Blog

(Transcribed below)

1. MUMPS ON EASTER – I had to stay home but my mother dressed me in pretty clothes and I went outside in our yard (with a cloth around my head to hold up the mumps!)
2. BLOOMERS FULL OF SAND – Our friend Reney Houston lived in a house with a crawl space and we’d go down there to play. One of our favorite games was to fill our bloomers (panties) full of sand and waddle around.
3. AN EMPTY BARN – When I was 10 years old our family took the train to British Columbia, intending to live there. As we rode across Canada an Episcopal priest got on the train and he played with my sisters & me. He kidded with us, and one of my wise-cracks was “An empty barn needs no thatch.” (He was bald-headed!)
4. Elverta was another good friend, but on Saturday evenings as we all played out under the street light, she would pick a fight with me, and I often got a black eye. My mom said I shouldn’t fight, my dad said I had to call her bluff and fight back, and my Aunt Jennie said “It looks like it’s be damned if you do, and be damned if you don’t!”
5. BE MY VALENTINE – Another best friend, Helen Cox, gave me a little valentine, and she gave Hamilton Treadway a big one. Guess what? Hamilton gave her a little valentine and I got a big one from him! That really made my day.
6. Uncle Luke and Aunt Ellen lived on a farm near Beardstown, Illinois, our home town. I was probably about seven years old when they invited our family out to supper. Uncle Luke was very deaf, and I guess I was not paying attention to him until he took a piece of bread off the dish and acted like he was going to throw it. He was talking very loud and as he looked down the table, I thought he was going to throw it to me, and I said “No thank you,” and everybody laughed. What he was really talking about was that he had been eating with some people who had bad manners, and the father threw a slice of bread to each one at the table, instead of passing it around on a plate.
7. CHRISTMAS TREE – One Christmas we could not afford a tree. My dad had been very sick. The last day at school, I asked the teacher what she was going to do with our classroom Christmas tree. She said they would probably throw it away and asked if I would like it. I got my friend, Helen, to help me carry it home. When we got to her house she said “Wait a minute.” I asked her “Why?” and she said she was going to get a knife and cut her end off. You can bet I dragged that tree home in record time!
8. FLOOD – The Illinois River overflowed and much of Beardstown was flooded. Friends who lived at the lower end of the street had to move and were living in a garage. There was water around our house but we could still live there. My dad had our chickens and some of the neighbors’ chickens in a coop set off the ground in a very crowded space. One evening we went across town to visit our neighbors, and my dad invited them to come over for a chicken dinner. My sister, Bertie, said “Yes, they’re all dying anyhow!”
9. MODEL T – Speaks for itself!
10. COOKIE BARREL – We had been to the neighborhood grocery store, and the cookie barrel was out in the middle of the store. My dad had already gone outside and when I came out I had a handful of gingersnaps. (Incidentally, I had seen men help themselves to cookies.) My dad told me that I had taken something that didn’t belong to me, and to take them back. I went back, opened the door, and threw the cookies inside, and ran back. (But I did learn something about honesty!) 
11. HERE, TWEED! When we were in British Columbia, we were walking along a narrow road through the forest, just outside our town of Willow River when we heard our dog barking at a bear who had run to a tree. Sensing danger, we yelled “Here, Tweed” and started running for home. Tweed came running after us, and the bear didn’t follow!
12. OUCH! Speaks for itself!