Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 8:36 AM
Subject: Fwd: Memories
Enjoying Art's reminiscences--brings back my memories of huckleberry picking--but never any hobble skirts! Roger
Arthur Sanford <arthalie@webtv.net> wrote:
Subject: Memories of hobble skirts and blueberry picking...
for some reason I woke up this morning with that old parody of "Casey Jones" running through my head: part of it goes "come all you rounders if you want to flirt. ..here comes a lady with a hobble skirt" and my mind went back to those days when the girls in our home did wear hobble skirts -- ankle length and narrow at the bottom so the girls had to walk with very short steps -- that is Elsie and Mable did, don't think Laura and Jennie were old enough for mom to allow them to--but one day we all --four girls four boys and Mom -- went blueberry picking in the back "forty" where there were zillions of those low bush blue berry bushes.
we each got two buckets full (according to our size of course) and started home well there was in that swamp north of the barn a ditch dad had dug to drain it, was about three feet deep and four feet wide but no bridge since dad had dug a place for the wagon to cross and said if we were walking we could step across that little ditch (he could easily) we had had some rain so there was about 6 inches of muddy water in the ditch. now we all got there and of course the boys could make it. mom did with some effort, Laura and Jennie did, and then Elsie tried but that hobble didn't let her make it - down she went into the ditch with both buckets of blue berries--now I know I said in my letter earlier that while Mom ran the house dad had full say outside - but after mom got through speaking to him, he built a bridge the next day with no delay.. we all could laugh about that after ward but at least Elsie didn't laugh that day. thinking of those days in the Home - last night while lying awake I thought of how we kids used to make up language so dad and Mom couldn't know what we were talking about--at first we used "pig latin" and thought we were getting away with it and Mom never said anything so we had "fun" then one day after we were talking about some things which we didn't really want mom to hear she turned to us and said" ownay ouyay etgay usybay"(now you get busy) there were some embarrassed kids and that ended our talking pig latin. so we made up a language by changing the first letter of each two words in a sentence (today wewoday te - I have a feeling that Mom deciphered it but never let us know. she was pretty sly and wise. Today went by one of the rooms here in Atherton and there was this lady whistling, and I remembered once when Jennie was whistling —and as a girl she really could -- and Laura was a bit jealous cause try hard as she could ,pucker
p2
her mouth like Jennies, nothing came out but air so one day with exasperation she said "whistling girls and crowing hens, always come to some bad end so there Jennie Sanford". I remember Jennie just walked away whistling louder than ever. Home was often so much fun.
love you all Me 10/22/2002