg and let them buzz around. Or go out at night and see who could catch the most lightening bugs and put them in a jar and take a nail and punch holes in the tops so they could have air. We would also lay out in the front yard at night on blankets looking at the stars. Because it was so hot in the house we would think nothing of sitting out in the front yard until  10:00 at night. Also when I was a kid we slept 4 in a bed. Two girls at the top and two boys at the foot. Then as we got older it was two girls and two boys to a bed and that's how it was until I married. I had never had my own bed or slept by myself until I was 73 years old. We also would walk down and play in the creek some. I think the boys more than the girls would slip off to the creek that ran behind Ritta School. There was a lot of good blackberry picking in those fields between our house and the school. We would pick a lot of  blackberries in the summer and mama would make jelly and cobblers. Speaking of blackberries, I also thought the Haires that lived on the upper side of us was rich  until one time it came that big snow when I was in elementary school. We had to walk home from school and the snow was so deep that you couldn't hardly walk. Mom and dad had went into town that day and couldn't get back up the hill to the house. Because they weren't home I went with the Haire girls to their house. Was I ever so surprised that when we had supper  they had pinto beans and canned blackberries. I knew then they didn't have any more than we did. We would also play in Mr. Reesers corn crib. The Reesers lived on the other side of the road from us.  I am sure we didn't have permission to do that or play in the hay stacks that were over in his field. I was always afraid there might be mice or snakes in the corn crib.  Of course going to church was a big part of my growing up days. My dad being the preacher we went every time the doors opened and I mean every time. You didn't even question whether you would be going to church or not. I always liked Wednesday nights when I was a kid because that was pay day for my dad. Mr. Ogle would give him his check and we would go to Cas Walkers on Magnolia after church. BTW Mr. Ogle was our treasurer and what I remember about him most, besides being the dad of my very best est of friends Patsy, was him going to sleep each service. I don't think the sermons put him to sleep because my dad was an interesting character to listen to but I think he put in long hard hours at work at Pet Dairy and was just tired and sleepy. But back to going to Cas Walker's . We would get a fresh loaf of bread and some boiled ham and those pickles that were in their individual plastic packages with pickle juice in them. Then we would go next door to Krispy Kream Donuts and get a couple dozen donuts and we would go home and have a sandwich and donuts. Back to church in my growing up days. On Sundays I would either go home with some one after church that morning until time for church that night or someone would go home with me. It was just the thing that everybody did. People would ask us to their house a lot on Sundays because that's just what people did...ask the preacher to dinner on Sunday. That doesn't happen much any more. Easter was always one of my favorite times to go to church because I always got a new dress, shoes, socks, hat and gloves. We don't even do that any more. Holidays and Birthdays were different when I was growing up. Birthdays meant getting a cake and if you were fortunate enough some ice cream to eat with it. You did not get or expect gifts. I don't know when all of this changed but even when my kids were growing up they didn't get gifts for birthdays. We always celebrated them but gifts were only for Christmas. Christmas was always a fun time when I was growing up. I remember as a kid at Highland Baptist we always had a Santa Clause. It was a woman and her name was Mrs. Kirkland. We may of had others but she is the one I remember. She would be down in the basement of the church and all of us kids would be around the tree in the Alter area and someone would say "I believe I hear Santa coming". And then we would hear that Ho Ho Ho start down in the basement and come up the stairs. She would have a big pack on her back and we were so excited. We would all get one gift and we were thrilled beyond words. And of course we always got our Christmas treat bags that had oranges, apples, nuts and candy in it. And that's another thing. When did Christmas turn into seeing how many gifts you can give a kid. If kids were pleased and happy for years with one gift what has happened to our thinking? Kids today have more than they have ever had and are more unhappy and discontented than ever. I think we need to rethink what we are teaching our kids about entitlement. Ok what have I not covered. Halloween. When I was growing up Halloween was fun. It was not thought of as evil. It was a time to dress up in a costume usually homemade with a sheet or old clothes or hats and go to your neighbors and yell "trick or treat" expecting some candy. And we would come home and count how many pieces we had and eat it all. The worst things that would happen would be some of the older boys would take delight in turning over someones outside toilet. No worry of drugs or razor blades or poison in your candy. No worry about going to your neighbors house or even a strangers house. And then there is Thanksgiving which has always been my favorite holiday. One word sums it up family. Well maybe two family and food. There are a lot of other things I could write but this is getting rather lengthy and it is almost 2:30 in the morning and I am going to bed.