Kith and Kin

I had cousins, aunts and uncles all over New England and beyond. In the 1930's, Mom and Dad took us on a trip to Canada, where we had a distant cousin on my mother's side.

We packed a picnic lunch (in those days everyone did, especially if the ride would be farther than 20 miles) and headed off to the border. The scenery was beautiful. We crossed the St. John River and eventually came to a lovely green valley. The cousin had a farm between the river and mountain foothills, and it seems to my indistinct memory it was in New Brunswick.

The farmhouse was small and neat, with a big red barn, a woodshed and a 'spring house.' The pastures rose behind the buildings and were covered with sheep. My mother's cousin, wife and daughter were very sociable, and offered us children some real buttermilk from the spring house. She gave us little tin cups to go help ourselves. Back at the house she had fresh doughnuts to go with it and we ate like there would be no tomorrow.

Altogether, it was a wonderful time. We begged them to come and visit us in Maine, and several months later they did. We enjoyed the visit again. Several days after their visit, I found some of my jewelry and trinkets had disappeared. When I told Mom, she said I must have lost them and forgotten. All became clear a few weeks later. We received a package in the mail from Mom's cousin--it seemed the cousin's little girl was a diagnosed kleptomaniac, and he was returning her loot. Even if they had never been returned, that wonderful meal of fresh doughnuts and buttermilk would have been well worth it.

My Letter A

Most high school students get their school letter through sports. I was so shy and timid, I never considered trying out for athletic activities. The girls' basketball team would have tramped all over me like a herd of elephants, I was so small and unnoticeable. So I found my outlet through reading, public speaking and dramatics.

Why would you take up public speaking, you ask, if you were so shy? It's because, when you memorize a speech or part in a play you assume the identity of another person and you hide yourself behind that persona. You become that other person! In doing so, you become free of your inhibitions, and you get a sense of power.

In the first contest I entered, my selection was titled "The Blessed Damosel," a monologue supposedly by Joan of Arc, a real sob story for the Ages. It was a real tear-jerker. After I had it memorized, I practiced "emoting." During the actual contest (in which I had the final spot), I laid the pathos on thick. I was surprised, halfway through, to see women wiping away actual tears with their handkerchiefs. I could hardly believe my speech was having this response. I had repeated the speech so often in practice, I had lost all connection with the content. I found this extremely funny, and while I was waxing eloquently about the horror of being burned at the stake, I was laughing to myself about the reaction I was getting.

I was stunned to receive First Prize!

Smoke

In the early thirties, the economy was still in the doldrums from the Great Depression. Clothes were still hard to come by, and Mom was making my clothes out of hand-me-downs sent to us from Aunt Mabel in Boston.
Word went around town one day that there had been a train accident and fire, and that Hussey's Dry Goods store was having a big sale of smoke-damaged clothing. My friend Tillie and I hit up our parents for some money and rushed over to Hussey's . It was a great sale! We each bought two dresses for 25 cents each. Tillie bought a plaid 'fish-tail' coat (the hem of which started at your knees in front, them went down to a V in the back) for a dollar, and I bought a nice grey wool for another buck. We rushed home to display our wonderful bargains.
Mom was thrilled, although the clothing did reek of smoke, but after a few hours hanging on the outdoor clothesline (and a few dabs of Lily of the Valley perfume) they were quite wearable.
Sunday morning found us in church, proudly displaying our new clothes. It was a cold day, and we were late, so we had to find room in the vestry. The vestry was always cold so there was a huge parlor stove at the far side to supplement the furnace heat. Tillie and I quickly sidled up to the front of it and stood warming our backs while the sermon went on. The Rev. Murchy was talking about Hebrew children and the fiery furnace. and my coat began to smell like smoke.
I thought "Oh, dear, the heat is bringing out the smoke smell from the train fire," and backed away from the stove, only to discover I had singed a big patch on the back of my new coat. I learned the old saying,"Where there's smoke there's fire," was only too true.

Snookums

My first pet was Snookums--a short-haired multi-colored cat, of the kind often called a money-cat. She was white, black, orange and brown, in no discernible pattern. I was just old enough to be assigned her care and feeding, which wasn't difficult as she ate only table scraps and any mice foolish enough to try to take up habitation in the house. I was very fond of her, and she slept in my bed with me or curled up in my lap while I was reading. I felt she was my responsibility.

