After writing so many stories and summaries for this blog, it has occurred to me that I also have a number of brief stories, or more precisely memories, from my youth. These either didn’t make it into a blog related to a topic or I simply didn’t have anywhere that they seemed to fit. Mostly, it might seem like I am just rambling and that’s probably exactly the case. Anyway, once I started putting them down on paper I discovered that collectively they are too long for just one blog post. So I have decided to break these Stories from My Youth up into two or three blog posts. This is the first such blog.
Shelling and camping out on beaches in Florida. Early in their marriage, Mom & Dad shared a love for seashells and hunting shells on the beach. I remember when I was 4 or 5 years old and we were living in Florida that we spent many days beachcombing and shell hunting. I also remember our family camping out on the beach in Florida during that time. Mom & Dad ended up with an impressive shell collection which they catalogued and labeled using some of their many books on shells.
Music. Music wasn’t a big thing in our house growing up, however Mom & Dad did have a red & white turntable when we were young and some records. In Yuma, I remember that they often listened to Sons of the Pioneers and their songs, Tumbling Tumbleweeds and Cool Water. Mom also bought a Chubby Checker album and we all learned the Twist dancing in the living room. It was good fun!
We each got our own transistor radio when we were teenagers. That brought with it the challenge of finding a decent radio station to listen to. Alto, NM is not located near any major city and being in the mountains made reception difficult. Our local station didn't feature music favored by growing teens. The best rock station that we could sometimes get (if the weather was just right) was out of Oklahoma City.
Eating out.
My parents were firm disciplinarians and one cardinal rule was that when
we were in public, we were expected to behave – period. And we did.
Eating out was a big deal in our family.
Going out to a restaurant was an expensive activity for a family of
seven. We probably only had a meal in a
restaurant about once a month when I was very young, and that was often dinner
at a pancake house or BBQ place, not an overly expensive outing. And when we all filed into a place to eat,
there were often looks like “Oh no, kids!”
But time and again, people would come by and tell my parents how well
behaved we all were and how nice it was to see us.
Speaking about BBQ… summers were long for me living on the ranch with no friends or nearby neighbors for distractions. The boys would often spend time with Dad on projects and work over at the barn or stables, and there was also a family with boys that lived at the other end of the mesa. I spent much of my time with Mom though, and I expect that is why we were close, even as adults. I guess that Dad realized that, and he began asking me to join him for a trip into town to have a BBQ sandwich lunch, just the two of us, about once a month. It was special for me and I loved it.
Making apple pies. As we got older, we started to have Sunday afternoon lunch out after church, often BBQ or burgers with my Granny & Granddaddy, and then later simple sandwiches and apple pie (or Honey Buns if we didn’t have a pie) for dinner. It gave Mom a Sunday break from cooking. But it was also all about the pies. Our grandparents had an apple orchard, and in the fall we would have boxes of apples, as many as we could use. Mom would make apple preserves and put cooked apples in the freezer for the rest of the year. But it was the apple pies that were the star and we all wanted lots of apple pies!
We would completely assemble the pies, wrap them in foil, and then freeze them uncooked. When the pie came out of the freezer, we only had to thaw and cook it, and it was like we had just made it that morning. That first year we made and froze about 2 dozen pies – it was heaven because we could have an apple pie every other weekend! We made pies each fall for several years. Thank goodness that we had a couple of large freezers.
Dinner was at 6:00 sharp. We always all ate dinner family style at home at 6:00 pm each evening. My mother was a good cook, you almost had to be with five children in a day when there wasn’t such a proliferation of fast food places. Actually though, Mom didn’t really like to cook. So it really isn’t a surprise that as an older daughter, I became her partner in the kitchen in my younger years. Mom & I usually worked on preparing the meal together, though she much preferred cleaning up if I would do more of the cooking once I reached high school age. I understand that today, as I think that she simply got tired of cooking every day after so many years. The job of making family meals is much less overwhelming if most of the pots & pans and preparation paraphernalia are cleaned up before everyone sits down to eat. Then the job of “doing the dishes” after a meal is mostly just a quick task of putting extra food away and getting plates and utensils and such in the dishwasher.
In our younger days, everyone had a mug of milk with all our meals. We went through a lot of milk! Later after Dad had a heart attack and cholesterol became an issue, we started drinking more iced tea.
The family rule when we got older was that dinner was served at 6:00 pm. If you were late getting to the table then the penalty was that you had to do the dishes – so everyone would try their best not to be even a minute late! Those meals were never quick either as we all would usually sit and have long conversations about our days or any other topics that were current. And then most of the time, everyone would help with the dishes.
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Key Individuals:
Robert Gordon
Scribner (1923 – 2006)
Ann Hart Hughes Scribner (1921 – 2006)
Jane Hughes Scribner Simonitsch McCrary
(1953 – and more)
and my four siblings: Bob, Jeff, David and Mary Ann
Notes:
I have more brief memories and notes, so I will simply continue this blog with my next post to keep it from getting too long and tedious.
- Jane Scribner McCrary
