2LaneCruzer
Super Star Member
Ah, you guys are just encouraging me. When I was growing up we always had electricity, but one place we lived we didn't have gas or water...or a telephone. We heated with a kerosene stove and Mom cooked on a kerosene stove. We pumped our water from an old fashioned pump outside the front door and drank from a white porcelainized dipper with red trim. Our water, was of course in the kitchen in a water bucket. I usually got the job of pumping the water; I always kept a can of water by the pump to prime it. If we ran completely out of water, and there was no priming water, I had to walk a quarter mile down to the creek to get priming water. Many a winter morning I recall ice on the top of the water bucket. Man, I hated to bail out of bed and hit that cold linoleum.
We got most of our meat by hunting and fishing. I grew up on catfish,deer, squirrel, rabbit, quail and duck. I recall at times shooting a squirrel or two, or a rabbit in the morning, cleaning them before catching the bus to go to school. In fact, when I got my old '30 Chevy, I drove it to school with my rifle in the trunk. We used to pick possum grapes on the way home from the bus stop and put them in our lunch boxes. Mom made some of the best grape jelly! Our school did not have air conditioning, in fact I never attended a school with AC until I got to college. The old lunch room (I'm betting the school was 100 years old) had a smell all of it's own. A century of boiled eggs, bologna, bananas, apples, peanut butter, etc. had a lasting effect on that old lunch room.
We used to skinny dip in the sand pit; make our own corn cob pipes from the end of a cane fishing pole and a corn cob and smoke Dad's old cigarette butts in them. My folks were poor; we wore our shoes until they fell off our feet...and cut the cardboard off the back of our tablets to put in the bottom when the holes in the soles got too big. We wore overalls because jeans were to expensive; they had been through Mom's old wringer washer so many times the buttons were all gone. We used to have to pull the ear of cloth where the button had been through the button hole and insert a match stick to keep the "gallouses" in place. Mom heated her wash water in a big old cast iron witches cauldron and hung the clothes out on a clothes line.
Incidentally, overalls were treacherous when you had to heed the call of nature. You had to mind your gallouses else you would end up befouling them...and wearing them the rest of the day.
We played Shinny during the lunch hour; one school I went to had all eight grades in the same building. One teacher who also was the school nurse, principal, superintendent, janitor and administrator. She built the fire in the old pot bellied stove, opened and closed the windows, swept up...and taught all eight grades. We had boys and girls outhouses, and got our drinking water from a pump. I could go on, but this is enough for one day.
We got most of our meat by hunting and fishing. I grew up on catfish,deer, squirrel, rabbit, quail and duck. I recall at times shooting a squirrel or two, or a rabbit in the morning, cleaning them before catching the bus to go to school. In fact, when I got my old '30 Chevy, I drove it to school with my rifle in the trunk. We used to pick possum grapes on the way home from the bus stop and put them in our lunch boxes. Mom made some of the best grape jelly! Our school did not have air conditioning, in fact I never attended a school with AC until I got to college. The old lunch room (I'm betting the school was 100 years old) had a smell all of it's own. A century of boiled eggs, bologna, bananas, apples, peanut butter, etc. had a lasting effect on that old lunch room.
We used to skinny dip in the sand pit; make our own corn cob pipes from the end of a cane fishing pole and a corn cob and smoke Dad's old cigarette butts in them. My folks were poor; we wore our shoes until they fell off our feet...and cut the cardboard off the back of our tablets to put in the bottom when the holes in the soles got too big. We wore overalls because jeans were to expensive; they had been through Mom's old wringer washer so many times the buttons were all gone. We used to have to pull the ear of cloth where the button had been through the button hole and insert a match stick to keep the "gallouses" in place. Mom heated her wash water in a big old cast iron witches cauldron and hung the clothes out on a clothes line.
Incidentally, overalls were treacherous when you had to heed the call of nature. You had to mind your gallouses else you would end up befouling them...and wearing them the rest of the day.
We played Shinny during the lunch hour; one school I went to had all eight grades in the same building. One teacher who also was the school nurse, principal, superintendent, janitor and administrator. She built the fire in the old pot bellied stove, opened and closed the windows, swept up...and taught all eight grades. We had boys and girls outhouses, and got our drinking water from a pump. I could go on, but this is enough for one day.
