Gosh, I wish my grandma had been able to blog about her childhood.  She was such a neat grandma!  I just read a line today in a novel by Todd Johnson called Sweet Bye and Bye which made me think of her and realize how little I knew about her.  The line was, “Holdin’ my grandbaby, I know my love will outlive me.   That might be all I need to know from now on.”

Grandma, your love has surely outlived you!  Somehow, Grandma was able to make each of us feel that we were her favorite.  Anyway, I sure felt that way!  I have so many wonderful memories of her.  It’s funny, but I only thought of Grandma in the moment of time when I experienced her.  I never wondered what she was like when she was younger.  Grandma old was the person who interested me.   Now that I am as old as she was, I realize that there was a whole other Grandma and wish I knew more about her. 

Grandma was probably of medium height.  She wore her hair in a bun, but not pulled back severely.  I think it was at least a little naturally curly as she had waves.  She wore combs in her hair to pull it back as was the style at the time.  Of course, it was gray, but had been dark.  Nobody colored their hair in those days except actresses and hussies.  What an old word that is!  (Aunt Anna would have been considered a hussy by Grandma, I bet.)  Grandma was slender and from the older pictures I have seen of her, I would think she had always been slender.   She wore glasses, but I don’t think she did when she was young.  I think the glasses and dentures she also wore were a part of the aging process. 

Grandma crocheted.  Mostly she crocheted rugs out of old rags.  Some of her crocheting used the wornout cotton stockings she wore.  She made hooked rugs one time, but I don’t remember that being something she did all the time, like the crocheting.  She also pieced quilts and then set up the big quilting frames in the parlor and ladies from the sewing circle came and hand-quilted them.  I think the sewing circle she belonged to along with my mother and Aunt Bess was called the “58″ Sewing Circle.  I think the ladies went to each other’s house and did embroidery, or quilting, or whatever the project the hostess was working on. 

The only thing I remember seeing Grandma read was the Bible or the Capper’s Weekly newspaper.  I am sure that there were probably other things, but those two were the main things.   The Capper’s Weekly had recipes in it.  It also had patterns you could send off and have delivered to you.  Some of the patterns were for clothes, others were for stamped embroidery patterns, and sometimes there would be a quilt pattern.

I don’t know how many brothers and sisters Grandma had, but I do know there were several grown-ups that called her Aunt Jessie.   I could look this up in the geneology, I guess, but I don’t have it at hand.  The ones who lived near-by were Hattie and maybe a Steve or Ida.  I just don’t know.  I do know that two of her sisters married brothers because I remember hearing talk about their kids being double cousins.    I wish I had asked her how she and Grandpa met. 

I’ll have to remember all these things I wish I knew about Grandma and include them in my blogs so my grandkids won’t have to have blank spaces about me when they can no longer ask questions of me. 

Yes, ma’am, Grandma, your love has surely outlived you!  Thanks for sharing it with me!

I was in Chorus in both Junior High School and Senior High School.  In fact, I sang second soprano in the one of the trios.  I think it was the JV Trio.  I was told by the choir director that I had a nice voice and it blended well with the other two girls in the trio.  Somehow, I felt that second soprano meant that I wasn’t quite good enough to sing first soprano.  I know now that the range of my voice fit the second soprano part better than the first soprano or alto.  Anyway, I never felt very proud of being in the trio, always envying the girls who had solo parts. 

My pride was invested in the fact that I made the Independence Drum Corps, at that time, the elite marching organization…or so we thought… of Independence High School.  We marched at half time of the football games, various parades in neighboring towns, and of course, the big important Neewollah parade.  We had a place of honor at the end of the parade.  This meant we had to march carefully because we followed the saddle club horses.  I don’t know how we felt that it was a position of honor, but we did. 

I played the bell lyre, a vertical type of xylophone which was carried in a harness on one hip and hit with a mallet with my right hand.  I think I was chosen to play that instrument because I could play the piano and read music.  I really would have like to have played the tom drums, but my instrument was probably better than the snares and definitely easier to carry than the bass. 

