Do You Remember

As a child, I can remember the white, high topped, hard soled baby shoes that were supposed to be good for babies’ feet, giving support for them as they grew. Infants then didn’t go outside without socks and a bonnet, no matter if it was the middle of August in a prolonged heat wave. Babies wore cloth diapers secured by huge safety pins that had pastel plastic animal heads. Covering all were plastic panties to contain the leaks.

There were no car seats for the really young child. At toddler age, there was a metal and rubber over the car seat for the youngster to sit in. It might have a few bright colored beads skewered by a metal rod or a plastic steering wheel so they could mimic mom or dad as they drove. The steering wheel had a bright red squeaker horn button.

Televisions were black and white with a huge selection of three channels. Unless you were watching a movie, most broadcasts and commercials were live, leading to quite a few embarrassing moments which we now call “Bloopers.” To cash in on the families that claimed a spot to watch the televisions, food manufacturers began to produce T.V. dinners. In many homes, compartmentalized aluminum trays covered by foil replaced the roaster in families’ ovens. No microwaves to nuke the food.

If you lived close to a farm, your milk came in glass gallon jugs. The milk was raw and not pasteurized, often having different tastes due to the amount of cream and what the cows were eating. We ate what Mom cooked. If we turned up our noses, we went without. If we were given a cookie and the neighbor kids were out, we either ate the snack before we went outside to play or we took enough to share.

I remember learning to write on wide spaced blue lines on thick ivory hued paper with chunks of bark pressed in it. The dark blue pencils without erasers were so long that I could almost rest one end on my shoulder as I laboriously learned to print words. I learned to read Dick, Jane, Sally, Puff, and Spot not Green Eggs and Ham. Dodge ball and Red Rover filled the time at recess. Hand held games were made of plastic and had metal BB’s that rolled loose until they were juggled and settled into depressions of the cardboard backing.

Telephones were ugly black boxes attached to the wall and had a crank at the side. When they rang, you had to count the number of rings to see if someone was trying to reach you or your neighbor. Rousting the neighbor on your party line who forgot to hang up was always an adventure: whistling, shouting, or even banging pots to get them to hear and return the receiver to its cradle.

Churchy

I try to avoid anything too political or too much into religious confrontations. Today’s blog may step across that line, but it’s more about stepping back and looking at the world around me. It wasn’t so long ago that people who lived in small communities felt relatively safe. I know that when I was a youngster, my mom and dad never locked the doors to our house and we lived along the busy Rt. 711, running between the villages of Indian Head and Normalville, Pennsylvania.

This weekend that feeling of safety was shattered with was the shooting that caused the deaths of several people in the nearby village of Melcroft. This act of violence has made clear many vague ideas. So much in this world has changed since the days of my youth. Growing up, we had respect for life, for God and country, the flag, our parents, the law, our freedom, and each other. Oh, we had fights, but not to the extent of killing one another. Black eyes or maybe a loosened tooth was the expected outcome.

But something has changed. Prayer has been removed from schools and the Ten Commandments have been banned. The Nativity crèche is no longer permitted to be displayed at government facilities. For the most part school officials, backed by our government have ousted God from the classrooms.

In many of our communities, children are raised in a single parent home with the Federal Government replacing the father figure.  Once considered an embarrassment, welfare is now an accepted part of society. Discipline in many homes is lax or nonexistent. Kids get their moral teaching from the street. Kids now listen to lyrics about “ho’s,” sex, and violence as their music and become an integral part of their society. When I was a teenager, the songs spoke of love, cars, dancing, or motorcycles.

Teenager’s smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol have now given away to using marijuana, LSD, cocaine, methamphetamines, or other synthetic, mind altering drugs.

Sex has become recreational. Abortions are now an accepted form of birth control. STD’s and aids have infected our young people. We lose the value of life when we treat birth and death so casually. Murderers are no longer given death sentences. Rapists and molesters are often given light jail terms by our judges. Sanctuary cities have been created by officials to protect these criminals. These sanctuary cities are different than the refuge cities of the Bible. Refuge cities kept the accused safe from retribution until the matter could be resolved. If guilty, it didn’t stop the outcome. Unlike our sanctuary cities, refuge cities sought justice. Lawmakers try to instill morals by changing the meanings of words or changing the laws without changing the person’s heart.

