There is nothing like eating fresh strawberries right off of the plant in the summer. The fruit is so sweet and fresh and I don't know of anything to compare it with.
When we misbehaved we would have a punishment for our behavior and one of punishment was that we had to weed a row in the Strawberry Patch. We had one weed free Strawberry Patch.
Taking Out The Garbage
This was a chore that one of us would draw to do after supper every night. Mother made a wheel out of paper and drew a circle on the paper and divided the chores up like a slice of pie on the wheel. She put a hand like a clock on it and we would spin for our chores until we each had a different chore. Chores: Wash Dishes, Dry Dishes, Clear Table, Sweep and Mop or Take Out the Garbage. I don't know why but I would end up with the garbage quite a bit. It doesn't seem like a hard job to do get the garbage can and take it out to the larger garbage can outside and put the garbage there until it can be burned. Well this is okay unless you are scared of the dark like I was as a kid. I thought nothing of the dark if I was playing hide-an-seek or chase or army outside with other kids but to go outside after being in the house was another thing all together. One night remains strong in my memory even until this day. I got the garbage and went to the back door and opened the door and stood just outside of the door with the garbage and left it there like before until daylight and then hurry down and take it to the garbage can before anyone caught on to what I had done. But obviously my mother had know what I had been doing so when I came back into the house she asked had I taken the garbage out. I quickly answered that I had. And her reply was are you sure? I knew that it was outside but I also knew that it was just outside and not in the can. She said, "Okay I'll just go and check." I knew then that I was in trouble and quickly explained that it was outside but not in the garbage can. She said, "You know if you do it right the first time it will be better for you that having to do it over and also getting punished for not doing it. Yes, I understand but I was still scared of the dark.
Palmer Waters
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The Youngest Child
When your the youngest child growing up you find out quickly that your to young to play with the bigger kids and not small enough to play with the little kids. So it is very important to have a lot of friends your age. In our neighborhood their were a lot of kids as the neighborhood grew so did the kids. Their were about ten kids my age that lived close by as well as a few cousins.
If one of your older siblings didn't want to do a chore they usually would hand it down to you to do.
When our mother was away from home then our oldest sister was in charge, and she loved to be in charge. I guess it made her feel important to be able to tell us what do do, when we could do it and when we had to come in for the day. Looking back I now know that with that came responsibility that she also had to shoulder.
The Roadside Fruit Stand
As the youngest boy in my family, I also had a sister (Susan) that was the youngest girl. The older kids got to help out in the Grocery Store that our family had but because we were the youngest we couldn't work there so we had to stay at home.
We wanted to be able to have a roadside fruit stand one summer because some of our cousins had a Peach Orchard and they got to sell peaches from their fruit stand and make some extra money.
After many days of discussions with our parents they said that she and I could have a road side stand at the end of our drive and we could sell to people in our neighborhood. We got us some watermelons, cantelopes and tomatoes and a few other items to sell. After a couple of days selling we had sold everything that we had been given to sell that we thought we would try and sell some of the items that we had helped can like pickled peaches, green beans, dried apples, blackberry jam and plum jelly. We had one lady in our neighborhood that kept coming back and buying these items as soon as we would put them out. All was going smoothly we thought until Mother got home and then she realized what we had done. She made us take her to the ladies house and explain that those items were not "For Sale" and that we had to give her her money back and to return the items. She didn't mind getting her money back but she didn't want to give the items back. After a good whipping and privileges being taken away we learned a valuable lesson. Only sell what you have been given.
Wash Day
Have you ever tried to use a rub board to clean your clothes? If you haven't your in for a big surprise. In Georgia the dirt is red clay and it is fun to play in but it is another matter all together to clean it out of your blue jeans.
When you play with your toy cars and trucks you want to build roads and bridges for them to travel on and to do this you are playing on the ground. Yes you have to wet it so you can smooth it out when you are grading the roads and it does get on your clothes. Our mother had decided that she was going to teach us another lesson about getting our clothes extra dirty while playing and that we would have to clean our clothes. First you get a galvanized wash top and fill it with water and soak the bluejeans in the soapy warm water. After they have soaked for a while and the dirt has loosened some you put the rub board into the tub leaning it on the edge of the tub. After busting your knuckles on the ribs of the rub board you learn to get soap on the jeans and on the ribs of the rub board. Sliding the pants up and down over and over and wringing them out and adding more water to rinse you finally get the mud and dirt out of the clothes. You then take the pants to the clothes line and hang them out to dry. It sure makes you think twice before you get them that dirty again.
Have you ever used a wringer washer to wash your clothes with? This is something else all together but it sure beats the rub board.