One Sunday morning, as I was getting dressed for church, Snooks persisted in lying on the clothes I laid out, and pacing around the bed. As I lifted her down to the floor, I noticed her stomach felt distended.

"Oh, oh," I thought, "she's constipated." I rushed downstairs, got the castor oil, and poured a tablespoonful down her throat (not without difficulty and a scratch or two). When I left for church, Snooks was comfortably curled up in the rocking chair, snoozing, so I didn't even bother to put her outside.

On our return, Mom began getting our usual Sunday lunch together (left-over Saturday beans and potato salad ). As hungry as I was, my first thought was Snookums, so I rushed upstairs to check on her. She was nowhere in sight.

Then I noticed a strange lump uder the covers of my bed. I pulled them back, and there she was, nursing three newborn baby kittens!!

My First Ethics Lesson

I committed a crime over seventy years ago, and I think it's about time I confess, so that I can have peace of mind for my remaining years.

My second-best girlfriend, Frances, lived with her several sisters and brothers at the far end of our street. Her family could have been classed as "deprived". The house was small and disreputable and you couldn't tell where the line lay between the lawn, the back yard and the pig pen. Frances was fun to be with--she was at least two years my senior, so to me she was more or less an "older woman," much more savvy about life than I, and the advice she passed on to me would not have been appreciated by my mother.

For some unknown reason, she and I were trekking through J.J. Newberry's store on a Saturday morning, looking over the newest merchandise. We paused by the nail polish counter and admired all the colors. Next I knew, Frances was pocketing a bottle of nail polish. I said, "You're not supposed to do that!" She countered with, "They'll never miss it. Take one." The temptation was too great and I put one in my pocket, too. Even as I did, I had a terrible guilty feeling. The guilty feeling got even worse when I reached home. Somehow, what I had done didn't square with the Ten Commandments we had been reading about in Sunday School.

The regrets multiplied. I was not a stupid kid. I also suddenly realized I could not wear the polish. Not only could I not afford to buy the polish. My mother would obviously see it on my nails and would ask where I got it, and I knew I could not lie. I was in a quandary--what could I do? I decided to hide the darn thing until I decided, so I put it high on a never used shelf in the garage. That burned in my conscience for at least another week. Finally, I couldn't stand the guilt any longer, and on my next visit to J.J. Newberry's I took the unopened bottle and sneaked it back on the counter, so I could rationalize that I had actually only borrowed it for a little while.

What a relief to have that off my mind. Seventy-plus years of guilt is a terrible thing. I should have been a Catholic! I could have gone to confession the following week!

Grace under Fire

My mother related the following story to me many times, and I know it's true because she always told the truth. Whenever she would get half way through the narration, she would break into laughter and find it hard to continue.

It seems that just before they were married, Dad acquired a new (used) car. Being a fairly good mechanic , he planned to fix it up--and it needed a lot of fixing up. He invited Mom to take a test drive with him, so they packed a picnic lunch and headed out toward Haystack Mountain. The car performed well, and they were enjoying a beautiful sunny day. At some point, the ride started to get a little bumpy. Dad stopped the car and found one tire was a little flat. He removed the wheel, got out the hand pump, and proceeded to fill the tire with air. To his surprise, the red tube inside the tire began to swell and push out and the crack widened as it did. The next thing Mom knew, the tube had formed a great red bubble, and Dad was yelling at her, "Run, Grace, RUN!" he grabbed her hand and they both ran. The bubble was expanding, and they hadn't gone far before "bam!!" the tire exploded. Apparently, the heat in the tire had melted that old red rubber tube and removed any elasticity it had. She didn't say if they had a spare tire--she always broke into laughter when she got to the point of his yelling, and found it hard to continue the story.

The Scavengers

Living in a small town during the great Depression had its advantages for us. If you lived in the cities and didn't have money to buy vegetables, you didn't get vegetables. In our small town in northern Maine, mom and dad had a ready crew of little scavengers who brought in much of the fruit and vegetables we needed. We didn't recognize boundaries in our looting and pillage, and mom often didn't know where we got some of the stuff.

Of course we had a big garden, but down off Church St., behind Dr. ----'s house there was an old pasture where huge dandelion plants flourished. We descended on that pasture with pails and knives every year, just before the yellow blossoms emerged. Boiled up with a little bacon fat, drained and topped with butter and a sprinkle of vinegar, it was food for the gods--and no one ever questioned if it was organic!

