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From
Abraham Lincoln
When
dandelions bloomed
© By Abraham Lincoln
Heat
and humidity was summer. Cold and ice was winter. We opened
the windows when it was hot and sticky and closed them when it was
raining or
cold and windy. I suppose air conditioning was when the windows were
open and
the lace curtains flapped outside in the breeze.
Most
families felt lucky to have a roof over their heads and to
have survived The Great Depression. If it was hot outside it was hot
inside.
Heat and humidity were accepted with summer. Spring and autumn came and
went
without complaints.
Spring
was the time when the long underwear came off and were
washed and hung out on the clothesline to dry. Mothers would store them
away
for the summer and hoped they still fit when autumn’s frosty mornings
returned
and school started over.
Autumn
was when kids carved faces in pumpkins, and played tricks
on neighbors to get a piece of candy as the treat. Parents talked about
the
start of school you had to try on this and that to see if it still fit
and most
of the time it didn’t.
Boys
wore high-top shoes called “clod-hoppers” that were a
couple of sizes too big when first bought but shrunk over the summer
and were
too small by fall. Mothers traded used shoes to keep from having to buy
new
ones. Most fathers had the necessary cobbler tools to make new soles
for wore
out shoes.
The
trousers that had rolled-up cuffs in the spring were rolled
down in the fall. Trousers from last year were too small and the pant
leg came
just below the knees—obviously too short.
New
patches were added where needed on overalls, shirts and
sweaters. Most kids wore sweaters with holes worn through the elbows.
Buttons
were missing on clothes and safety pins were used to replace them.
I
have never seen a movie that did a country school justice. In
the late 1930s and early 1940s, school was about making it to the 8th
grade and nothing else. Most kids never went on to high school—parents
thought
an 8th grade education was enough educating.
Kids
needed to know how to hoe tobacco when it was growing. Boys
had to toss hay from the ground up on the hay wagon. Children were
expected to
help on the farms and milking was something all children had to
do.
If
you lived in town, like I did, you still had to feed the
chickens or chop their heads off and dress them for the dinner table.
Gathering
eggs was a twice a day chore and we all had chicken houses where for
our meat
and eggs.
When
the dandelions bloomed the last of May, out school was out
for the summer and we walked home with our grade cards that showed our
final
grade and told whether we passed or failed.
One
good thing about summer was playing Monopoly on Harleman’s
front porch while rain pummeled the snowball bushes.
Abraham
Lincoln
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