Our uniforms were quite classy.  They consisted of a blue jacket, waist length, with brass buttons, a white skirt which had to be a certain length,  nylon stockings, white oxfords, and a blue hat with an ostrich plume thingy on the front.  We had to shake out the ostrich plume and steam it in the bathroom so it always looked just right.  Miss Self was the drum corps sponsor and she made sure the seams on our nylons were straight and that we had a garter belt to hold them up so they didn’t sag.  She also checked the skirt lengths when we received our uniforms to make sure they were the right length so we all looked the same.  She also inspected us before each parade and then rode the bus with us to our destination.  She was the chaperone and sponsor.

The director of the drum corps was also the director of the band.  He rode the bus with the band, but would stick his head in the bus and give us last minute directions, reminding us we were the premier drum corps in Southeast Kansas and to conduct ourselves as such.  He was interested in the way we played, but also was very interested in the way we marched.  We had routines that we performed during parades of precision marching, etc.  I remember one time that when he stuck his head in the bus, he reminded the twirlers who led us that they should really strut their stuff as their job was to make the old men who sat on the corner sit up and take notice of us.  He wore a brown military type uniform and had a Clark Gable type mustache.  I don’t remember what his name was, but I remember we all had a little bit of a crush on him.    Can you imagine, it was probably the uniform…no, I think it was the mustache and I think he knew we had a crush on him and conducted himself accordingly.

Our longest parade was always the Neewollah parade.  The parade route was several miles long.  We marched in the Kiddie parade Friday afternoon and then again in the big parade on Saturday.  It was one of the most important parades in Southeast Kansas and culminated a week of activities.  I always had at least one blister following this march..sometimes more than one. 

We practiced twice a week after school and sometimes had early morning practices for special things like Homecoming.  We would march in the street around the school and the little kids in the neighborhood would come out and march along with us on the sidewalk.  Sometimes we would go by bus to the football stadium to practice our routines using the yard lines as guides. 

We were good and we knew we were good.  We took a lot of pride in our straight lines and our playing.  It was an honor to be a member of this organization and we were to conduct ourselves as ladies at all times.  Being a member of the Independence High School Drum and Bugle Corps was probably the highlight of my high school career.

Go, Bulldogs!!

I became friends with a lot of the people who worked at Woolworth’s while I worked there.  I also had some friends from school who perhaps weren’t good influences on me. 

One friend in particular at school was a lot more daring than I was.  We would go to town during the lunch hour and walk around window shopping.  One day, she and I both took an apple from the bushel baskets outside the local grocery store.  I knew it was wrong, but daringly did it anyway.  I felt really guilty and thought God had known what I had done  and punished me by placing a worm in my apple.   

Another time, my friend talked me into creating a distraction of a clerk in Woolworth’s.  Her directions to me were that I should visit with my friend who worked at the toy counter.  I honestly didn’t know why she wanted me to do this, but I did it anyway.  After I had visited awhile with my older working woman friend, my school friend said we should be on our way back to school. 

When we got outside the store and were on our way back to school, she reached into her pocket and pulled out two tubes of plastic bubbles that she had picked up while my working woman friend and I were visiting.  This I knew was wrong and I just told her I didn’t like playing with those and she could keep them.  Did I tell on her??  No.  Did I stop being friends with her?  No.  But I did sort of back off being such close friends.   This was when I was still in the ninth grade and hadn’t made too many friends yet.  I knew my mother would have been shocked if she had known even about the apple, let alone the shoplifting incident.  She wasn’t too fond of this particular friend anyway.  I think Moms have a sixth sense about that sort of thing.    

This is probably one reason why business people in a town like closed lunch hours. 

Funny, this is a minor incident that happened in my life, but it is one that taught me a lesson even though I was never caught.  It is also one I remember more than fifty years after it occurred.  Does that tell you something?

