Musings by BJ Sibley
Remember When?
Yellow Stuff
As a small child, one of my favorite things to do was sit on a stool in the kitchen and turn the “butter” yellow.
Actually it was a butter substitute – probably something really awful for you, like lard. When purchased, it came in a plastic bag and was white. It had a small “button” of red dye in the middle and the idea was to hold the plastic bag in your hand and smash the button, then knead the bag to mix the red dye with the white substance. Voila! Yellow butter substitute.
Smashing that little red button and mushing up the stuff in the bag was great fun when I was four or five and I thought I was pretty important to be given such a task.
I don’t remember what the stuff was called, but am sure that by today’s standards, this substitute butter would be on the “banned” list.
Behind Bars
While telling tales with friends one day, I mentioned that my Sis (#3 in the sibling hierarchy) stayed in a playpen until she was three. We laughed, because the reason she spent so many years behind bars was that sister #2 was very rambunctious and we were all afraid that in her enthusiasm she would injure her younger sibling. Sister #2 was absolutely forbidden to climb over those playpen walls.
My Sis never minded the whole playpen thing. She was a quiet and thoughtful child who was rather fearful of the “wild child”. Sis would sit in her playpen in the middle of chaos, doing her own thing.
Somewhere there is a photo of her sitting calmly in the middle of a playpen reading a book.
The whole incident made me realize that I haven’t seen a kid in a playpen for years. Do they even have them anymore? I think today’s babies spend more time in swings, bouncy chairs and at “floor time” than they do behind bars.
Got a Quarter?
As teenagers, my New England cousins and I were delighted when we got our driver’s licenses. Nothing new there, today’s kids are the same way.
We lived in the Deep South and early each summer we would trek North to visit our “homeland”. Usually around Thanksgiving, our northern cousins’ family would come south for a visit. During these sojourns, once we got our driver’s licenses, the big deal was could we get one of our parents to lend us a car and did we have enough money to pay for burgers and gas? With that kind of money, we could cruise down main street, stop at a drive-in to get something to eat, then cruise back down Main Street and “be seen”.
We didn’t drive fast or race other cars, the point was to see who was there and be seen by whoever was there…and that meant boys!
It took about 75 cents apiece to feed us and another quarter for a gallon of gas. Our folks were adamant that we brought the car back with the same amount of gas as when we left. That meant we had to have about three dollars between us to eat and gas up the car for those three, four or five times we drove through town and back.
When I knew my cousins were coming, I’d start saving. I got about 25 cents an hour for babysitting so it took forever to save money. One year I was really proud of myself as I had saved about $3.25 and would be able to treat my cousins. We ordered our burgers and when we got the bill, found out that prices had gone up and we only had 25 cents left. We needed at least 50 cents for gas to cruise and drive home. What to do?
After much discussion and practically ripping out the linings of our purses and finding no money, we decided there was only one thing to do. We pulled behind a service station and started pulling up the bench seats in the car. We knew if there was any money anywhere around, it would be under the seats.
Sure enough, after pulling up the front seat, we found two dimes and a nickel. Yahoo! We gassed up with 50 cents, went cruising and then headed for home.
The next day my uncle asked us if we knew why the lining under the front seat was poking up between the bench part and the back part. Nope, we said, we had no clue. Must have been that way all along.
Remember when?
A Good Read: Mel N. suggests “The Associate” by Philip Margolin. “Good. Fast action in the last half.” Know of a good read? Email me at BJ@sierramountaintimes.com and I’ll pass it along.
