2000-06-10 - 12:00 MDT

June 10, 2000

How, Now ?

I guess, just like Sandy's Dirt Road, I am Ramblin' and maybe weaving a bit like the oldster in Geech who was stopped by a cop because he was doing twenty miles an hour and weaving, his reply to the cop, "I always drive slow when I am weaving, it's safer that way." Weaveblin' ? Stream of consciousness writing seems to fit me, it's more like around the stove in the store in the old days. Good excuse for scattered thoughts and an unstable mind, glad I thought of it.

Memories, here and there come to mind and questions too. Why when I was little most people uncomfortably dressed. A habit still followed in Tampa while I lived there in the early fifties. Down town, the commercial part, every man working in an establishment was required to have the typical white shirt, necktie and suit coat - - - - whether there was air conditioning or not in the building. Women at work looked just as uncomfortable in their fancy dress and torture chamber high heel shoes. Before we headed back to Denver in the early sixties people had become comfortable in short sleeved, open neck shirts, slacks and most of the women wore comfortable shoes.

Another thing that strikes me, when I was a child, the grown ups lived in a cheerless, grim world, the only real laughter I heard was from us kids. I mean before the depression put the hungry look on our faces. Look at some of the old photographs, there is enough sour there to make lemonade for an army.

I remember the old apple, orange and lemon boxes, the wooden ones that gradually went out of use giving way to the stiff, plasticized fiber board. What marvels of our ingenuity my friends and I made from the thick ends and the beautiful, planed pine boards of the sides. Some were sawed and nailed, some were whittled, some were carved, there were trucks, cars, boats, buildings and whatever our imagination could conjure up we would try to imitate in minature.

In the mid forties when we lived in Moline, rent, food and gasolene was about all we could afford with clothes now and then. A few pieces of cast off furniture and two beds were it. Those orange and apple boxes were still in use then and I gathered up what was available and made a night stand, a book case and some play pretties for our boy. I clumsily painted them and with a cheap mirror from the junk shop presented them to Heather and Son.

I am reminded of the out of work men ;during the depression panning gold in Cherry Creek in the business section downtown. From what I heard they got enough to pay for Bull Durham or Golden Grain sack tobacco and to buy a few groceries.

Speaking of that, during the depression Christmas was a season wherein the festive mood was there and little else. For several years Dad would wait till the last minute and buy a cheapy tree and we would decorate it with the ornaments that Mom and Dad already had - - - back in those days the tinsel was made of some kind of foil that could be removed and neatly stowed for the next year. There was one of my big winter socks hung and on Christmas morning I would find some Tangerines (my greatly treasured fruit) some nuts and maybe a Tootsie Toy car. A wrapped present for me showed up under the tree - - - a book showing me into the imaginary land of adventure and peril.

During that time the family game of choice for us was 500 Rummy. Periodically Dad would replace the worn cards with a new deck, the old ones were pretty raggedy before new ones showed up.

Castor Oil, good God Amighty how I hated it. The woman who took care of me after school and once in a while on Saturday when Mom and Dad had to work was a great one for that. She would decide I needed a laxative, out would come that dreaded bottle of poison and the tablespoon for me. The routine is still a horrible memory to this day, she would back me into a corner, fill the tablespoon and threaten to force my mouth open with a stick, so down it would go and come right back up. She would have a handy sauce pan to catch the vomit, wipe my chin and force another tablespoon of the nasty stuff on me with the same end result. About the half bottle stage my mind and stomach would tire and finally a dose would stay down. That stuff worked me to a fare you well, left me sore. It worked, oh how it worked.

Things are crowding me, while they stood in line for me to write it was fairly easy to write, but it is all trying to come out simultaneously. For now, these memories have been packed and stored - - - - - So long.

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