The F. W. Woolworth store was on Main Street in Independence.  I guess you could say it was the WalMart of the day.  It was known as a five and dime store, but the prices sometimes were higher than that.   We used to go to town on Saturday night and park on Main Street and watch the people go by.  It was the social time of the week, similar to going to WalMart today.  Woolworth’s was open until nine o’clock on Saturday night.  Of course, we shopped at Woolworth’s, too, and their candy counter was a favorite of mine. 

I was in the ninth grade when I began working at Woolworth’s.  My friend, Norma Lee and I used to walk up town at the noon hour and also sometimes after school.  One day we got the idea to put our applications for jobs in at Woolworth’s.  We were both thirteen at the time and so we had to lie about our age on the application.  It was in late September and our hope was that we would be hired for the Christmas season.  In October, I got a call to come in for an interview.  I was quite excited.  As a result of the interview which I don’t remember at all, I was hired to work on Saturdays during the Christmas season.  I started work almost immediately. 

Wow! A job that paid money..forty cents an hour..and wonder of wonders, I was put on the candy counter!  Mr. Bettis, the manager, told me I could sample any of the candy I wanted!  Had I died and gone to Heaven?  As I look back, it was probably the wisest move he could have made.  It wasn’t too long before the candy lost its fascination.  Especially when I went downstairs and brought up the big boxes of bulk candy from the basement.  There were bugs down there.  Not that they were in the candy boxes, but they were in the basement where the candy was kept. 

The candy counter had big glass bins of bulk candy, such as those you see in Mr. Bulky’s now.  The only difference was the person behind the counter took your order and weighed out the amount of candy you wanted.  It was sold in quarter-pound increments.  The varieties of candy included the best selling orange slices, vanilla chocolate covered fondant, chocolate covered cherries ( my mother’s favorite), bulk chocolate (my favorite), boston baked beans, coconut slices, candy corn, peppermint, wintergreen, and of course, hard candies for Christmas.  There were also cookies of many kinds.  I very well remember Sunshine Hydrox which were like Oreos only they were better in my opinion.  Apparently, my view wasn’t shared by everyone since they are non existant now and Oreos are best sellers.  The cookies, like the candy were in bulk and sold by weighing the amount the customer wanted. 

Each counter had its own cash register so we weighed out the merchandise, sacked it in paper bags, and took the money.  We did not wear plastic gloves as they were unheard of at the time.  We handled the candy with scoops.  The cash register was the old fashioned kind, and we had to figure the change and count it back to the customer.  The scales were balances and we had to put the correct weight on one side and scoop the candy into a scoop-like container on the other side, making sure the weight and the candy balanced.  I was not alone at the candy counter as it really took two of us to handle the business.  That is, until I became well-trained.  During my training, I was told that it was better to give a little more than the weight desired, rather than a little less.  Good business, I guess, as it kept people coming back. 

I worked through the Christmas season that year and then when other people were laid off, I was kept through inventory.  After inventory, I expected to be laid off, but I wasn’t.  I kept working Saturdays at Woolworth’s until the summer vacation when my hours were expanded.  I didn’t work full time, but worked basically as needed part time.  When school started again, I went back to Saturdays.

During the summer, I was given the responsibility of running the jewelry counter.  This meant keeping the stock neat and “selling” jewelry.  I also was taught to engrave people’s names on identification bracelets.  This was done with a vibrating engraver.  I must say, some of my engravings were a little bit shaky, but I guess people got their money’s worth as the engraving was free.  It was fun “selling” jewelry and sell it I did!  Sales improved on jewelry that summer and I was very proud of that.   I don’t recall ever having anything stolen from the jewelry counter which was open to all.

My record on the jewelry counter made the management think I was a sales person.  They put me on special sales projects that year when I went back to school.  I remember one time in particular that they put me on outside sales and stationed me at the corner of Penn Avenue and Oak Street on Memorial Day to sell fresh flowers.  This intersection was by the cemetary.  Another lady and I had a stand of sorts there to sell peonies as I remember.  Can you imagine? 