Between our house and the mountain, along Rocky Brook, there was a large stand of choke-cherry trees, the cherries being the kind that really puckered up your mouth. (Perhaps that was where I got my taste for hot peppers.). Mom had a recipe for making chokecherry 'shrub' --a drink that I've never had since, and sometimes long for. Whenever we went to swim in that brook,we took along a pail to gather the cherries, and mom preserved bottles of 'chokecherry' syrup so we were ready for summertime drinks.

Our biggest benefactors in our quest for loot were the priests of the rectory at the Catholic Church across town. The Fathers had a lovely grove of horseplums. Every fall, we made a pilgrimage to pick those plums, bringing back a huge pailful to mom to preserve. We were vague about the source, and never were caught or questioned by the Fathers.

Another source of fruit was the great crabapple tree on Mrs. Sweet's lawn, just down the street from us. In her case, she actually paid us to pick all that fell to the ground and any we could reach. Mom had an infinite number of recipes for those, especially pickled. I realize now that Mrs Sweet just wanted the lawn cleaned up, and to her it was worth paying 25 cents a pail.

Thinking back, the stuff we picked or worked for ourselves always tasted sweeter and were much more appreciated, looted or not, than anything from the grocery store.

From Holland with Love

Grandma Bertha, my mother's mother, was nothing like dad's mother. His mother (who was a little English and a little French) had long dark hair piled high and wore long black dresses and high-top buttoned shoes (and smoked a corn-cob pipe). Mom's mother, Grandma Bertha, was a plump person with a halo of white curls. She wore printed cotton house dresses and, always, an apron. Her parents had come from Holland.
She and her sister were married to two brothers--Bertha to John, and Eliza to Isaiah. No two couples could be more unlike. Bertha and John were jolly and outgoing, very involved in all of our family activities. I spent a lot of time in her sunny kitchen
watching her cook, or I would sit fascinated as she 'tatted doilies' or knitted endless pairs of mittens (double thickness for warmth)for us children. She had a small white biscuit poodle (called Dewey--named for a bad habit as a pup).She had trained him to leap onto her lap and pull the apron over himself.
In contrast, Aunt Eliza and Uncle Isaiah were so withdrawn they were anti-social. Aunt Eliza was reported to be a chronic complainer and Uncle Isaiah a grump. Although the two couples, near the end of their lives, lived in identical houses side by side, I cannot call up a clear image of Eliza or Isaiah, and cannot recall any contacts with them.
In the early twenties, Grandma Bertha and Grandpa John had a huge home on Church Street, just a few hundred yards from the Baptist Church. It was a rambling old house--from the great square house that fronted on Church St. through a pantry, a woodshed, to a barn. Beyond the barn was a garden, where Grandpa grew all my favorites--artichokes, parsnips, radishes, and rhubarb. Grandpa told me they were particularly healthy for me because they grew so near the church. He gave me permission to take any I wanted, and I plundered religiously!!
One of our favorite family activities was the annual berry-picking expedition. The whole family participated. Carrying large pails, wearing wide-brimmed hats and long-sleeved shirts and toting a lunch basket, we would all pile into the back of a truck and head out to the high-bush blueberry fields at the foot of the mountain. On the way, we children were warned to stick close to the grown-ups because (l) there were bears in the woods, and (2)we could get lost and never be seen again.
The warnings had the desired effect. Johnny and I stuck so close to our parents they fairly tripped over us, and probably got very tired of hearing, "Ma, where are you?" or "Daddy-y-y?" every 5 minutes.

When we returned home with our pails and stomachs full and everyone sporting purple tongues, we all pitched in cleaning the berries. Anticipating blueberry pie was a sweet feeling, enhanced by the knowledge our own labor had produced all of that bounty.

The fact that Grandma and Grandpa joined in the berry-picking lent an important dimension to the occasion. Riding with them, cuddled up together under blankets to keep out the wind, listening to jokes and talk of old times, I felt a closeness, a sense of security and belonging, I will never forget.

