Moving To Town Was A Cultural Shock

 Grandma Lu had been working for several days on her mother's memory box. It was full of keepsakes and newspaper clippings, and of course, old letters. Some of the things she kept were happy, some were sad, but most of all so very interesting. The newspapers were so old and brittle she had to be careful handling them, but they were full of news from when she was just an eleven or twelve year old child. "Oh I remember moving into town that year. What a shock. The water didn't taste good, the milk didn't taste right (there was no cream floating on it) and my mother had gone to work at a grocery store! Dad had gone to work at the local newspaper as a linotype operator. Oh my goodness, here is one of my favorite pictures of dad. He's reading a book. He loved to read. Here's another one of him at the newspaper. Oh I loved that man. I actually made this picture at the photography studio I worked at when I was only fourteen years old.

 Oh what a change for my brother and I. We were on our own for the first time in our lives. He was about seven and I was four years older. He and his friends would be the mighty hunters of snakes and terrorized the wildlife in the woods and the creek that was close by. My friend and I would eat ice cream like it was going out of style. The only time we had ice cream on the farm was for holidays and large family gatherings. Mom made it and the men would crank that old ice cream freezer. Oh it was so good! We didn't have ice cubes, but chunks of ice that she or the men would chop with an ice pick. At one time we had an ice box that held ice in the bottom. I called him the ice man when he came in to deliver the ice. Sometimes the ice would melt and over flow onto the floor. I think I still have that ice pick somewhere.

When we moved into town I had a change in my chores that I had to do. I no longer had to wash all of those hateful baking dishes because Mom no longer baked for the grocery stores for money, but she worked at the grocery store until six o'clock in the evening. It was my job to keep an eye on my brother and to start the potatoes for supper at five-thirty. That doesn't sound like such a hard job, does it? "Oh, I used to get into so much trouble because I burned the potatoes at least every other night and those were my dad's favorite. Mercy, my friend that loved ice cream as much as I did also loved to play piano. We would play all kinds of duets and forget the time to start the potatoes or burn them. Oh, those were the days.

 Oh then there was the can can stage. They were ruffled slips that we wore under our poodle skirts or any full skirts for that matter. Here's a picture of me wearing my disco skirt I made in Home Ec. My mother really came down on me for that. I got a C+. Her sewing was meticulous. I did it to get it done.

I would starch my can cans with her sugar. It was a really bad idea because when it was hot my can can would stick to my legs when I sat down and made a little crunchy noise. They also would drop tiny little flakes of sugar as I walked down the halls at school. Oh the memories. My goodness, this old newspaper said that sugar was thirty-seven cents for five pounds in those days. But, I can see she only made twenty-five dollars a week and I have a feeling that finding the pantry empty of sugar was just a tiny bit irritating. I know for a fact that the flies loved my can can slips because as soon as I hung them on the clothes line there were hundreds of them making a snack of my handiwork. She chuckled to herself as she was going through all of the fun things her mother had saved. 

"Well, I believe I'll give my friend , Grandma B a call. I miss her and the girls. I've been busy going through these things. I haven't even been up to Marleewood lately.  "Hello, B? Do you happen to have the girls today? Great put the coffee on. I'll bring the snacks today. I'll be over in a while. They are doing what? You bought them what? You have got to be kidding me. Well Whitlee said she wanted to be in my "old" stories. I can't wait to see this. Tell them I'll be there in about ten minutes. I'll make sure to bring my cell phone so I can take lots of pictures. Bye!"

Grandma Lu was in for a very fun time.....