Iworked at Woolworth’s until I was sixteen.  I only quit then because I had an offer from a customer to work for her in a new restaurant she was opening.  When I gave my notice, the floor manager was upset with me and told me the manager could have gotten in trouble for hiring me because I was underage and had lied about it.  I felt that he surely knew a person in the ninth grade wasn’t sixteen, but I was good help so he took his chances.

At one time during my career at Woolworth’s, I was given the key to the money safe and was taught to run change.  Whenever a person on a counter needed change for a large bill, they rang a bell and I went and got the money and brought back the change to them.  One time I left a twenty lying on a counter, and they had to call me back to get it.  If I remember correctly, the change safe always balanced.  A lot of responsibility for someone not yet sixteen.

This was all such good experience for me.  I learned work ethics, responsibility, and salesmanship.  I also learned a lot about  the psychology of dealing with people.  I had some regular customers who became my friends.  I learned that people are always hunting for bargains, and merchants know how to make things look like bargains, even when they aren’t.  A good example of this was that one time we packaged work socks that sold individually for twenty cents a pair into packages of four and sold them for a dollar.  It was one of my “special sales projects” and I sold the heck out of them! 

So I also learned the truth of the saying, “Let the buyer beware”!

The second semester of Home Economics in the ninth grade was cooking.  Now, I knew a little bit about cooking and my Mom was a great cook, so I figured this would be a fairly easy semester. 

I still had the same teacher as in sewing class.  We learned the proper way to set a table, how to fold a napkin, and had a lot of etiquette lessons.  Finally, we were able to go into the “cooking lab” or kitchen and learn to cook something. 

The first thing we learned to cook was  a pin-wheel biscuit.  This was biscuit dough rolled out thinly and then coated with cinnamon sugar and rolled up like a jelly roll.  It was then cut into slices and baked.  It was supposed to be like a miniature cinnamon roll when it was finished.  I guess it was, but it took a lot of imagination to make it taste as good as real cinnamon rolls taste.  Anyway, we had finally cooked something.

The next thing we cooked were muffins.  I guess we might have been working on a breakfast menu at the time.  The muffins we made were plain muffins, no fruit or anything added to them…just plain muffins.  Now, you may wonder why I remember these muffins so distinctly.  It’s because I was, as I mentioned earlier, too smart fory own good.One of my friends made a mistake when she was measuring the dry ingredients for her muffins.  Instead of a tablespoon of sugar and a cup of flour, she measured a cup of sugar and a cup of flour.  When the teacher came by to inspect her dry ingredients, she discovered the mistake, and angrily dumped the mixture into the trash.  My friend dissolved into tears.

I was determined to seek justice for my friend.   There had recently been a change made in cake making.  The traditional way was to cream the shortening and sugar, add eggs, and then alternately add the dry ingredients and liquids.  The new was was to measure all the dry ingredients and sugar into a bowl, and then add the shortening, eggs, and liquid and mix the whole thing together.   I went through the cookbook until I found a recipe for a new method of mixing cakes, and showed it to the teacher.  I asked her if it wouldn’t have been better to use the mixed flour and sugar in a recipe like this rather than wasting it by dumping it in the trash.

Surprisingly, she did not appreciate my help.  I don’t remember whether I called this to her attention during class or after class, but I imagine it was during class.  I don’t remember exactly what her response was, but I knew she was not happy!

My final grade at the end of the year was a D-!  I am sure that incident in cooking had nothing to do with the grade, but I am now a great cook and I would guess that those of you who have eaten at my table, especially my pies, biscuits, and hot rolls may be surprised to find out what my grade in home economics was a D-!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was right at the beginning of the change in making cakes from the method of creaming the shortening and sugar and then adding the liquid and flour mixture alternately into the mixture, to mixing the dry ingredients together, sugar, flour, leavening, etc. and then adding the liquid and shortening to the mix. 

Because my friend had been humiliated in front of the whole class, I was determined to seek justice for her.  I went through the cook book until I found a recipe for a cake using the new method and calling for mixing the flour and sugar together.  When I found the recipe, I showed it to the teacher and asked her if that recipe couldn’t have been made instead of wasting the flour and sugar by dumping it into the trash.

