Thoughts From The Past

How spoiled I am! Yesterday, while loading the dishwasher, the thought occurred to me that before dishwashers all dishes were washed by hand. Living alone, I could probably wash my dishes in the same amount of time it takes me to load the dishwasher (or less) but it sounds like such a chore to put water in the sink, add some soap, wash the dishes, dry them and put them away! However, as it is, living alone I usually don't run the dishwasher but every week to ten days (depending on if I have run out of bowls, plates etc.) so usually I rinse the dishes as I put them in the dishwasher!

This got me to remembering, also, doing the dishes as a youngster. Until my sister and I were old enough to reach the sink, we dried the dishes for our mother. Being the oldest, I was the first to do the washing, but my sister, being only a year younger, soon was able to do that, too. That, of course, caused many an argument as to who's turn it was to wash or dry. Mom tried several methods of settling the arguments, however none ever lasted long enough to completely do away with the spats.

I now think of my grandparents and great grandparents, who would have had to pump water in their early years, and what a joy it must have been to have a home with running water. I think my grandparents in the "city" had running water from as far back as I can remember, but my grandparents in the smaller rural community had a pump right outside the back door where water would be drawn in buckets and brought into the house. That meant that the city house had bathroom facilities, but the rural home had an out house for as long as I can remember. I am sure the present owner of that house has indoor plumbing but I am not sure that my grandmother ever did while living there.

That created other problems, such as doing the laundry!! Today, we have our nice automatic washers and dryers and forget that the forerunners of those appliances were galvanized tubs, wash boards and later, the beautiful Maytag electric machine with the attached wringer!!! Until automatic washers, laundry was done usually once a week - for most on Monday. For my mother, it meant, going down to the basement early to stoke the furnace and make sure the attached water heater would be sufficiently hot enough to melt the soap. She would fill her Maytag machine with water, put in the soap (sometimes granulated, but usually she would chip bar laundry soap into pieces),  load the clothes (always sorted - whites, colored clothes, dark clothes and work clothes, which were the dirtiest.), one load at a time. After agitating them for the appropriate length of time, she would go down and wring each piece out through the wringer, into a large basket; load the next group of clothes, go up and hang the items in the basket on the clothesline strung from pole to pole in the backyard. In the winter, when it was too cold to hang them outside, she would hang them in the basement (which was not as finished as basements are today). As each load was washed, she would remove the dry ones from the line and hang up the next group of wet ones. You can see, this was an all day job. The clothes that were to be ironed, were sometimes taken down from the line, slightly damp, rolled up for ironing the next day. If they were too dry, they would be laid out on the kitchen table and sprinkled to dampen them for ironing. Ironing had to be done within a day or two, or the items would begin to mildew. Today, we can wash anytime we want to (for some families this can be a load daily), automatic dryers make it unnecessary to consider the climate, and our modern fabrics make ironing almost unneeded.

Bathing was usually a weekly, sometimes twice a week event for our ancestors. Rain water was caught in barrels to be used to wash your hair, since it would be softer water and make it easier to rinse the soap out. I remember that my mother would always have us rinse our hair with rain water, with some lemon juice added, to make our hair healthier and shine nicer. Today we can shower or bathe everyday, washing our hair as frequently.

And nobody washed their car!!! If rain was predicted, the car would be left out to let the rain do it. I don't remember car washes springing up until in the 1960's but after World War II when automobiles became more a necessity than a luxury, hand washing them came into fashion as a way to earn extra spending money.

How much we take water, and the luxuries it provides us, for granted - as well as our wonderful appliances. I can't help but wonder what my aunt, who lived to be 102 (born 1894 - died 1996), would say of all the changes she saw. We are marveled at the changes we see, but she saw electricity invented, telephones become staples in our homes, rail and air travel developed and flights to space, as well as the evolution of radio, vacuum cleaners, automobiles, television, computers, and countless things I can't even recall because I have not been without them in my life.

Well, enough rambling for today. Hope you have enjoyed this walk through the past. Perhaps it will jog other memories for you as well as for me. Till next time, hugs and love.

Such Fun To Be Bowling Again

I love Tuesday mornings! That is when my bowling league meets. I am so grateful that I am able to be a part of a bowling team again.

I have always loved to watch people bowl. My father and his sister were very good bowlers. However, I usually watched them bowl, with a little bit of envy, since time didn't permit me to do it. 

Then September of 1960, I had a three year old child and had considered putting him in a nursery school program to learn to play with other children. There was four years between his older brother and him, and his sisters were older too. When I talked to the lady running the nursery school in our area, she proposed that because he had older siblings, he may find nursery school boring, and suggested that perhaps my taking a class at the YWCA could benefit us both - I could take a class and he would be in the nursery with the other children. Sounded like a good plan for me, as I had wanted to learn to play bridge and the Y was offering beginning bridge classes. It was while I was taking that class that another member of the group suggested that I might like bowling with their team and they had a very good nursery program that afternoon too. Wow, I thought - bridge and bowling, how much better could it be!

So the following week, I started bowling with a house league every Tuesday afternoon. I bowled with this league for several years. I seemed to be a natural at bowling and after a couple of years was invited to join a league where each team was sponsored by a local bowling alley and we would rotate weekly among those houses. I bowled with that league through the spring of 1980, when my husband and I were making plans to move to California. My husband and I bowled on a couples' league also, which was a lot of fun. It was sponsored by the Detroit Zoo and had originally started as a league of zoo employees, but over the years had taken in other friends and relatives of the bowlers, not connected with the zoo. Again, we bowled with this league for several years, until making preparations for our move. 

After moving to the San Diego area in California and getting settled in, my husband joined the Elks lodge and I became a member of the Women's Auxiliary and they had a bowling league, so once again I was able to enjoy the sport and make many new friends in the process. Later, after moving to Whittier for my husband's work, I bowled with the Old Newcomers group for a couple of years. 

Do to some bad business decisions we had made, it became necessary for me to work, which is when I became the archivist for the Whittier museum, which meant having to give up the bowling. It wasn't a hard trade, as I really enjoyed my work. 

In 2003, we moved to our present location and I was having difficulty with my legs and had begun to use a cane regularly. The idea of bowling was not even in my thinking. At this time my husband was going through the serious illness that took his life the following June. The many changes that had taken place in those few months made bowling not even a thought. 

I became active doing other things and through friends that I made, I was able to get back to playing bridge again. In the past two and a half years I lost some of the weight I had been carrying and through the grace of God, my legs were responding and I found I did not need the cane any longer. Then a year ago a friend mentioned that they were going to need a new member to their bowling team. I wondered if I could do it. The friend was very patient with me and we went to practice a couple of times. Now mind you, I had not held a bowling ball in nearly twenty years and those first few games were nothing to write home about. I asked my friend to give me another week to practice a little more and I would either be ready to bowl or let her off the hook! WELL - the rest of the story is history! I began bowling with the team when it resumed in August of last year and even though I had to go with a lighter ball, and don't have the speed on my approach that I used to - I WAS BOWLING AGAIN!!!

And I am a member of the team and league again this year and am so grateful for the ability, such as it is to be able to do it. I will never carry the large average I once did, or throw the heavier ball, but that isn't important - I am bowling again and loving every minute of it. And through this league have again, made some wonderful new friends. I don't know how many years I will be able to do this, but I am going to relish every Tuesday morning that I can, hopefully for years to come. 

I do play bridge occasionally too - and did I mention - many of our bowling group usually go to lunch after we finish - can life get any better??? Perhaps, but for now - it is great! Hugs and love to all.