It’s a hot July day in nineteen hundred and fifty two and I am an unruly fourteen year old living with my grandmother and grandfather.
My grandmother gets up at four thirty to prepare my grandfather’s breakfast. He is a barber and has to have the shop open by seven in the morning and must walk the three miles to town since he has no car.
About seven I get up out of bed and go to the kitchen . There on the counter is a large white oilcloth covering biscuits and whatever meat was prepared (ham, bacon, sausage or pork chops were prevalent.) I could have all the eggs I wanted but I had to cook them as MawMaw was out in her private place – her garden.
There was fresh milk in the Frigidaire that had to be shaken up before pouring to mix the cream with the milk. I knew I needed to eat and prepare for the days work so meat, biscuits and milk was my breakfast.
Monday was wash day and I knew she would be in from the garden around eight and be ready to go to work.
As soon as I ate, I rolled out the old wringer washing machine from the back hall, set up tables beside it and brought in two #2 wash tubs to be used for rinsing the clothes.
Luckily we had a hot water heater so I just had to fill a bucket with scalding hot water, over and over, and fill both the washing machine and one rinse tub with it. The other rinse tub was filled with cold water for "delicate" and bright colored clothes. I never did understand why you washed in hot water but always rinsed certain things in cold.
MawMaw came in around eight and set her "pickins" aside for later. Immediately thereafter, the old radio was turned on and the rest of the morning was filled with the sounds of "The Breakfast Club", "Arthur Godfrey", "One Man’s Family", "Stella Dallas" etc.
My grandma got all the clothes to be washed and I helped her sort them and run them through the wringer into the proper tub and then into the clothes basket while listening to the radio. I then went out and handed her the clothes in the proper order to be hung on the line.
Remember, back then a woman’s unmentionables were hung under something else so the neighbors did not see them.
It was time for lunch by then and she made me two Velveeta cheese and tomato sandwiches with salad dressing. I would then take this to the front porch along with an ice cold Pepsi and she would follow with her lunch. We only had one radio so the radio came with us.
My grandmother loved baseball so we listened to the "Game of the Day" and if the dodgers were playing she cheered them like a schoolgirl.
After we ate we still sat on the porch, which was shady, and the coolest spot around (remember-no air conditioner in 1952 in the country).
The "pickins" was then brought out and we spent a long time shelling peas and butter beans, breaking green beans and doing what ever needed done before putting them up for the winter. Corn was kept until after supper and was shucked and silked at the pasture fence to give the cows some extra nutrition.
After the vegetables were done, I took my grandfather’s twenty two rifle and explored the woods around where we lived. This was no problem as no one lived close to us.
I could usually tell when to come home, as I could smell the wonderful supper my grandmother prepared every night. A typical meal would be: Fried chicken, purple hull peas boiled with okra, corn (either fried or on the cob), mashed potatoes and gravy, cornbread and ice tea (sweetened of course).
Dessert was a homemade cobbler, pie or cake and sometimes-home cranked ice cream to go on it. After dinner, my grandfather read the paper while MawMaw and I collected the dry clothes off the line.
Grand daddy went to bed early because of his walk to town the next day. However, he had one quirk that had to be done before going. He would sit me down, open the dictionary randomly and read me the two facing pages, including the word and all the meanings.
As darkness approached, I too prepared for bed. However, this included bringing the radio into my back bedroom and plugging it in. I lay in bed and listened to "Sky King", "Gangbusters", "The Great Gildersleeve", "The Green Hornet", "The Shadow", "Fibber McGee and Molly" and others until MawMaw was ready for bed and she stuck her head in the door to tell me "it’s time to turn it off", to "say my prayers" and "Goodnight".
I then drifted off to sleep just thinking about how great the day had been and how wonderful tomorrow would be also.
Life seem so much simpler back then. Has it really been that long since I was a small boy back in nineteen fifty two ?
Yes, this has been another true story of a
day in the life of the man, Charlie Baldwin