I don’t really remember if I approached the teacher during class or after class, but I did approach her.  Can you imagine what happened?  She was not happy about being told how to conduct her class or herself by a ninth grade smart-aleck student.  I don’t remember the complete details, but do know that she didn’t thank me for calling that to her attention.  

I did feel vindicated, though.  No matter what she thought, I had stood up for my friend and had at least tried to right the wrong I felt had been done to her.

That may not even have been a contributing factor to my final grade, given my lack of ability in sewing, but I came out at the end of the year with a D-!  I’m sure the little incident in cooking class was remembered by the teacher and probably was fodder for discussion in the teacher’s lounge at the time!  From the perspective of the teacher, I can’t say I blamed her, but I’m not sorry about it.  If I learned anything, it may have been to be a little more subtle, although I doubt it.

By the way, I am now a great cook, and I’ll bet that some of you reading this who have eaten at my table, especially my biscuits and my hot rolls are surprised by my Home Economics  grade!

Okay, so now you know I wasn’t perfect in school.  I had that little incident with the firecracker in math class, but that really wasn’t the first time I had difficulty in school.   Once in a while I was too smart for my own good.  My experience in home economics class in the ninth grade is a good case in point.

Mom had an old treadle machine.  To those of you much younger, a treadle machine is a sewing machine run by foot power.  It had a rocking type of platform at floor level.  This was moved in a teeter-totter motion by the operator’s foot.  Everytime it moved, a series of pulleys, etc. caused the needle on the machine to go up and down.  The speed of the needle was controlled by how fast the operator’s foot pushed the platform.

  This machine sewed one simple type of stitch, apparently enough for the sewing done in those days.  My mother made my dresses on this machine, and did a very nice job of it.  She also pieced quilts for hand quilting.  I had very little desire to learn to sew and although she did have me sew a few little projects, I was never very good at it.

When I enrolled in Junior High School, I was required to take one year of Home Economics.  I think boys were required to take one year of Shop  Class.  Boys never took Home Economics and girls never took shop.  That was just understood. 

The first semester of home economics was sewing.  We did not have treadle machines.  We had fancy electric sewing machines which were operated by pressing your knee against a lever.  The harder you pressed, the faster the needle went up and down.  My teacher was an older (to me) lady who was probably not overjoyed by teaching sewing to a class of junior high girls.  Home Economics class was on the third floor of the Junior High building.  The shop class was in the basement of the same building.  The day we were introduced to the sewing machines, the teacher told us that if we ran a needle through our finger, we would have to go down to shop class to have it removed.  She did not pull sewing machine needles out of fingers!  Talk about scaring someone to death!  I heard that and it gave me great motivation not to get my fingers in the way of the needle on the sewing machine.  Now, since you guide the material with your hands into the machine, I had a problem.  I think I used my knuckles to guide the material so that I wouldn’t get my fingers close to the needle.  I also tried to keep my knuckles back as far as possible.

The next item of business was making a garment .  We were going to make a “broomstick” skirt.  This was a gathered skirt with a waist-band and a hook and eye closure on the band.  No zippers yet, just snaps, hook and eyes, and buttons.  Mom took me to the store to buy the material for the skirt.  I liked some light blue material and so we bought it.  It was denim and though it was very pretty, it was probably heavier than we should have gotten for a first effort. 

The skirt had two side seams and then was to be gathered at the top before attaching it to the band.  Now this doesn’t sound like too difficult a task.  However, if the operator is fearful of getting the needle in her finger, it becomes a little harder.  As I finished a seam, I took it to the teacher for approval.  It wasn’t straight enough.  I bedcame a premier seam ripper! I had to try six times before I got the side seams straight enough to satisfy her.  Then came the gathering stitches.  Two parallel rows of stitching sewed at a reduced tension and then pulled to gather.  The parallel was not easy for me, but after several attempts, I managed to get them somewhat parallel enough to pass inspection. 

