Old Thing's Olden Time's

Halloween Day is approaching but before the event lots of things need done. Special foods were set aside or bought into the houses to be prepared. Not all from bags boxes or wrappers some were things. I was grown and were jarred and set a side for this holiday. In sugar. flours, flavoring, colors. Have ever eaten potato candies hand wrapped?

Us kids got would gather in school yard we had two recesses a day and lunch times to plan. An we talked about the best streets to walk. The best houses to stop at and who was give out of what. One of the house even had an apple tree or two. If you had enough kids you, could have made a pie with the apples.

There was no in school lunches I or we walked home for it. I heated a can of soup. Or ate a sandwich mother made in the Moring before she left for work. Ate a lot of peanut butter and bread. That was in the days it was still good for you to eat. If you were lucky there my be some jelly mixed in.

I learned to cook and make my own lunch by my eight birthday. It was what you did both of my parents worked. So I had my key too came home. I ate lunch and walked home then had ten mannite's fifteen min for lunch then back to school for the afternoon classes.

My father had one of the early vending machine business so every year. Father gathered mother the older or less pulpier candy to give out. All the kids would flock to our house first in case she ran out of candy early. We were lucky in that way. Funny though we didn't eat that candy at home. It was only bought for the customers not the family.

Most people still made there own candies, cupcakes, cookie. My great grand's and my Dads mom made pop corn balls every year either a day. Or two before because they needed to dry.

A day before they warped the popcorn balls in the new thickly colored plastic paper that everyone so loved for it's color. We didn't care if the popcorn balls had a funny taste from sitting in the film wrap.

The gran's put a lot of time in to making the sweet treat for everyone to enjoy. Pop corn seeds, jar canned or bags were bought. Corn syrup by the gallons, oils to cook the pop corn in. Some year's they would add food color to the corn syrup. To make it more festive there hands would be colored from forming the popcorn in to balls. All my gush the smells that came out of the kitchen.

From my Earliest, time the kitchen it was always a busy place. Most homes had large pots that were cleaned each night. But always on the stove top oil was use to light the burners. They were the cook pots, everything went in those pots from morning through out the day. Everything from left over foods were added.

The morning to night a little bacon grease to bits of left over bacon even grits. And the foods in the home gardens some planted a few flowers most had it as a food source.

As gardens were picked early each day an tended too. If it was the over ripe tomato's that was not good for a sandwiched. It went in the pot. And cucumbers, beans, corn on the cob, red beets leaves and all.

Bones from the day's before meals or a week before wore add one pot to make a bone broth. As the stock was kept for soups in the pot. And the Herb's that were picked fresh made it very tasteful.

Or if food was not needed for the day. When there was more vegetables picked then was needed for food that day. It went in that pot witch was an any time snack or supper for the night.

Or vegetables could be canned at any time there was more picked then could be eaten. The day's baking or cleaning tending of the garden and the children was done by one an all. We went to meat markets for raw meats, and then what was called dry good you got from the store.

Believe it or not we walked to the stores most people could not drive or the expense of having a car was to much. In may Gran's generation if you had a car it was used for special occasions.

Yes there were cakes and cookies and candy factory packed in packages. But most of it was of local places with in a few miles of the dry goods store close to your home.

We had a few Bakery's where you went to buy baked goods. Bun's, rolls, cake's and fresh from the oven, and the cookies. Well then there was doughnuts well I am sure you get the ideal.. Baked and fried, a few time's a day in small batches.

If there was a wedding a birthday cake to buy you went there. You could order them weeks in advance even pay up front as it went. By paying up front you paid the baker for the supplies need to make the cakes and there time to make it.

We had many pretzel factory's in the morning you could smell the fresh dough in the air from two blocks away. Or the grease from the potato chip co. as the fryers were being heated for the morning workers. There was nothing like a wakening to the smell of fresh bake goods and grease.

Well, and then there was the horse compose being spread on the fields. Where your food was to be planted for next year. This was true compose and in the spring and fall it was placed over the next years garden or fields. Yes we had horse farms a plenty in our small town. So most compose was stored for the fall and spring planting time.

Home gardeners used chicken and small animals compose along with all of the saved an left over food scraps. Yep let's not for get that!

None of us had air conduiting the closet thing to that was? A refrigerator and if you let that open to long everything inside it went bad. Tried that once couldn't sit down for the rest of the day. Ma was so mad!

So in the spring we opened all the house windows from attic to basement. Then when a big rain would come up, we run around like mad to closed them. Then we opened them again and closed them. By the way don't ask why, it needed done, just do it!

Didn't close my bedroom window once, or we were not home. Yep gotta close them windows when a rain or a dusty wind come's around. My bed was next to the window and it was a tad watered by the time we closed the windows.

I know I digressed here but there are so many things. Our world is moving fast. And forgetting so much about the past. So so much could you live past tomorrow if?

I know most people are not here yet. But we are a world no longer a town, or just a state, or just a country. We are a world we rely on each other country's to make us sustainable.

So in this memory of a past not long gone, but mostly forgotten. Look into the past and make better tomorrows for us all.