First you feel the tub of the wringer washer with your water and then you plug in the washer and let it agitate the clothes back and forth in the tub. Then you take the clothes one piece at a time and run them thru the wringers to squeeze the excess water out of the clothes. You quickly learn how to reverse the wringers because you get your fingers caught as you feed the material into the wringer. Then you refill the tub after letting the wash water out and rinsing the tub and fill with rinse water and start all over again. There is no wonder why we enjoy the Automatic Washers and Dryers that we have today. In the winter if you leave your clothes on the line they are frozen stiff when you take them off of the line. But ahahah the feeling of sleeping on sheets that have been hung out to dry on the line there is know feeling like it.
Ironing
My job with the ironing was to sprinkle the clothes with starch. You would take a clean coke bottle and mix you starch and water together in the bottle and then add the sprinkler head to the coke bottle so that you could sprinkle down the clothes with starch. You did this while the clothes were still wet and you would roll them up and put in the refrigerator or freezer if you had one. This would help let the starch set up. Later you would take them out and iron them for crisp smooth garment.
Palmer Waters
If one of your older siblings didn't want to do a chore they usually would hand it down to you to do.
When our mother was away from home then our oldest sister was in charge, and she loved to be in charge. I guess it made her feel important to be able to tell us what do do, when we could do it and when we had to come in for the day. Looking back I now know that with that came responsibility that she also had to shoulder.
The Roadside Fruit Stand
As the youngest boy in my family, I also had a sister (Susan) that was the youngest girl. The older kids got to help out in the Grocery Store that our family had but because we were the youngest we couldn't work there so we had to stay at home.
We wanted to be able to have a roadside fruit stand one summer because some of our cousins had a Peach Orchard and they got to sell peaches from their fruit stand and make some extra money.
After many days of discussions with our parents they said that she and I could have a road side stand at the end of our drive and we could sell to people in our neighborhood. We got us some watermelons, cantelopes and tomatoes and a few other items to sell. After a couple of days selling we had sold everything that we had been given to sell that we thought we would try and sell some of the items that we had helped can like pickled peaches, green beans, dried apples, blackberry jam and plum jelly. We had one lady in our neighborhood that kept coming back and buying these items as soon as we would put them out. All was going smoothly we thought until Mother got home and then she realized what we had done. She made us take her to the ladies house and explain that those items were not "For Sale" and that we had to give her her money back and to return the items. She didn't mind getting her money back but she didn't want to give the items back. After a good whipping and privileges being taken away we learned a valuable lesson. Only sell what you have been given.
Wash Day
Have you ever tried to use a rub board to clean your clothes? If you haven't your in for a big surprise. In Georgia the dirt is red clay and it is fun to play in but it is another matter all together to clean it out of your blue jeans.
When you play with your toy cars and trucks you want to build roads and bridges for them to travel on and to do this you are playing on the ground. Yes you have to wet it so you can smooth it out when you are grading the roads and it does get on your clothes. Our mother had decided that she was going to teach us another lesson about getting our clothes extra dirty while playing and that we would have to clean our clothes. First you get a galvanized wash top and fill it with water and soak the bluejeans in the soapy warm water. After they have soaked for a while and the dirt has loosened some you put the rub board into the tub leaning it on the edge of the tub. After busting your knuckles on the ribs of the rub board you learn to get soap on the jeans and on the ribs of the rub board. Sliding the pants up and down over and over and wringing them out and adding more water to rinse you finally get the mud and dirt out of the clothes. You then take the pants to the clothes line and hang them out to dry. It sure makes you think twice before you get them that dirty again.
Have you ever used a wringer washer to wash your clothes with? This is something else all together but it sure beats the rub board.
First you feel the tub of the wringer washer with your water and then you plug in the washer and let it agitate the clothes back and forth in the tub. Then you take the clothes one piece at a time and run them thru the wringers to squeeze the excess water out of the clothes. You quickly learn how to reverse the wringers because you get your fingers caught as you feed the material into the wringer. Then you refill the tub after letting the wash water out and rinsing the tub and fill with rinse water and start all over again. There is no wonder why we enjoy the Automatic Washers and Dryers that we have today. In the winter if you leave your clothes on the line they are frozen stiff when you take them off of the line. But ahahah the feeling of sleeping on sheets that have been hung out to dry on the line there is know feeling like it.
Ironing
My job with the ironing was to sprinkle the clothes with starch. You would take a clean coke bottle and mix you starch and water together in the bottle and then add the sprinkler head to the coke bottle so that you could sprinkle down the clothes with starch. You did this while the clothes were still wet and you would roll them up and put in the refrigerator or freezer if you had one. This would help let the starch set up. Later you would take them out and iron them for crisp smooth garment.
Palmer Waters
The Early Years
I was born in the early 1950's and life in a small town was very peaceful and quite. We lived across the street from my Dad's mother (my Grandmother). It was a bigger house than my grandmothers with a large screened front porch that we played on and it was a great place to play when it was raining or at night you felt like you were outside/but protected from the darkness by being in the house on the screen porch.
