Remember when ….

Writer: Donna Crumly Harvey

As I was cleaning up my email today I found one entitled “When…”   This got me to thinking about the whens in my life.  I don’t think I am old but my sweetie seems to be reminding me that we are getting older.  Yes the number seems to be getting much larger than I can truly believe.  I am from the vintage of the original baby boomers but toward the end of the year.  In fact, I am still almost 2 months away from another fateful day.   I can remember when we had obtained our first little black and white television and we kids in the neighborhood would gather around, at least for a little while, and watch the TV test pattern.  I had to look this up and as with all things I “googled it” and found something called and Indian-head test pattern.  For the life of me, I do not remember this having an Indian head in it but perhaps it always had one.    Now as I look at it everything else seems to be in the correct place but as a child, I did not pay particular attention to all the numbers and pieces.   The Wiki article said it has been developed in 1939 by RCA of Harrison, New Jersey.  It went on to say that experienced engineers could take a quick look at the Indian head and tell if there were certain adjustments that needed to be made to equipment to create a better picture for all.  Today the television stations transmit around the clock and no matter what time, one can always find something to make noise even if it is just a paid advertisement.  As I remember the stations would sign off around midnight and this little girl was seldom up at midnight.  The station would then sign back on around 6 AM time frame.  Can you imagine teenagers in 2014 not having a TV to watch or something to entertain after midnight?  Seems we did not have a lot of things that we have today.

Do you remember what an ice cube tray is?  Well if you do, you are close to my age too.  This is the kind that I think I liked best.    I found an image on internet of it the innards and then a tray full of ice and one with it unopened.    I also found on the internet (yes, you just gotta love it) and it was on Amazon (Thank you Amazon for the faithful service) that there were vintage ice cube trays for sale.  Saw one for $27.77.  Can you image what Billie Crumly would say if she could even think of me considering purchasing an old ice cube tray for almost thirty dollars.  I can just hear her saying, “Why, the very idea of such a thing.  When we bought the old refrigerator, it came with several of those ice cube trays included.  We used them and finally the handle would break or some of the dividers would get bent or broken.  Just wonder what has happened to those trays over the years.  You know daddy would have a hissey fit if he had to spend that kind of money on an ice cube tray.”  Yes, you can hear her too.  And she is talking about John Crumly, the same man who will save plastic gallon milk jugs and freeze water in them and crack the ice to put in an ice cream freezer rather than buying ice.  He is just very frugal, or I think mother always said “tight” with his money.  The more modern ice cube trays are plastic and I just a little while ago bought a couple at the grocery store to keep on hand.  Today the kids have always had an ice maker and I love mine too.  We just press a lever on the front with a glass and the ice drops right in the glass, if you are holding  the glass in the proper location, or it can hit the floor very easily and scoot somewhere out of sight.  Now I am so bad about filling my glass with ice and turning and talking to someone and all the while it continues and starts dropping numerous cubes (and they are not cubes anymore but half circles of ice) on the floor.  Now that the fact that they are not cubes, why do we continue to call them cubes?  Why don’t we call them semi-circles of ice?  Oh my dear, please fill my glass with ice semi-circles?  That really doesn’t make sense in conversation I guess.  You see just how my brain seems to work.  But again I searched plastic ice trays on the internet and found that they come in colors and there are some that can made mimi-cubes and some would even make circles no, I stand corrected, spheres of ice and there were even star shaped reusable ice cubes.  Not sure that would work for us as you have read the articles about the Crumly fall-out shelter.

This is one of the very first set of photos I made of Mrs. Crumly. She is checking the “fall-out shelter” to see what may, well, fall out. photo by Russ Austin

She would be so proud and I did not make a picture but I chose two shelves and cleaned out those two shelves in her fallout shelter this weekend.  Washed the glass shelves and put the articles back in there nicely stacked as possible.  When a plastic bag has frozen in a contorted shape, it really does not stack nicely.  The is another time when in a hurry, one of us, and I am as guilty as anyone, just find a spot and put the article in there with little thought to organization.  I got all Daddy’s ice cream nicely ordered and said to him, “You, can recognize the ice cream, can’t you?”  Knowing full well he knew ice cream better than anything else in there.  I found a plastic bag of something and asked him what it was.  We just could not tell from looking through the plastic.  He unzipped the bag and cut a piece of it out and lo and behold, we discovered that it was peaches which had been sliced and place in there.  I found an old Sharpie permanent marker (and thank you to the maker of this object) and labeled the items in question so we would at least know what we were looking at when we go through this again.  I found a gallon bag of his large green figs, which are so nice and round, and delicious for sure!  Back to this story, I was going to bring the figs home with me and Daddy said all he had to do was take them out of the bag and let it haw and eat it.  I asked if he would do that and I never got an answer but he just said to put the bag back in the freezer. Oh well, just another bag of stuff in the fallout shelter.

We are not going to get any figs from the bush/tree this year as we had such a bad winter that the plants froze to ground level and they have had to put back out from the roots.  Thank goodness God gave them protection below the ground and they have come back.  This is the time of year when we should be able to stand for endless amounts of time and just gorge ourselves on the wonderful fruit.  Daddy has one turkey fig bush which gives the best figs that are normal fig shaped and bright red in the centers.  There are some figs on the bush but not sure if they will mature soon enough.  I will have to check them next weekend when I am over.

Garden Spider or “zig zag spider”

Also a spider has built a nest in the turkey fig bush and I have always called it a zig-zag spider and I don’t think they bother people but how beautiful God’s creature has created the web.   Now I see another item that I haven’t talked about.  Do you remember the time when we had to use corn cobs rather than toilet paper?  Looks like we need to replenish our red cobs and maybe the white in this current magazine rack which John Crumly made.  It rest in the powder room of the restroom on the sun porch at the Windy Knoll.

Do you know how many corn cobs it takes for one restroom visit?  You don’t,  well I’ll swanny.  Of course, it take three (3), two (2) red ones and one (1) white one.  First you need to use the one of the red ones,  then you just reach up and get the white one and it will let you know if you need to use the other red one.  Figs, Spiders, Cleaning Refrigerator and corn cobs, these too are another part of country living.