Each Time

Each time someone posts a video on Face Book or I listen to vocal competition on television of want-to-be entertainers, I’m so impressed with the difference in their range, tone, and style. I enjoy hearing most of them. I’m not enamored with all styles, but some of my bias is because of my age. Some styles were before my time and I’ve grown to appreciate them, while some I haven’t acquired a taste.

I wasn’t raised on the classics or opera, but I’ve learned to enjoy them for the most part. The first opera I was exposed to was the American opera, Porgy and Bess. At a young age, it was a moving experience. My young ears could understand the words unlike the stories of operas sung in different languages.

Jazz and blues were popular before I was born. Certain voices of that era have a special allure for me: Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, and Etta James are just a few. The sandy, almost grating voices of Janice Joplin, Joe Cocker, and Mama Cass Elliot had a certain attraction for me as well. Blue grass and the old country singers: Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, or Boxcar Willie. I listened to the crooners: Frank Sinatra, Luther Vandross, Nat King Cole, and Judy Garland. They seemed to spin dreamers’ webs.

Early Rock and Roll had their roots in southern blues and country. Singers like Bo Diddly, Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, and Elvis Presley graced history’s stages and wooed young people into following their careers. I could go on and on. Bands and groups started to wean my heart and ears away from singers and more to the music of instrumentals. My least favorite music is rap. I just can’t get into it. The voices of the entertainers are lost in the rhyming with the rhymes coming too often and too fast to enjoy.

After saying all of this, I’m trying to make the point that the human voice is the greatest instrument ever created. The human voice is more beautiful and more versatile than an organ, a piano, a guitar, or a set of bagpipes. Mankind’s vocal chords have an almost unbelievable range of tones. When I think there is no way a person’s voice can take my heart and soul to higher plane someone sings an inspirational song, a heart-felt tune, or a hymn. The human voice from bass to soprano, I love them.

Plain Haiku

Sharing some Haiku I’ve written about the Plain Folk, the Amish.

wheels spin hooves clatter

Amish buggies traveling

older ways endure

corn grows tall and green

Amish quilts hang on clothes lines

wheat shocks stand in rows

wide brimmed pale straw hats

black pants primary hued shirts

Amish men and boys

woman’s white bonnet

bright blouse black long-skirted dress

Amish modesty

in darkness of night

horse hooves break the night’s silence

a late traveler

full long whiskered chins

Amish husbands and fathers

farmers and craftsmen

lined faceless dollies

wrapped in small bright colored quilts

fresh shoofly pies cool

hedgerow of roses

fields of long furrowed brown rows

red barn oasis

old door with dark stains

eons of use on display

ornate brass hinges

hay stacks and corn shocks

homes with curtainless windows

barnyard stored buggy

barn beams and rafters

thick hand-hewn rock foundation

shows Plain craftsmanship

 

Impressed

Take time to think of all the beauty you have seen as nature shares its treasures. As I review the events of my life and examine the places I’ve visited, I remember how impressed I was with the beauty and majesty of the many unique spots of nature I’ve seen. Vacation tours, naval assignments, and trips with campers and missionaries just added to my visual memory files. As I child, I remember the Atlantic Ocean, its waves, the sunrises, and the beaches of Florida. I visited relatives there and was assigned to Orlando as a naval corpsman. It allowed me to see the beauty over many seasons and the constant changes.

I was able to enjoy the mountains, rivers, and waterfalls of Iceland, as well as its farms, towns, and people of this island nation. Patches of hardened lava and volcanic mountains were so different from the green hills of southwestern Pennsylvania where I was raised.