There were five of us kids and I was the youngest.
One day the front screen door was blowing open and closing with the wind and mother yelled for one of the kids to put something in front of the door to keep the door closed. One of my sisters picked me up and put me in front of the door and gave me something to play with and I became the door stop.
Our house had six rooms with a large hall in the center. There were two bedrooms on the left of the hall and on the right side there was the living room and the kitchen.
And at the back of the house beside the back porch was the bathroom.
Just before I was born the bathroom was added and I never had to grow up using an outdoor privy unless I went to some of my friends house that lived out in the country.
The large hall between the rooms was also used as a bedroom and if we had company you could double up in bed or we also had trundle beds that were stored under the regular beds during the day time.
Moving To Our New House
We lived in this house until I had had my first birthday and then we moved to a new house that my Uncles had built for us on the other side of town in the Hood Subdivision. We were one of the first houses in this subdivisions. It was a brick house and we had plenty of room to play and not many neighbors to start with. The streets in the subdivision were dirt and so was our driveway.
I remember that we used to burn all of our trash that was burnable in a open wire basket that looked like a garbage can but made out of wire and everything else was put into the garbage cans for the city to pick up once a week. If a jar got put into the burner it could get so hot that the jar would melt in the fire.
Our First Dog
My parents decided that we could get a dog and one was selected and someone gave it the name of Shep. Being the youngest I was always too young to play with a lot of the other kids, so Shep became my best friend. I went everywhere he liked to go. In the summer he knew where all of the cool spots were outdoors. In the flower beds or under the house.
I would take him for rides in my wagon down the driveway. It was so much fun to fly down the driveway in the wagon and feel the breeze of air on your face and wonder why Shep wanted to jump out of the wagon. Wasn't he having as much fun as I was.
When mother wasn't looking I tried to sneak him into the house but as always the eyes that were in the back of her head always saw us. I never got to let him share my bed with me.
My First Dog
When I was about four, I developed a breathing problem and the doctor told my parents that I had Asthma and it would be something that I would have to learn to live with. I wasn't able to run and play and get hot or play in the woods, or get dirty because it was bad for me. How can you be a little boy growing up in the South and not do all of those things? I remember many days looking out the window and watching all the others playing and having a big time while I was stuck inside or sitting under the shade of a tree. Life got to be pretty boring for me.
A lady that traded with my dad at the store told my dad that her son had had Asthma and that they had gotten him a Chiwawa dog and it had taken care of all of his problems and he could run and play like all other kids. My parents thought it over and decided what could it hurt and so we went to pick out my first dog. There was a small beige puppy in the litter and as soon as I picked it up it gave me a lick on my hand. It was love at first lick, and we became best friends on the spot. My parents tried to discourage me because it was a female, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I still remember that first night Trixie like it was last night. She was going to get to sleep with me because this was how she could help me breath better. It didn't matter how it would make me feel, just the thought of having Trixie to protect me through the night from darkness was going to be great. After settling down for the night we slept the whole night with no interruptions. This was a first because usually I would wake up several times during the night because I couldn't breath and I would have to be calmed back down and then go back to sleep.
It was working, I don't know how it was but one thing I know it that I didn't worry as much as I had before and yes I got to play outside.
Trixie loved to chase cars when we were playing outside and I didn't think of the danger of this and I would laugh at her as she would chase the cars going down the road. I had had her for about four years when one day she got to close to the car and got run over. We took her to Dr. Shirley the vet, but sadly all he said that he could do was put her to sleep and put her out of her misery. Know one ever said anything about helping me in my misery.
We took Trixie hope in a shoe box and I called all of my neighbor friends and let them know what had happened and let them know that they were invited to her funeral that would be that afternoon. I had dug a hole in the corner of the backyard and we had set up some chairs in the living room to have the funeral. We covered the piano bench with a towel and put the shoe box on the Piano bench. I had covered the shoe box with aluminum foil to make it look like a silver casket and wrapped Trixie with a pillow case. She looked like she was just resting. We sang a couple of hymns and prayed and shared experiences of what Trixie had been to us. I carried the shoebox out to my bike and tided the box on the back fender of my bike and all of my friend got on their bikes and we turned on our bike lights and off we went in our funeral possession around the block where Trixie had loved to play. We came back home to the back yard to bury my best friend. It was the hardest thing that I had ever done to put the dirt over her box as I covered her up. The next day I planted a small pine tree in front of her grave and even today that tree is still standing and is over thirty feet tall. "May she rest in peace, the best friend a boy could ever have.
Well, it seemed as though I was cured of Asthma and Trixie had done that and it didn't look like I would ever get another dog. After about six months the breathing problems started to happen again and we visited the same lady as before and I got another Chiwawa puppy and this one was a make that was black with withe spots above each eye that I named Chico.
