How many of you remember what a “bolster” is? Though virtually non-existent now, in the days before my youth no bed was considered made without one (at least in my Grandma's opinion). Back then regular sleeping pillows were never left out during the day, but were instead stowed away in the closet until bedtime. In their place resided a bolster or long, skinny, hard-as-a-rock pillow. The ones I remember belonging to Grandma were stuffed with real cotton batting and stretched the width of the bed. They were the quintessential accessory to any and all fluffy chenille bedspreads covered in huge pink roses and climbing vines. To finish making the bed, the bolster was plopped down across the vacated pillow place with the bedspread lapped over and down behind it, then tucked smoothly in under the front side. ....more>>
I love spring, don't you? For me, the best thing about winter is Christmas and once it's over I'm ready to move on to sunshine and warmer weather. It seems like used to though, when I was a kid, old man winter blustered around a lot longer, blanketing our part of the world with cold rain and dreary days. I remember us getting a lot more ice back then too, especially during January.
When I was a kid it seemed like my brother and I went around all winter with a cough, cold or runny nose. Sometimes, if we ran a high fever our parents would carry us to the doctor.
It's about this time every year — when the Christmas ham is history, those black-eyed peas are in the past, and I've licked the icing off the last piece of stale birthday cake — that I usually get the January blues. You all know the feeling. I think it has something to do with the cold cloudy weather and not being able to get outside much, but long about now I begin to pace around the house like a caged cat, prowling for something to relieve my boredom.
About a billion years ago when I was a kid, we didn't get a lot of candy the way children do now. Our sweets came mainly in the form of homemade cakes, pies, and cookies. Oh, they were good so don't get me wrong, but back then we considered that just plain old everyday stuff.
Seventy or so years ago, country folks tended to mark the passing of each season on a mental timeline of days remaining until cold weather. When my mother was a girl, farm life seemed to be centered around preparing for tomorrow by working hard today. To eat well you first had to sow the seed. With the return of spring came plowing, planting and praying — that the danger of frost was over, that there would be enough warm rains, and that the bugs and blights might be minimal. If conditions were good, summer ushered in a bountiful time of blessings in the form of overflowing garden goodness. Yet the work continued, for all that wasn't consumed immediately had to be quickly canned or preserved for the winter ahead.
I have always loved sounds! I like the way words march along in cadence with our thoughts, and the way that strange tune keeps time to the breathing of our souls. It's rather like the first fat plops of raindrops as they begin to fall, slowly at first, then faster and harder as the storm rushes into a torrent of noise — thunder rumbling and lightening crashing, only to finally fade away into a lullaby of softly whispered drips of remembrance.
As the end of October draws near, the sight of so many yards decked out in bright orange pumpkins and scrawny scarecrows gives a lift to the corners of my mind. Those dusty cobwebs hanging around obscuring my everyday memories are swept aside by the sights of “summers leaving”, and I can easily recall those fun-filled Falls when I was a kid.
