A real pain!

[Rowdy66]

God, The Memories You Guys Have Recalled For Me Today. I, Too, Never Went To A Doctors Office Until I Was Pregnant. We Lived In The Middle Of Where The Doctors Lived And Any Little Thing That Happened My Folks Had The Doctor To The House. I Remember I Got Stung By A Scorpion When I Was About Six And My Mom Thought I Was Going To Die. The Doctor Came And They Put Bluing On My Toe To Take The Pain Out Of The Sting. I Can Remember The Look On His Face When My Mom Told Him I Was Bitten By A Poisonous Scorpion,

Skeet A Mangle Iron Is A Big Flat Iron That Opens, You Either Stand Or Sit In Front Of It And Place The Item To Be Ironed; Usually A Large Item Like A Sheet; And You Would Pull The Top Down And Then The One We Had Had A Foot Pedal That Operated The Steam. I Was Never Allowed To Use It, It Was Considered Too Dangerous. In Fact, I Don't Remember My Mom Ever Using It Either. I Think It Was My Grandma's. When I Was A Kid Growing Up We All Lived At My Grandmother's Big House. My Folks Had The Top Floor, My Mom's Sister And Her Family Shared The Bottom Floor With My Grandmother. It Was Great, Too Bad Families Don't Still Live That Way. Everyone Was So Close, But After Was Moved Out When I Was 12 It Seemed Like The Family Grew Apart. I Guess Everyone Had Their Own Thing To Do And They Just Didn't Get Together The Way They Did When They All Lived In The Same House. Rowdy

 

[Skeet]

Okay, my mother's ironing machine thingee was something like this. She was so excited to get it. I remember getting grounded for not ironing my clothes when they came out of the dryer. I would leave them in the basket and iron them as I decided to wear them...

I miss having the whole family together at Christmas and other events. When we didn't live in Texas anymore, we drove home two days straight in snowstorms to be there every Christmas until my grandparents died.

 

[Jamie]

I remember those tops for coke bottles, too. My mom was a stickler for ironing. Everything, including dad's undies, was ironed. For a while she took it to a lady in town, but then we moved and she started doing it. Got a machine that you sat in front of to iron sheets and big things.

Skeet....I still HAVE that ironing machine that belonged to my Mom. She was so proud the day Daddy bought it for her. Although she quit using it in the 1960's, she kept it and made new cotton covers for the roller when they would start looking a little yellow. I guess it was "just in case." They still sell those machines for flat piece ironing. Mine is in the basement along with many other of Mom and Dad's things that I'm slowly getting rid of. I tell you, though, those old memories are so warm and wonderful! Life was pretty good when it was simple.

 

[Weezy]

Skeet....I still HAVE that ironing machine that belonged to my Mom. She was so proud the day Daddy bought it for her. Although she quit using it in the 1960's, she kept it and made new cotton covers for the roller when they would start looking a little yellow. I guess it was "just in case." They still sell those machines for flat piece ironing. Mine is in the basement along with many other of Mom and Dad's things that I'm slowly getting rid of. I tell you, though, those old memories are so warm and wonderful! Life was pretty good when it was simple.

wooooweeeeee! While it didn't seem so simple at the time, in retrospect life certainly seems to have been so much simpler! You guys have brought out some great little memory trips for me too, especially about the mangle! My mother HATED her, but used it religiously until I was big enough to iron the sheets and flat linens. While she never ironed my father's undies, she DID knit him socks until the 1970s when she finally made him wear store-bought socks.

Our sprinkler bottle was a Coke bottle until I knocked it off the ironing board and broke it; then it was a plastic bottle with a sprinkler lid--it was made specifically for sprinkling! Wonders! We put the sprinkled laundry into a zippered plastic bag and stored it in the "fruit room" in the basement--really a root cellar that stayed cool year round..where we kept all the fruits, jams, pickles, etc. that we canned every year.

I am glad that I no longer "have" to can fruits! Its so much more fun to freeze and preserve things as a hobby instead of a "have to"!

Weezy