Palmer Waters
There were five of us kids and I was the youngest.
One day the front screen door was blowing open and closing with the wind and mother yelled for one of the kids to put something in front of the door to keep the door closed. One of my sisters picked me up and put me in front of the door and gave me something to play with and I became the door stop.
Our house had six rooms with a large hall in the center. There were two bedrooms on the left of the hall and on the right side there was the living room and the kitchen.
And at the back of the house beside the back porch was the bathroom.
Just before I was born the bathroom was added and I never had to grow up using an outdoor privy unless I went to some of my friends house that lived out in the country.
The large hall between the rooms was also used as a bedroom and if we had company you could double up in bed or we also had trundle beds that were stored under the regular beds during the day time.
Moving To Our New House
We lived in this house until I had had my first birthday and then we moved to a new house that my Uncles had built for us on the other side of town in the Hood Subdivision. We were one of the first houses in this subdivisions. It was a brick house and we had plenty of room to play and not many neighbors to start with. The streets in the subdivision were dirt and so was our driveway.
I remember that we used to burn all of our trash that was burnable in a open wire basket that looked like a garbage can but made out of wire and everything else was put into the garbage cans for the city to pick up once a week. If a jar got put into the burner it could get so hot that the jar would melt in the fire.
Our First Dog
My parents decided that we could get a dog and one was selected and someone gave it the name of Shep. Being the youngest I was always too young to play with a lot of the other kids, so Shep became my best friend. I went everywhere he liked to go. In the summer he knew where all of the cool spots were outdoors. In the flower beds or under the house.
I would take him for rides in my wagon down the driveway. It was so much fun to fly down the driveway in the wagon and feel the breeze of air on your face and wonder why Shep wanted to jump out of the wagon. Wasn't he having as much fun as I was.
When mother wasn't looking I tried to sneak him into the house but as always the eyes that were in the back of her head always saw us. I never got to let him share my bed with me.
My First Dog
When I was about four, I developed a breathing problem and the doctor told my parents that I had Asthma and it would be something that I would have to learn to live with. I wasn't able to run and play and get hot or play in the woods, or get dirty because it was bad for me. How can you be a little boy growing up in the South and not do all of those things? I remember many days looking out the window and watching all the others playing and having a big time while I was stuck inside or sitting under the shade of a tree. Life got to be pretty boring for me.
A lady that traded with my dad at the store told my dad that her son had had Asthma and that they had gotten him a Chiwawa dog and it had taken care of all of his problems and he could run and play like all other kids. My parents thought it over and decided what could it hurt and so we went to pick out my first dog. There was a small beige puppy in the litter and as soon as I picked it up it gave me a lick on my hand. It was love at first lick, and we became best friends on the spot. My parents tried to discourage me because it was a female, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
I still remember that first night Trixie like it was last night. She was going to get to sleep with me because this was how she could help me breath better. It didn't matter how it would make me feel, just the thought of having Trixie to protect me through the night from darkness was going to be great. After settling down for the night we slept the whole night with no interruptions. This was a first because usually I would wake up several times during the night because I couldn't breath and I would have to be calmed back down and then go back to sleep.
It was working, I don't know how it was but one thing I know it that I didn't worry as much as I had before and yes I got to play outside.
Trixie loved to chase cars when we were playing outside and I didn't think of the danger of this and I would laugh at her as she would chase the cars going down the road. I had had her for about four years when one day she got to close to the car and got run over. We took her to Dr. Shirley the vet, but sadly all he said that he could do was put her to sleep and put her out of her misery. Know one ever said anything about helping me in my misery.
We took Trixie hope in a shoe box and I called all of my neighbor friends and let them know what had happened and let them know that they were invited to her funeral that would be that afternoon. I had dug a hole in the corner of the backyard and we had set up some chairs in the living room to have the funeral. We covered the piano bench with a towel and put the shoe box on the Piano bench. I had covered the shoe box with aluminum foil to make it look like a silver casket and wrapped Trixie with a pillow case. She looked like she was just resting. We sang a couple of hymns and prayed and shared experiences of what Trixie had been to us. I carried the shoebox out to my bike and tided the box on the back fender of my bike and all of my friend got on their bikes and we turned on our bike lights and off we went in our funeral possession around the block where Trixie had loved to play. We came back home to the back yard to bury my best friend. It was the hardest thing that I had ever done to put the dirt over her box as I covered her up. The next day I planted a small pine tree in front of her grave and even today that tree is still standing and is over thirty feet tall. "May she rest in peace, the best friend a boy could ever have.
Well, it seemed as though I was cured of Asthma and Trixie had done that and it didn't look like I would ever get another dog. After about six months the breathing problems started to happen again and we visited the same lady as before and I got another Chiwawa puppy and this one was a make that was black with withe spots above each eye that I named Chico.
Palmer Waters
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