When Grandma and Grandpa got so old the great house was too much for them to care for, they sold it and moved into a small cottage next door to Isaiah and Eliza. With this move, life changed for all of us--no more huge Thanksgiving dinners with roast goose for 12 or 14 people. No more "root cellar" with barrels of sourkraut or dill pickles. The little cottage had no dining room--just bedroom, livingroom, kitchen and bath. Of course she could not bring the furniture from the big house, but she did bring along the big "tick" that enveloped you when you lay on it. This she had made herself from the down and feathers she stripped from geese she beheaded for past dinners.

I never saw her kill the geese, but I watched when she killed chickens. She would hold the feet with one hand, lay the head over
the chopping block, and "Wham!," a quick chop through the neck! Inevitably, the chicken would fall to the ground and walk a few steps before collapsing. When I asked her why the chickens did this, she said she honestly didn't know.

Grandma Bertha was a true pioneer, strong and courageous. She taught me a lot about life and responsibility--not by lectures, but by example. I am so glad my grandmother was Bertha, and not her sister Eliza who has no happy place in my memories.

The Whippet

In the 30's, Dad bought us a new family car--a second-hand Whippet. Unlike the big black Buick sedans that were prevalent, this was a small 4-door, in greyish color, looking much more like an upright box or one of those cars they transported criminals in to prison. The windows were square, and you had no vents to open for a breeze. It was peppy. and the motor had a brisk put-put sound and a horn that said "OOOOD-la!"loud enough to scare any walker off the road.

Of course we loved it. It went about 25 miles an hour, which, with the loudness of the motor, made it seem like today's 80 mph, and we thought that was a tremendously high rate of speed. We would hold on to the bars on the sides for dear life.

One thing we didn't like were the rust spots, of which there were many. Frank and Johnny and I got the idea we wanted to repaint the car. We got permission, perhaps because our parents thought that would keep us out of worse mischief. We were fairly dexterous children, and we promised we would finish the job once we started.

One day when our parents had a day of many errands to accomplish,
Frank got the paint and brushes out of the garage, and we all set to work. By the time Mom and Dad returned from whatever their day's chores were, the car paint job was nearly completed. Mom and Dad were very surprised, and proud of the neat job we had done, and made sure we finished the job. They were a little surprised at the color--robin's egg blue! I have to say, Mom and Dad always encouraged our initiative. After all, they had forgotten to stipulate the color, and just assumed it would be black. They acted as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be driving around town in a robin's egg blue Whippet.

The Haircut

My father was a great barber during the depression. He had his own technique, and it worked just fine.
He would have me sit in the highchair, so he would have a good angle from which to use the scissors. A towel was fastened around my neck, and then a properly sized mixing bowl put on my head. He would cut all the way around below the bowl edge. The cut for the bangs depended on how good an eye he had --snip and comb, snip and comb.
This he called our special "dutch cut" and it worked very well for me and for Johnny. It did not work for Frank who was older. So Frank got to have a regular haircut by the town barber.

At age ten, I was pretty much an "I can do it" kid like my great grandson Evan, who is eight years old right now. So--when my friend Tillie started looking a little shaggy, I offered to cut her hair. Having seen how Dad did it, I was sure I knew exactly how. I put a bowl over her head and started cutting, but somehow the cut just didn't match the bowl edge. After cutting, it just wasn't a straight edge.

"Perhaps if you wet it down," Tillie suggested, "it will stay in one place."

I wet it down and began cutting. I cut one side, but then the other was too long. I cut the other side, and that left the first side too long. By the time I had both sides relatively even, her hair was pretty much above the ears and she resembled Oaky Doaks. When she looked in the mirror, she began to cry. I reassured her that it was the newest "French haircut." She looked very unconvinced.

Apparently her parents were also unconvinced. The next person to comment on her haircut was my Mom, who had some relatively unhappy comments from Tillie's mom. I do remember that in between her comments to me she was trying to hold back some laughter. It was impressed upon me that initiative is a good thing, within limits. And I never did apply for a barber's license!

My Daughter's Audio Memory

On July 4, 1986, Ella and Red were visiting me in Kansas. Because it was their anniversary we celebrated with good friends Lyn and Gary around the dining room table by asking them questions about their life together and their family histories. One of the stories they told was about Frank's love affair with flight. While Ella and Red reminisced, Lyn and I had surreptitiously set up a cassette recorder. The sound is a little scratchy because of that, and now and then you will hear a chair creak, but the amazement, pride, and joy in Frank's accomplishment come through loud and clear. (audio file is about 4 minutes) CJJ

The Wright Stuff

After a few more rides in cousin Bert's plane, my brother Frank was determined he would become an aviator. After running the gamut of model planes, he decided he would build one himself and fly it.