Now if this was all we had to sew in one semester, I might have made it.  It wasn’t.  We also had to make a shirt-waist blouse.  This entailed facings, collars, button-holes, buttons, etc.  We were given our choice of making bound button holds or worked button holes.  Now, to me, the bound button holes looked easier.

 I was all for taking the easy route by this time.  I don’t remember exactly the problems I had with facings, and other construction of the blouse, although I am sure I didn’t do it easily or well.  I do remember the bound buttonholes though.  They were extremely difficult to do and mine did not look professionally made.  In fact, they were terrible.  There were several of them, and as I remember, they were all slightly different sizes when I finished.  I think I would have been much better off had I made worked buttonholes, although with my lack of sewing skill, who knows what they might have turned out to be like.

I finally made it through that first semester and vowed never again to do any sewing.  Thank goodness, I forgot that vow later in life.

Tomorrow, the cooking semester of Home Economics.  I knew how to cook, so it should have been better….

My Aunt Bess and Uncle Dayton lived on highway 75 north of Independence.  They had four children.  Naomi, Margaret, Charles, and Elizabeth.  These four cousins were my playmates throughout my childhood.  Naomi, who like Cousin George, was ten years older than I was.  Elizabeth, the youngest, was sixteen months older than I, and it was she who became my best friend growing up.

I was nine years old when Pearl Harbor brought World War II into our lives.   So my late childhood  and my very early teen age years were spent in wartime.  This brought a lot of changes into all of our lives, including rationing of  certain food stuffs, gasoline, and tires.  

My cousin George left college and enlisted.  Many of the young men in our church also enlisted in the military.  Margaret and Naomi were dating young men who enlisted in the Navy. 

Although troop movements at that time were somewhat secret, it was no secret that troop transport convoys travelled down highway 75 to duty stations in The United States.  Highway 75 was the highway we used to go to Manhattan,  and Junction City is just down the road a little way west so I assume that most of these troops were heading to Fort Riley for training.  I don’t really know that, but the Big Red One was trained in Fort Riley and it was an important part of the war.  I also have no idea how many troops were moved on that highway, but they would sometimes go by the house for hours. 

The troops were transported in open trucks for the most part.  There were a few jeeps carrying officers and some red cross ambulances along with the rest of the convoy.  Elizabeth and I took chairs out into the yard by the highway and spent our time supporting the troops by waving to them as they went by.   We felt we were being very patriotic and it was also a lot of fun as many of them waved back to us.  As I remember, sometimes we waved small American flags to show our support. 

There was never any thought in our child minds about the prospect that some of these troops might be killed.  To us it was just the romanticized young men wearing uniforms and going off to defeat the enemy.   I know now that some of these young men never returned home from foreign shores and that others had their lives altered by what they experienced.  

I also wonder what they thought about two little girls sitting in the yard, holding flags, and waving to them as they passed.  Hopefully, it might have let them know that people were behind them.  Maybe for a little moment, they were reminded of sisters, or daughters they had left behind. 

As for us, it was one of our contributions to the war effort….and a lot of fun at the same time.

Grandpa and Dad raised hogs.  Then the family got together for the butchering.  I don’t ever recall them butchering  beef, and wonder if Ollie Bullock the butcher down the road did that for them.

Hog butchering was different.  Most farm families did their own butchering of hogs.  I did not see the gory beginning, but was only aware that a dead hog was hanging from a hook outside the barn.  I don’t know how the hog was scalded, but know that the hair had to be scraped from the hog after butchering.  I do recall that Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Dayton, Aunt Bess, and Mom and Dad were all involved in the hog butchering process. 

The main things I, as a little girl, remember were the preparations for preserving the meat after the hog was butchered and cut up.  I remember the hog head sitting on newspapers on the kitchen table.  It looked absolutely gross to me.  I think by then it had been boiled in a big pot outside, because I know Grandma had to scrape the meat from the bones both inside and outside of the head.  This meat was used to make headcheese (whatever that was) and souse.  Somehow this involved a type of gelatin substance and was used for sandwiches.  My impression was “yuck”. 

