Saturday, May 7, 2011

Variations on "Lessons My Mother Taught Me"

My mother, Wyora, taught me that it is OK to give a child extraordinary freedom.  In fact, I didn’t know I had that freedom until the women in the writer’s group asked me how I got out to the movies so often when I was young.  I thought everyone in the world did their assigned housework on Saturday morning from 8 am to noon and then could go to the movies with the babysitting money they had earned for the week.  I didn’t have to tell where I was going or when I would be back. That is just the way things operated at our house.

My mother taught me that there are extra-ordinary treasures in doing unassigned house work.    I liked to make her bed in the morning.  I knew that sometimes under the pillow on her bed, there might be a partially eaten large Jersey Milk chocolate bar.   She worked on using intermittent rewards with me, never asking where the chocolate bar had gone.

My mother taught me that anyone can do the laundry.  The washing machine was downstairs – a wringer washer.  The only difficult part of doing was to pick the clothes out of the hot water with a stick, get the clothes close to the ringer, and then get the stick and my hand away before one or the other got into the ringer.  The clothes fell into the rinse water where I was to plunge them up and down again, swing the ringer around and squeeze the water out of them,  and then they were taken outside to hang on the clothes line.  I was taught to put thee diapers on, the last corner of each diaper being pinned to the first corner of the next diaper, thus saving on the number of wooden pins, since we didn’t really have enough to hang out all of the wash. I was thrilled when my mother brought home an apron to put around my waist, the pockets of which were large and bulky, and slanted on the sides so that I could get at the pins easier than when they were hanging in a bucket from the trolley of the clothesline wire.  She also taught me how to get good at holding the clothes pins in my mouth, the small end  facing my tonsils to that when I slipped one clothes pin out of my mouth and pinched it, it was ready to go on the clothes lines. Two clothes lines were strung across the yard – one from the basement to Mrs. Cockerton’s fence and one from the side porch door to Mrs. Cockerton’s fence.  We had long lines of washing.

My mother taught me to serve Sunday dinner on the dining room table and with the best dishes in the house.  Extra table leaves were added to the table for she also taught me that Sunday is the day to invite guests over for dinner.  The menu was standard at our house: a pot roast, seared before we left for church and then roasted in the oven until we returned home. She added vegetables and a salad and guests.

My mother taught me to make dessert a regular event.  I  thought everyone had pie for dessert on Sunday -- banana cream, or lemon meringue or apple pies in the fall.  Then the kind of desserts moved with the times and fads.  We had refrigerator desserts for a while – a frozen chocolate filling with graham wafers crumbs above and below, or a maple version of that dessert called Honeymoon Dessert  When Doral learned he could buy two and a half gallons of ice cream from the Palm Dairy outlet at a discounted price, our deep freeze could be opened and ice cream would always be there -- dessert every day of the week.  Sometimes there was already a spoon in the ice cream left there by last person dig out their evening snack. 

Wyora like maple walnut ice-cream, not a favourite of anyone else in the family.  When Doral would buy it, there would be a look pass between the two of them.  He would always say the same words to the groaning rest of us:  “This is your mother’s favourite.”   She would say, “Yes,” give a small apologetic smile to the rest of us who didn’t like that flavour ... and then his eyes would be filled with love and her eyes would dance as she would eat it.  Yes, my mother taught me, dessert is good.

(More to be written on the theme "Lessons My Mother Taught Me" for Mother’s Day 2012)

Arta

9 comments:

  1. Lessons my mother taught me:

    (a) It is important to keep your body healthy. If you have been gardening all day long, and your body is aching as you head off to sleep, you will feel even stronger the next day.

    (b) It is okay to write in books. If you keep notes in the margins of your recipe books, you will be less likely to make the same cooking mistake twice.

    (c) Fresh air is good for the soul. Spend as many minutes as you can outside each day, even if it is winter. Mealtimes are good times to get outside.

    (d) Help your child grow to be independent. Don't do for your child what they can do for themselves.

    (e) It's never too late to learn something new. Take a class. Read a book. Listen to others. Study the world around you. Your life will be richer.

    (f) You are a writer, if you write. Write everyday.

    To be continued ...

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  2. Your description of the laundry reminds me of my summers at the lake. The thought of your young hands working the washing machine make me want to hold my breath, even though I know the end of the story. You never lost a finger to the machine. I don't want to decide when my child is ready to lift clothes out of boiling water with a stick. I am so glad we have electric washing machines and dryers.

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  3. Did you ever learn to like Maple Walnut icecream? You also taught me, always try new flavours. I still can't believe you ate that fish head in China.

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  4. (g) Don't bother with pulling a weed unless you are willing to completely destroy it. Otherwise, it will just come back stsronger. I am keeping my eye on the Salmon Berry hill Arta. Tomorow I will go out and (re)tackle the areas I thought I had cleared.

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  5. I remember the wringer washer diapers wrapped around the wringer,If it does, an article of the wash may
    wrap several times around a roller before it is noticed; unwinding such a
    piece is often difficult, sometimes impossible without removing a roller .
    Its you're already happened?or put rubber diapers through that wringer diapers and explodes
    Did you ever get anything caught in a wringer?or ruined a couple of shirts?

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  6. I got my hand caught between the rollers.

    Twice.

    A little past the wrist the release mechanism on the top of the machine flips up. That is when I extracted my hand.

    I had to go lay down on the bed for a while before I finished the wash. The fright probably drained the blood from my face as well as my hand. For some reason, I didn't dare tell my mother, though now I can't imagine why not.

    And yes to diapers (or sheets) rolling around twice or the rubber pants exploding on you. I made that mistake many times which is one of the reasons why I got good at putting the release mechanism back together.

    Re the rubber pants for babies -- I can remember when they were one of the newest things on the market -- such a treasure to be able to hold a baby and not have a wet lap sometime during the day.

    Can you remember how expensive they were? Or how quickly they got split and the baby needed new ones?

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  7. Re Maple Walnut Flavouring

    I tried that ice cream many times when I was young. I didn't like it then. I don't really like it now. I don't want to have maple walnuts mixed in with my ice-cream.

    That was also my mother's favorite filling for home-made chocolates. Again, not for me, though I did love the hand-rolls where the vanilla centre was dipped in chocolate and then rolled in walnuts. Just thinking about it makes me want to whip up a batch. A good thing for me that it is summertime and the wrong time to make chocolates.

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  8. I thought you liked oranges for dessert Arta? ;)

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  9. I shall try maple walnut icecream when it goes on sale next. For Mother's Day brunch we had sour dough pancakes. My batter is not as fluffy as it was the first day. I will try stirring it more often during the day.

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