He was soon set up in the big barn back of our house, with lumber and dad's carpentry tools. He did indeed build a plane. It had 2x4's for a body, and plywood for wings. He fastened skis to the underside.

It was wintertime, we had lots of snow. We had a ski slope just a short distance from home, and there was a small "jump" at the bottom where we could take off for a couple of yards. With help from Eddy and Norman (neighborhood friends), some ropes, and (yes, a few pushes from me!) the plane arrived at the top of the hill. We held our breath as the plane (with Frank carefully balanced on the 2x4 body) started down the icy ski tracks. It picked up enough speed near the bottom of the slope to go up over the ski jump, and out into the air.

Unfortunately, the weight of the front end of the craft was a little too much for the speed. It tilted up on the front end, flipped over and landed upside down.

He wasn't hurt, but he was a very crestfallen aviator as he dragged the still intact "plane" back to the barn for dismantling.

I asked him if he was going to try again. "No," he said, "I just didn't have the right stuff. But I'll do it someday."

And he did. After receiving a Purple Heart in World War II and marrying Betty, he built experimental gliders and a beautiful little monoplane and flew in them himself. Our cousin Ticky persuaded Frank to teach him to fly the plane and, when Frank's family came along, Frank decided he should give up experimental flying. He sold the plane to Ticky and confined himself to attending regional air shows.

Up, Up and Away!

The love of flying runs in our family genes. Although the closest my father got to flying was when he was a motorcycle courier in World War I, his brother had 3 sons who became flyers, and my 2 brothers also became civilian flyers. My cousins Elwell and Bert flew planes for Norcross Co, one as a test pilot, and the other whose category I never really knew. I just remember hearing that the test pilot was killed in a crash out west. I will never forget cousin Bert. I think it was around 1932 (I was probably 9 yrs old). Cousin Bert flew his beautiful green monoplane from Portland, Maine up to our small country town, landing in a stubble field between our home and Mars Hill mountain. He hiked to town, showed up at our door at lunch time (as he often did). After a good meal, which put him in a really good mood, he remembered that he had promised to give us children a ride in the plane. So we all trecked out to the field by the mountain, and uncle Bert proved he was a gentleman. I actually got the first ride!!

Uncle Bert hoisted me up into the open seat (mine was on the right side), he fastened our seat belts, and we took off. I had no goggles, though Bert was wearing some. The motor was very loud, so we could not talk, but he pointed to the controls. The plane did not have a steering wheel, but a "joy stick" and you pulled it toward yourself to go up, away from yourself to descend, to left or right to bank left or right. He demonstrated how it worked, took his hands off the joy stick and yelled "Go ahead, fly it!" With my heart in my throat, I did! We flew up over the mountain and back again, with my own hands on the controls. I had been looking forward to seeing the scenery, but the feeling of power I had in actually being given that hands-on experience was so wonderful I actually forgot to look at the scenery. I guess what I felt was "this must be what it's like to be God."

From that experience, I fell in love with flying. But being a girl in those times, I was encouraged to play with dolls rather than such masculine things as planes. My brothers got model planes for birthdays or Christmas, so
I satisfied myself reading their comic books about World
War I planes, like Fokkers doing Immelman dives and
shooting down other pilots. That was really exciting reading.

My brothers went on to build and fly planes (when they were older) but I'll tell you those stories in other blogs.

Grandpa Bert's Diet

My Grandma (the one who smoked a corncob pipe) was very upset. It seemed that Grandpa Bert had seen the doctor and was found to have high blood pressure. The recommendation from the doctor was that Grandpa needed a special diet--particularly bananas for the potassium he needed. There was just one problem--Grandpa would not eat any! In all his life he had refused to eat them, said he didn't like the looks of them, wouldn't even taste one. Grandma had pleaded with him, cajoled him, threatened him--nothing would change his mind. "Stubborn" was his middle name.

So Grandma came to mom for help. After some thought, mom had an idea. The next day, she baked a special cake as a treat for the ailing man. He was so pleased at her thoughtfulness, he insisted she sit down and join him and Grandma in cake and tea. Mom was a good cook, and the cake was delicious. Grandpa raved over it, and had seconds.

