Waking the Sleeping Bear

Sometimes, this happens.  I get to 8:40 at night on Tuesday and suddenly am hit with the realization that I have a BLOG to write. Talking with sister Clara in her Texas (I’ve told you that we talk every day – sometimes for more than an hour), it hit me.  BLOG!  Capital letters – BLOG!  I asked Clara what I should write about, tonight.  I have four hours before I post for tomorrow’s Cranky Crone News.  Only four hours.  It takes that long to edit and correct a blog – usually.

Her response was quick.  Write about waking me up from sound sleep just to talk.  “You mean, Waking the Bear from her Lair?”  Good idea.  So here it is. 

We do try to talk every day.  I think I’ve told you this before, but it bears (no relation to THE Bear from her Lair) repeating.  We are part of five daughters.  Our father died in the year that I was expecting our first child – sixty-four years ago.  Clara lived with our mom; she was still in high school.  Each of us daughters had at least one spouse, and two of us had two.  If you do the math, that would be twelve siblings.  And, today, there are two of us left.

We are both octogenarians, but Clara says she’s only going to be seventy-nine from now on.  Not me.  It’s okay that people know that I’m eighty-five (and a half) years old.

We’re different, Clara and I.  First, she is the younger.  When we were kids, our parents bought a small house on East Twelfth Avenue in Pueblo, Colorado.  Really small.  We had a living room that eventually became a bedroom and a room in back¸ and an outhouse.  Our parents built a cement block room on the east side of the existing building of equal size to the front and back rooms.  They also created a bathroom with a tub and stool, but there was no room for a sink.  The four of us lived there and were eventually joined by my sister and her two children.  Small house.  Big family.

 The new section of the house was the kitchen (also small) and a larger dining/front room.  We didn’t call them living rooms at that time. 

 When sister Ethel and her children moved in, our parents slept in the basement of the house – nothng more than a walled up dugout where the water heater was located.  To get to the basement, one had to throw back the flat door and climb down into the dugout.  My recollection is that every room’s electricity was a light bulb that came down from a cord in the middle of the room.  I don’t remember any floor or desk lamps.  The front room had a davenport (that’s a couch to you young folks) that made out into a bed.  I think Ethel and her children slept in the front room, while Clara and I had the back room that was beside the bathroom our parents had built.  The room was just large enough for a double bed.  To make that bed was a real chore.  We had to crawl into the bed to get in and out of it.  It really filled that little room.

 Heat was another issue.  A single, free-standing gas stove was in the dining/front room.  It was the only heat in the entire house.  Its heat did not get to the basement bedroom.  But, it seemed to work okay for the rest of the house.  It was tough taking a bath in the bathroom, though.

 Mom had always used a ringer-type washing machine to do the laundry.  I remember the ringers would break buttons.  The soap was washed out of the laundry by a bath in two round tubs of cold water.  Of course, there were no dryers for us, so we hung the clothes on the line in the back yard.  And, sometimes, during the winter, the laundry froze.  We would take in the frozen pieces to complete the drying process.  I remember that clothes that had been frozen were very soft.  As soft as the clothes from our electric dryers where we use dryer sheets or the currently popular – wool balls.

 And, then, we ironed the clothing.  Unlike Clara who apparently likes to iron (she even irons her pillow cases), I hate to iron.  Hence, all of my clothes are permanent press.  No ironing involved.

We had a huge cottonwood tree in the yard that eventually gave way to the axe because it was old and had not been taken care of for years.  (I think this is one of the reasons that I take very good care of my seventy-eight-foot-tall cottonwood in my back yard.  I don’t want it to die; at least, not while I’m living).

 Mom had an apricot tree that she grew from a seed.  For years, we had lots of fruit from that tree.  Then, when I either brought home a shoot or started one from seed (I can’t remember), we never harvested one – not one – apricot after years of tending it.

Clara says that I was pretty oblivious to the life going on around me at the time.  Of course, she is right.  My life consisted of going to school, going to work at the public library, and going home to study.  I knew that if I ever wanted to go to college to become a teacher, I would need grades to get money from scholarships and/or grants.  Fortunately, I had two mentors:  the city librarian and the high school librarian – both in Pueblo.

 I left that home to attend Western State College and never really returned.  Just for the freshman year winter break and again the following summer.  Larry and I were married the following October.

 After our father died, Clara and our mother lived in that little house, until the time of her marriage to husband Ray.  What I didn’t realize was how little money they had to live on during those years.  While we didn’t have much money ourselves (poor as church mice would properly fit our situation as college students), if all three of the married sisters had contributed to our mother’s coffers, it might have helped.  As I said, it was not uncommon for me to be oblivious to things outside of my sphere of influence (just ask Clara, she can tell you), but we could have helped.  But we did not!  And, I am ashamed that we did not.

Now, She Bear, you can go back to sleep in your Lair.  Know that I am here for you now.  So, ask!

Be Safe and Be Well
The Cranky Crone
Thoughtful comments are appreciated.