I was forced to travel back into another time this week. My microwave went on the fritz. And then without warning, the dishwasher befriended the microwave. My blow dryer joined the crowd when it wouldn’t, you know, blow.
Shoved back in time, I soon found myself boiling water, washing dishes with a cloth, standing in the sunlight of the kitchen window to speed up the drying process.
I was reminded of nights in the kitchen of doing dishes with Mom. I thought it was such a chore then. Oh, how I’d love to be able to do dishes with her again. She was so much wiser than I. When her dishwasher gave out, she never got it fixed. Maybe it was her way of staying in touch with my everyday life.
I was reminded of the many meals we cooked together. Cooking was easy with Mom. The main dish on Sunday infiltrated the rest of the week. Leftover ham on Sunday could be found in the baked rolls on Monday and the navy beans on Tuesday. Mom’s recipes were few, but hearty with lots of red meat and potatoes. She’d walk, we only owned one car, to the corner meat market every day. When the butcher hired a young man who wore bib overalls, Mom took a liking to him, and fixed him up with a young girl in the neighborhood. They named their first daughter after her. Dinner was served every night at 5:30, rain, shine or church meetings. Carb and fat conscious, Mom wasn’t. A stack of Helm®‘s wheat bread on a turquoise Melmac® saucer and a cube of Nucoa® margarine occupied space on the brown formica kitchen table with matching vinyl covered chairs. We didn’t eat out more than a handful of times, and fast food (an oven-cooked Swanson®’s TV dinner on a foil plate) was a real treat.
Yesterday I was reminded of hanging baskets of clothes on a line in the backyard. There was a freshness Bounce® hasn’t captured, though I admit the stiff-as-boards bath towels left my skin red and chaffed.
I was reminded of pink sponge rollers and round hooded hair dryers, walking to school — a mile and a half — no snow I admit, can openers, party lines, scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees, but mostly of time spent with Mom.
Yesterday I ate food without any assistance from a microwave. The dishes were washed and put away immediately. My hair eventually dried. I guess that’s how it was for the pioneers.
What a shame, don’t you think, that my microwave passed away on the eve of its 21st birthday? Not even old enough to drink.
Related posts:
- Family showdowns
- My family is not normal
- The ole’ swimming hole
- Long ago in the land of milk and cookies
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Wonderful! You brought so many memories flooding to the surface — like the time my mother melted the pink sponge rollers in my hair…. She had one of those hairdryers that looked like one of those old fashioned carry on cases.
But on another note their was something seriously wrong with last week for everyone! For me it was my hard drive, my camera and my hair dryer. Gremlins??
Penny,
Great Blog!!! It’s funny when we are kids all we can think about is getting away from our parents and as an adult you wish you had more and more time with them, you realize how precious our time is with our parents….
Beni
No microwave, dishwasher or blowdryer? Thank God you still have your smart phone. It might have been wrist slashing trime . . . ..
Man, how did we do it? I think everyone should go through it once in awhile. I had teh hairdryer that one end of the hose hooked to the shower cap that went over the hair and the other end hooked into the dryer case. what memories.