The fat of the hog was rendered into lard.  It was placed in a slow oven and cooked for a long time.  The remains of the fat which did not turn into lard was called cracklin’s.  (This is now sold as pork rinds.)  My impression of pork rinds was “yuck”.  The smell of the fat rendering was not a good smell as far as I was concerned. 

It was said that everything of a hog was used but the squeal.  I believe it.  I don’t think my people used the intestines, but maybe they did.  I do know that the brains were cooked with scrambled eggs for breakfast.  My impression again was “yuck”.

A lot of the meat was ground and mixed with spices to make sausage.  Now, you can’t beat homemade sausage.  I don’t know what all spices were used, but I do know sage played an important role.  I think they made both hot and mild sausage. 

The hams and the shoulders were both cured with Carey’s salt.  Dad had a big syringe and needle type thing that he filled with curing brine and injected into the meat.  It was then hung in the smoke house for curing.  I imagine they might have done bacon, too.  A lot of the side meat ( the part from which bacon is made) ended up being cooked as fresh side.  I was disappointed that the ham didn’t taste like the boiled ham we bought at the store.  My favorite sandwich meat.  If the curing wasn’t done just so, the meat ended up being quite salty.  Especially in the places that were closer to where the injection site was. 

My very favorite meat from butchering was fresh tenderloin.  Sometimes we had it for breakfast with eggs.  Delicious!  Makes my mouth water just to think of it.

I have read about sausage patties being cooked and buried in lard to preserve them.  I don’t believe this was done at our house.  We took the meat to the locker plant in Independence where the folks had rented a locker.  The meat was wrapped in family sized packages and taken to the locker.   I loved going to the locker because it was, of course, freezing cold inside.  Each person who rented a locker had a key to open it.  The contents were safe.  When you wanted anything from the locker, you went into the main storage area and unlocked your own particular compartment.  Sometimes hunting for the specific items you wanted took a little time and It got really, really cold waiting.  That part I didn’t like.

Pork had to be cooked well done because of the possibility of trichinosis, a disease transmitted from hogs to people via eating pork that was not well cooked.  This meant that by today’s standards everything was overcooked. 

As I remember hog butchering was done in the fall of the year or even the early winter.  Probably after fly season was over.  It was an exciting time to us kids in the family, but as I now read about the process, I realized it was a very hard job for the rest of the family.  Thank goodness for the supermarket and having others do the work for us now.

Today I am going to fast forward to the present. I just read an old blog I had posted about the butterfly migration that took place last fall here in Mission, Texas.  In that blog, I wondered how the butterflies knew where they were going and how something so delicate had the strength to complete the annual migration.

It gave me an insight into my own life.  How did I know when I began this journey where I was going and how did I have the strength to make the trip this far?  If this is not evidence of miracles, what is?  

I attended a worship service this past Sunday which was so inspiring it really made me think about the presence of God in my life.  Joel Osteen, pastor, author, and inspirational speaker was here in the Valley and presented two opportunities for worship at the Dodge Arena.  Now this is a large arena and the three o’clock service was completely full except for a few random empty seats.  His message was one of hope and renewal, something we need every day.  It was very well received by all in attendance.

In the message he said that we are here, and I took that to mean alive, because our mission on Earth is not yet complete.  God is still working in our lives and we are still having an influence in the lives of others.  I find that very inspiring and really makes one think about living as an example to those around us. 

Sometimes we get discouraged and wonder if we are making any difference in anyone’s life.  We really don’t know who may be watching and taking a cue for living from the way we react and respond to life’s problems.   My Mother was a great influence for the positive in my life.  She had what we liked to call “spunk”.  I wonder now if her spunk wasn’t a synonym for faith.  I know she had a strong faith.  I am sure she relied on that faith to give her the strength she needed to overcome the bad things in her life. 

