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Aging
and Exaggerating
Old
timers' memories
tend to stretch the truth by
Delbert Trew | |
One
noticeable effect of aging is most of us tend to exaggerate a bit as we recall
the old days. Here are a few examples I have heard lately.
"When I was
a young lad walking to a country school every day we had to face a cold north
wind both in the morning and evening and it was uphill both directions." Think
about this a moment.
"I didn't know my Christian name until I was twelve
years old. All anyone had ever said to me was, go get firewood." In my case it
was coal or kerosene.
"Between trapping skunks, filling kerosene lamps
every day and wearing a bag of garlic around my neck to ward off colds, I didn't
have many close friends when I was young."
"The way to tell the rich folks
from the poor was to study their clothes lines on wash
day. Rich folks didn't have many patches and their drawers had elastic instead
of draw-strings. Look at the sun through the seats of poor people's britches and
the light just shines right through."
At one time or another most old
timers had to carry water to the house in a wooden bucket which always seemed
to be empty when water was needed. A favorite old time saying was, "If this house
was to catch fire and burn down the first thing to burn would be the bottom of
the wooden water bucket."
"We were so pour when I was a little boy I could
sit down on a dime and tell you whether it was heads or tails." A cousin often
stated, "Our family was raised on cottontail rabbits and skinny shickens. We ate
so many shickens in the summertime we didn't sleep on corn shuck mattresses we
roosted on the bedsteads at night."
"My daddy carried a sack lunch to
work on the WPA. One day he and his buddy traded lunch sacks contents sight unseen,
to vary the daily menu. Daddy got a cold biscuit filled spinach greens and his
buddy got four native walnuts and a claw hammer."
"Me and my six brothers
all slept in an upstairs room. We all wore boots but had no socks. At night we
set our boots out the window on the porch roof to get rid of the stink so we could
sleep."
"There were thirteen of us in our family and always one or two
sick. No matter if we had the trots, constipated, a bad cold, the croup, fever,
belly ache, headache or whatever Mama dosed us with coal
oil and sugar. I asked her how she knew the cure for our ailments? She said
she never tried to cure just tried to stop the complaints."
A 94-year-old
man was asked what he thought of the modern world today? He replied, "We are being
educated out of common sense into ignorance, doctored to death and preached into
Hell. Other than that we are getting along pretty well."
April
20, 2010 Column ©
Delbert Trew
More "It's
All Trew"
Delbert
Trew is a freelance writer and retired rancher. He can be reached at 806-779-3164,
by mail at Box A, Alanreed, TX 79002, or by e-mail at trewblue@centramedia.net.
For books see DelbertTrew.com. His column appears weekly.
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