The Good Old Days

OH-- those good old days. Remember when you were really young and had no worries or cares. All you could think about was what you wanted to wear to school that day, or if you would get to sit by Joey on the school bus today. What mom was making you to take with you for lunch at school today. Perhaps you were excited about the school dance coming up and if that special someone would ask you to the dance. Those were the good old days when you didn't have to worry about any big issues.

I remember telling my kids about the "outhouse" You remember don't you? Anyway they said "Whats that mom?" I explained it was where we went to use the toilet in the wood shed behind the house. "YUK" ! You really didn't use the toilet outside in a shed did you mom? I certainly did, I explained. It was so cold in the winter time and we had to put on coats and shoes and socks just to be able to go to the toilet. Sometimes we had to fight the bees and some times there were spiders.

In those days we couldn't afford toilet tissue. "What did you use for paper mom," one of the children asked. Well in those days we used torn up newspaper cut into little squares. A little rough but you just had to manage with it. Another thing I remember is with no indoor plumbing we used to heat water on top of our coal stove. It was a big round pot bellied stove. Then my mom, your grandmother would pour this water into a big round tub that sat in the floor then she added some cool water and I sat down in it and took my bath. After I bathed the water was then thrown outside.

I didn't have a lot of toys like you kids did. I had to make do with what I could use my imagination on. I would take a blanket and place it over two chair backs to form a cover and I would pretend it was my house or sometimes a fort and pretend I was hiding from Indians.

I also remember making lots of mud pies. I set up some old bricks in the yard and made a square with them. I had some old jar lids ( I didn't have dishes) and I would mix up some dirt and water and make mud pies and place them in my make believe oven. Another toy I made was to take a old tire and roll it around, and if you were lucky maybe some kind relative would hang it on a big tree branch and you would now have a swing.

I guess my favorite thing was when I got to go to my aunts house. She had a whole closet of dresses,shoes,hats and purses she didn't want anymore. I got to play "dress up" with these old clothes. Oh what fun that was. I could be a Princes, a Queen ,or just an ordinary mom with a husband and a baby and on and on as far as my imagination would take me.

I remember I lived with my mom and grandpa. We lived on the river. My grandpa worked in "Mussel" factory where they made buttons out of the shells. I used to go visit him in the factory. It wasn't a factory by today's standards. it was just a big long building. On each side was a shelf that had screens on top. There they throw the mussels up there to sort through them and discard the ones not good enough to use for buttons. I got to keep what I wanted. I took lots home and used these for my dishes.Those were the good old days.