The buckets filled with it sat in the back room. I never really thought much about it as a kid, but it seemed that anything that could hold anything held the stuff. Funny the things that pop up in memory.
The twins were in the backseat. I was telling them about singing in the car when the Loxleys were going for long drives. All of a sudden I burst into verse … three little kitten, they lost their mittens and they began to cry … I couldn’t seem to stop … oh, Mommy dear, we sadly fear, our mittens we have lost … where in the world did this come from? Those things that pop up in our minds that we have long forgotten. Once they grab hold, you don’t want them to slip away.
June and I are good for one another in bringing up things we had forgotten and things that only siblings can share. We fail to realize as we are growing up the significance of having someone who lived lives with us and who can share all those memories that no one else knows. Yet, her childhood, until I was able to realize life around me, was so different from mine. Mine, after my sisters had gone, was much different than theirs. Little things. Little things that were taken for granted are now cherished because we share them once more. And, they are little bit of a surprise when we stubble upon them.
I stood in the shower looking at my choices of soap. The shower soap smells really yummy. The handmade, oatmeal bar leaves me feeling scrubbed clean. The body scrub takes off a layer of skin, leaving me pink all over. Then it hit me!!! Those tubs of that white stuff in the back room. Mom’s homemade lye soap. Hm. Did we bathe with it? Certainly it would take off all your skin. Mom did laundry with it as I remember, scraping pieces off into the wringer washer tub. Did she use it to clean the house? Did she use it to wash dishes? Did she have any hands left after she used it?! Why was there so much soap hardening in the back room?????
Niggle, niggle, niggle. What pops up in your thoughts of the past that you fail to share? Don’t you think you should? Making lye soap, using a wringer washer, reciting poems from childhood and sometimes breaking out in “How much is that doggie in the window? The one with the waggily taillllll.” Memories more fun to share then to tuck back into the recesses of our minds once more.
I love sharing my memories with you but ask you to share yours with others. I guarantee they will be much richer when you share them because a wealth of memories of people, places and childhood will flow over you.
