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Show High Tims Blnl(Sl7ll!D(Sl7-.- By FLORENCE BITTNER There is more than one way to determine a person's age. You can count lines on necks. You can guess how much grey there would be in untinted hair. You can watch un-lim-bered gait. Or you can get them started remembering when. I'M NOT about to admit remembering the invention of the airplane, world war the first or Stanley Streamer cars, but I'll give you a few clues to my age. I remember ice cream frozen on the back porch on a summer afternoon. Cleaning the dasher was a cherished privilege usually won by the last hands to turn the freezer. I REMEMBER baking powder biscuits baked in a wood range. I know how to clean the chimney of a kerosene lamp and how to trim a wick. I remember blizzard bliz-zard shanties. Ours was a deluxe model with three holes, including a small side seat for junior. I remember when my grandmother had a bathroom built into one of the spare bedrooms, but would not have an "Indoor chamber pot." She wasn't having that kind of thing in her house. Bathing and washing, OK, but some things were kept out in the back yard by nice folks. I REMEMBER soap cooked all day over an outdoor fire; splitting kindling and carrying carry-ing in the firewoodcon-stantly. firewoodcon-stantly. I remember waiting snuggled in bed in the mornings morn-ings until Dad got the fire going. go-ing. I remember hand cranked telephones fastened to the wall. Our number was 5 R 4 (line five, ring four). Our town's telephone operator opera-tor sat at a switchboard about the size which was used in business offices until recently. She was the town news center, assistance in time of need and . strict censor of verbal morality. If something was being discussed which she thought unseemly for public phone lines, she pulled the plug and no amount ot ringing would make her answer. She was on duty from eight in the morning till eight in the evening. even-ing. OTHER hours we walked instead of relying on telephone lines. Emergencies were handled other ways than by phone because there was no way to hook us up to big city lines at night anyway. I remember "Fred Allen," "Fibber McGee and Molly," "One Man's Family" on the radio and in spite of what today's generation thinks, they were every bit as entertaining enter-taining as color television and a lot less intrusive. I REMEMBER walking down the lane to get the cow home from pasture; watching the derrick horse walk round and round as loads of hay were lifted from wagon to hay stack. I remember hand cranked cars, isinglass windows, button but-ton hooks, corset laces, hand turned butter churns, buttoned but-toned shoes and pot bellied stoves red from the blazing fire and the only warm spot in the winter house. I REMEMBER when catalogs ca-talogs came with a page for measuring foot size. We traced our feet on a piece' of paper then measured the tracing on the chart in the catalog. ca-talog. When anyone in town wore a new dress, everyone knew which page in the catalog ca-talog it came from, and inevitably inevi-tably several of us chose the same dress. I remember treadle sewing machines, groping for a light string in the center of the room where a hanging light bulb provided the entire illumination. A room with a wall electric outlet was ultra modem, but there were very few things to Dlug into outlets. IF YOU remember these things, you were young back in the olden days, so pull up an armchair and tell your young about how it used to be. They won't want to listen very long because reminiscing is one of the privileges of age and burdens bur-dens of youth. You might remember to remind them they will one day tell their children about watching the landing of the first wheeled vehicle on the moon. |