A Trip Down Memory Lane

When I was a kid, we only got electricity in 1948–when I was 10 years old. We lived in the country in rural Indiana when the Rural Electrification was provided to country residents. Before that, to keep things cold we had one of those old ice boxes in our cellar with metal inside to keep the ice from melting fast. We had an “ice man” who came a couple times a week and put an ice block in the ice box. He would shave off a piece of ice and give one to each of us 7 kids. And to us it was as wonderful as candy.

We had candy once a week, on Saturdays. My mother went to town once a week for groceries, and she would buy a few bags of candy. And in the evening after supper, she would parcel out to all of us our share. It was wonderful and something to look forward to.

Most of the desserts we ever got was pie once in awhile. Mother made enough pies for everyone to have a quarter of a pie. You figure out how many pies that would be! (Whatever was left over my Dad ate! Lots of love, as the grandkids would say!) Dad was 6’ 4” and a coal miner and needed lots of calories. The pies were usually blackberry, which we had picked the summer before.

For lights at night, we had several kerosene lamps which are antiques now. I have a couple. Mother washed them and cleaned them every morning and got them ready for the evening.

We went to Sunday School every week in the back of my Dad’s old Ford truck—which would be a valuable antique now. And he picked up other kids along the way. Nowadays it would be against the law. But nobody ever fell out of the back of the truck!

Those days are a world away from today when my little two-year old has his own tablet. And he knows how to use it!

Those days are a treasure to me. I think of my Tamil and our days together very often. I am the only survivor of a family of 9. One of my grandchildren once said to me, “You were living during George Washington’s day weren’t you Granny?” Not quite, but those idyllic days shine to me like a beacon.