I wonder where she got her faith and her strength.  It surely wasn’t during her childhood as she had a terrible time when she was young.  She was not raised in a home where God was the center, and in fact, I wonder if she ever had any religious instruction at all.  I don’t know when she began to go to church, but I know by the time I arrived in her life she  attended church regularly.  I was raised going to Sunday School and Church every Sunday unless I was sick.  I can’t say that I always enjoyed it, but it provided a foundation for the faith I have today.   Grandma and Grandpa Hudiburg did not attend church.  I guess I always figured it was because Grandma was busy fixing Sunday dinner for the rest of us.  Now I wonder what happened in their lives that made them stop attending church.  I know they were Christian people and lives their lives as good examples.

My Mother has completed her Earthly journey and is still influences those of us who knew her.  My children have been influenced by Mother’s spunk just as I have. 

Is our strength handed down from generation to generation by example, or is it genetic?    Wherever it came from and however I got it, I am glad I have had enough to get me this far….and have faith it will sustain me for the coming years.

My ninth grade math class was on the third floor of the Junior High.  It overlooked the gymnasium and the metal covered bicycle racks.  The field for outdoor physical education was just down a pathway between the two buildings. 

I sat in the back row next to a bank of windows.  My “friends” sat back there, too.  The math teacher was a man who did not keep very good discipline and ran a rather loose classroom.  As I remember, there was quite a bit of conversation that went on during class, and on my part, very little learning of mathematics. 

The incident I am writing about took place during “senior week”.  Our Junior High was adjacent to the Senior High School and the whole complex covered a couple of blocks.  The seniors were always let out of school a week earlier than the rest of the school.  On this particular day, they were driving their cars around the two buildings, honking horns, and generally letting the rest of us know they were free from the confines of education.  I would imagine that the rest of the us had also quit learning for the year as school was almost out.  We were looking forward to summer vacation and freedom.

As I remember the conversation that led up to the incident, it went something like this.  A boy that I had a big crush on brought up the subject of firecrackers.  He told me another one of my friends had a firecracker.  Since I sat by the window, would I throw the firecracker out if he lighted it and gave it to me.  Frankly, because of the crush I had on him, I would have jumped out the window myself if he had asked me.  So , of course, I said I would throw the firecracker.  The first boy gave the firecracker to the second boy who lighted it and handed it to me.  I threw it out the window.

Now, keep in mind, all this went on while the math teacher was teaching…or trying to teach. 

The firecracker…a black cat type…landed behind the sheet metal covered bicycle rack and exploded with a loud bang made even louder by the bicycle rack.  The girls’ gym class was playing softball in the field by the building and needless to say, the explosion caused chaos.  Girls were running and screaming, not knowing what had caused the explosion.

Soon the Principal appeared at the door and asked if anyone knew anything about it.  I confessed that I had been responsible for the incident.  I knew I was in BIG trouble.  I didn’t have to confess and probably had I kept quiet  they might never have known.. The math teacher certainly didn’t know anything about it.  But my conscience wouldn’t let me be quiet…so I confessed.

The Principal took me with him down to the office and told me what a horribly dangerous thing I had done, etc.  He threatened to call my Mother and even dangled the threat of expulsion from school before me.  I, of course, was in tears by this time and begged him not to call  Mom as she had enough trouble right now without having to deal with a criminal daughter. 

While we were having our “conversation” the two boys who had been involved with me in the incident, came down to the office and confessed their part in the scheme.  I didn’t hear what the Principal said to them as each of us was dealt with individually.

I don’t think he called my Mother.  I imagine he realized that I had learned my lesson and that he would have no further trouble from me.  And he didn’t. 

A small postscript to the story.  The teacher, who was a first year instructor, was not back at the Junior High the next year.  I felt guilty about that, thinking it was my fault.  As I look back from the perspective of having been a teacher, I know it was not my fault.  I might have been a symptom, but the cause was he didn’t keep discipline and was not a good teacher.

Twenty years later I was working in another town at a drive-in banking facility when a man presented a check to me to cash.  He asked if I remembered him.  I did.  It was the boy who had the firecracker.  He reminded me of the incident, one which had also stayed in his memory for years.  We discussed it and reminisced about our stupidity at the time.  We were able to laugh about it then, but believe me, it was no laughing matter at the time.