“A perfect storm of a three-person office with one out sick plus the biggest festival of the year in town robbed me of column writing time this week. So, I went to my plan B for just such occasions. I’m rerunning one of my favorites from several years ago”.
— Leon
There are advantages to growing older. No doubt, one of them will come to mind soon.
Tem Morrison in Center asked last week if I wanted to take a look at some old car parts. That’s like asking my dog if he wants to take a look at a pork chop. Problem was, we set a time that slipped my mind until several hours later. When the light came on, I went straight to his office, apologizing profusely and admitting that memory lapse was something happening more frequently.
I related to Tem the story of a successful Mount Pleasant businessman, Cortez Boatner, who owned a furniture store up in Mount Pleasant when I was a youngster. He always wore a white dress shirt and a tie when he came in Perry Brothers to visit with my father, and I noticed he always had a small spiral notebook and pen in his shirt pocket. As conversations progressed, out came the notebook and Mr. Boatner was making notes. “I used to think that was funny,” I told Tem. But you know, as I’ve gotten older, I’m finding it hard to remember exactly what I thought was so funny about it.”
As grade schoolers, my sisters and I teased our mother about her memory. Actually, it probably wasn’t that bad, but she had this uncanny, comical way of forgetting where she left things. Two classic moments we never let her forget as long as she was with us.
Banana pudding was my dad’s favorite and mom made it often. That was during an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ time when the whole family sat down together for the evening meal. About three bites into dessert one evening, dad stared into the pudding bowl stirring it with his spoon as if searching for something. “I don’t think there’s any bananas in mine.”
As if on cue, the rest of us did the same search only to discover that there were no bananas in any of our bowls either, just pudding and vanilla wafers.
“Oh no,” mom exclaimed on the verge of tears. “I must have forgotten to put the bananas in it.” Sure enough, the unpeeled bananas were still on the kitchen counter where she had prepared the evening meal. We consoled her as we ate every morsel, hoping to make her feel better.
Then there was the scissors thing when they mysteriously disappeared. “They were right here,” she said, the frustration in her voice registering higher with each word. “I just had them in my hand. Did one of you get my good scissors,” she quizzed us. “No,” we chimed in unison. “Besides, mom. You said you just had them.” As she searched, I headed for the refrigerator searching for some leftover dessert, preferably banana pudding. Preferably some with bananas. There they were. On the shelf right beside her ironing bag laid mom’s good sewing scissors.
Now if you consider a cloths iron an antique, you won’t know that “ironing bag” dates to a time before dryers. Everything was ironed as part of the weekly laundry ritual because laundry was dried hanging on a clothesline. My mother ironed school clothes, she ironed church clothes, she ironed play clothes, she ironed my father’s work clothes, she ironed sheets and pillowcases. Ironing that wasn’t completed in one session was sprinkled with water and stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator until the next scheduled ironing time.
For my mom, this was typically early afternoon somewhere around the time slot for “As the World Turns,” or “Queen for a Day” on our new black-and-white television. And I don’t mean new as in replacing the old one; there was no old one. This was our first T.V. I was in about the third grade. This television was replaced with a color set about the time I entered my first year of college, when there was still only one T.V. and only one phone in our house.
“Mom,” I called out snickering at her forgetfulness. “Were you ironing before you were sewing?” We giggled as mom retrieved them from the refrigerator, and would graciously smile each time over the years when we recounted the story.
But you know, as I think about now, I’m wondering once again. What was it that was so funny about that?