He said, "I don't know how you do it. That was just the best cake you've made yet."

Mom never did tell him it was a banana cake, but she made sure to keep him well supplied with similar ones for the next few weeks. And I don't believe he ever found out.

How I Saved My Brother from Drowning

My father was an early 'developer' in our small town in northern Maine. He had considerable acreage across the street from our home, and had built three houses he rented out. The tenant across from us was Mrs. Hallett, an enormous lady--over 300 lbs--who could not find shoes big enough, and therefore wore bedroom slippers all the time. She found it hard to get around and really struggled to walk far. We children did her errands for pennies.

One particular year, we three children received boots for Christmas and, with the first thaw, a good-sized pond developed in the gravel pit back of Mrs. Hallett's house, then froze to make a decent skating rink. We didn't have any skates, but joined the others who did. As we slid and played on the ice it began to creak and tilt, and the next I knew, Johnny, my younger brother had slid into the center and down through a wide crack. Horrified, I saw Johnny disappear under the water. A moment later, his black boots bobbed up, but no Johnny. The boots were full of air, so they floated. I was frozen for a moment. I knew he would drown that way. I was only 7 years old and couldn't swim.
I didn't have much of a singing voice, but I did have a loud one. In that moment, the only thing I knew to do was holler. My scream, one long piercing note, began. Was anyone home to hear me? It was a working day, and I had no idea. But I screamed loud enough to crack a crystal chandelier. My heart sank. Only Mrs. Hallet seemed to hear me, and she staggered out onto her back porch in her bedroom slippers to see who was making that ungodly noise. What happened next was the miracle of the century. Dear old Mrs. Hallett, all 300+ pounds of her, was running down toward us in her bedroom slippers, through the icy slush, clad only in her cotton housecoat.

I stopped screaming only long enough to point to Johnny's black boots, still visible above the water, and shout, "There, there, he's drowning!"
Wiithout hesitation, Mrs. Hallett plowed into that icy pond, and pulled Johnny's boots, and him with them, choking and sputtering, out of the water. Cradling him in her arms, boots and all, she carried him up to her house for drying off.

Thinking back on that event, Mrs. Hallett was the real hero. But I like to take a little credit for having strong lungs at the right time.

The Sulky Ride

Relatives can add so much to your life! I had a full complement of them and they helped open my eyes to the possibilities you might otherwise miss.One relative I especially treasured was my aunt Gertrude. Married to one of my mother's brothers, she was a huge lady, probably weighing over 290 lbs. Her main reason for living was being a sulky racer! She had a lovely horse and a big shiny black sulky, and she raced on the ice in winters, on the large pond in town created by a dam. In summer, when she wasn't racing somewhere else in Maine, she practiced on the country roads outside of town. By the time I was eight years old, I was fascinated , and dreaming of riding in the sulky. I begged and begged that she would take me out in it. The day came, and I was finally allowed to go. Tucked in by aunt Gerty on the shiny black seat, off we went. It was glorious, and we seemed to go faster than even our two-seater car. Out into the countryside, proudly waving at farmers we passed. Then, it began to rain. The road became muddy, and we were flying. Unfortunately, so was the mud--directly into our faces!! I couldn't breathe or open my eyes for the mud, and my hair was one big mudcake by the time we returned to the stable. The old saying, be careful what you pray for, still stands true. I never asked again!!

A Cup of Sugar...

When I was a child of five, new people moved in acr0ss the street. I went out to play that morning, and there was another girl sitting in the gravel driveway, holding a cup and a spoon. She was digging dirt and putting it in the cup. I asked what she was doing. "Making a pie," she said, and began digging again. I said, "You're not going to eat it, are you?" "Well, she replied, "Mum said we will eat a peck of dirt before we die, so I'm going to get it over with." With that, she dumped the cup into a pile and started to fill it again, repeating the following measurements: "one cuppa sugar, one cuppa sh-t, one cuppa sugar, one cuppa sh-t." That was how I met my life-long friend Tillie, with whom I've never since swapped recipies, and whose husband did all the cooking for her after they were married.

Recession--Are You Kidding?

Lately, all I hear is "Oh dear, we may be entering a recession. What will we do?" Are you kidding? I've lived through one. What you will do is you will survive!!! Just as we did.

I was aged between 5 and 10. We had a nice home in northern Maine when it began. Dad had fought in France in World War II, and when he returned he built our house--a big one, with wrap-around porch, a garage, a barn, an ice house and apple trees. The car was a nice two-seater with a rumble-seat. He also bought a small farm outside of town, with a shed and resident cow and pig. We were living well.

When the recession hit, everyone (it seemed) had lost their jobs and money was scarce. People in our small town couldn't buy groceries or clothing. We were lucky--we had all the milk, butter we could eat--and all the vegetables our garden could grow. But clothing , as for many others, consisted of hand-me-downs and home-made dresses or shirts made from flour sack material. We children picked potatoes in the fields to get money for heavy school clothes--the winters in Maine were cold--sometimes as low as 30 degrees below zero.

Mom baked a large pot of beans and six large loaves of bread each Saturday. By the end of the week, the last loaf was beginning to show some little green streaks that would be good candidates for culturing penicillin. The remedy--scrape off the green, and toast the slices well!!

People were resourceful--barter was common--and we got used to foods no one thinks much about today--like corn meal mush and (my favorite!) pickled pigs feet. Life was an adventure. We children didn't realize we were "poor." So was everyone else. Looking back, we were rich in all the things that mattered--shared responsibility , family loyalty, and love. If we are entering another true recession, you will need all of these things--and I'm not kidding!

Recession? Are You Kidding? First Draft

Everyone's talking "Recession!" We're supposed to be in one. Are you kidding? I lived through one, and it wasn't like this! I lived in a small town in Maine. We had a nice house, with a wrap-around porch, a car, a huge barn, garage, apple trees, rhubarb patch, an ice-house, in town. Also, dad had a small farm outside of the town, with a cow, pig, small cottage/shed. We were living well. Then the recession began.

Fortunately we still had the pig and cow, so there was plenty of milk and butter, and when the pig was slaughtered we also had meat. But, buying groceries and clothing became very expensive, and since no one had a regular job, including dad, we were soon eating "hand to mouth" with enough food for today, but tomorrow would be iffy. A big pot of baked beans on Saturday had to last several days for the family. We had to grow a garden for our vegetables, and we kids (I was between 5 or 10 yrs) had to do all the weeding. Dad repaired cars in the back yard. I grew to love homemade bread with molasses on it; and bread chunks with milk and sugar over it was a favorite Sunday night supper.Fortunately, mom was a great bread-baker--she baked six loaves a week. By the time the end of the week came around, the remaining loaf had a suspicious green tinge perfect for propagating penicillin. You simply scraped off the green and made sure the slice was well toasted. My favorite food from that time--pickled pigs' feet. And I still find it once in a while in the supermarket!

Recession? To us, it was an adventure--both in our gastronomic experiences and in finding value in whatever we had, whether it was someone else's hand-me-downs or some small thing earned by our own labor. Perhaps this "recession" will become as rich an experience for today's children as my "recession" was for me.

Grandma Was My Hero

In my earliest memory of Grandma, she was sitting on the front porch steps, smoking her corncob pipe. She wore a long black dress, black shoes with thirteen buttons up over her ankles, and dark hair that fell to her waistline but which she managed to pile on top of her head with one large mother-of-pearl barrette. I remember that she was telling stories to me and my brother and one or two stray neighbor kids.
Grandma had come to live with us when Grandpa died, and we had discovered that she was more interesting than the Saturday horror movie about Mudmen or dragons. She would take a puff on the corncob and begin with "By cracky, them was the times." She would tell us about the time Grandpa cut off his thumb chopping wood, and how she sewed it back on with darning thread. Or the time cousin Alton fell into the big hole in the outhouse, headfirst, and what a job she had getting him out of there. She was our rockstar, and also the first multi-tasker I ever knew. She could shell peas, bake bread, rock the baby and dictate a recipe all at the same time. She was one of the best things that ever happened to my life. I would give anything to hear again the peal of her laughter, or feel the warmth of her hug. She never had to say "I love you." We were surrounded by it and we knew it.

School Recess

When I was a little over four years old, my mother decided I was old enough to go to school. She was a teacher, and had already taught me to read and write. This was a small town in Maine during the depression years. In those times, you could enroll in school as soon as your parents decided you were ready. So she sent me off to school on the first day. All went well until recess time. We were ushered outdoors. I took this to mean school was over, so I legged it for home! Needless to say, that was the one and only time I got away with it.