As chaperone and driver of a camping trip through the western states, my vision of beauty in America was widened. The towers with the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado were intensified by a late night lightning storm. Later, driving on the roadway to Mesa Verde, I was fearful of its winding narrowness. Bryce Canyon with its coral rock spires and dark evergreen tree accents captured my heart. The open sandstone windows of Arches National Park were monochromatic, but the shapes made them beauties that conflicted with the cool green oasis of Green River.

The muted colors, width, and depth of Grand Canyon were impressive with the waters of the Colorado River far below. After church camp, we drove north toward Yellowstone. I was drawn by the majesty of snowy, lofty heights of the Grand Teton Mountains. In the park, the power of Old Faithful, Yellowstone Lake, river and waterfalls added more images to my precious memories. On the drive home, the huge heads on Mount Rushmore and the Devil’s Tower rose high over my head.

Another time, the drive from Pennsylvania through New England, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, then the ferry ride to Newfoundland and the cruise on the Northern Ranger along the coast of Labrador opened my eyes to the impressive beauty of nature and yet all of this pales when we understand what God tells us. “Eye hath not seen…the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” I Corinthians 2:9

Peculiar

All of us have peculiarities in our personalities. It is what creates our character, traits, and individualities. It is the reason we are we are. Just like our genes determining our physical appearance, our oddities are what make us distinct and separates us one from another.

The peculiar person I am writing about today is my wife Cindy’s grandmother, Pearl Elizabeth Morrison. By the time we were introduced, her husband Benjamin Vincent Morrison was deceased and she was renting an old converted, clapboard-sided school on the Bear Run Conservancy in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Her closest neighbor was Falling Water, the famous Kaufman home, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Pearl was a solidly built woman who had a tenacious mind and just as tenacious hole on life. She held her own views on life, even telling Cindy that I should “keep my shoes under my own table.” Pearl kept her home just so, hating to see anything out of place and if it didn’t fit what her imagination saw, she would cut, reshape, or repaint it to fit her liking. The value of things in her small home was reduced or destroyed. She sawed the middle portion of a hutch and fastened it to its base before shellacking it in oak varnish. She cut flannel sheets in half to fit the cot she slept on at the side of her dining room while her bedrooms remained pristine.

 Another example of her tenacity was holding onto an idea that she hadn’t worked out of her system. She named one of her girls Elma Jean, but wasn’t quite through with that combination, because she named my father-in-law Elmer Eugene Morrison. He hated the name and chose to go by his nickname Bud. I can see why. Who would want to carry a name so similar to his sister? That’s almost as bad as a boy named Sue.

Pearl had a stroke which limited her mobility. When Cindy and I visited her in the hospital, she was proud to show us how it limited her ability to raise her right arm. I said to her, “I’m going to go to get the nurses.” When she asked why, I said, “I want to see if they can find a paint brush. I’ll bet you could lift it higher with a paint brush in it.” She knew she was branded with her tendency to paint things and she quickly caught the meaning. We had a good laugh.

Peculiarities? We all have them. Take a look at your own and have a good laugh.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

While I was talking on the phone to my cousin Shirley Olbrysh, we reminded each other of a few memories in the past. Her parents, Melvin and Estella Strawderman lived in the house next door to my grandparents, Edson and Anna Beck. Their homes were located in the small town of Indian Head, Pennsylvania. My grandparents’ home was brown Insulbrick and the Shirley’s home was sided with red Insulbrick.

Both homes were constructed from a larger house that had been torn down. The lumber rescued to build the two. Estella and Shirley were caught in a flood and almost perished when their first home was destroyed by the rush of water.  Erecting the new one was necessary.

In the house Granddad Beck built was a short hallway connecting the kitchen to the “Parlor.” The parlor was a room that was only used when “company” came. I guess we were company, because that’s where we sat when visiting. The itchy maroon material of the sofa would make my legs itch and yet I was expected to sit quietly without fidgeting when visiting.

One redeeming quality with the visit was a pair of matching gilded ornate gold framed mirrors that hung on opposing walls of the short hallway. It was the only exciting thing about the visit to my grandparents’ home. Looking into one mirror, I could see an endless parade of receding reflections of myself.

My grandparents Ray and Rebecca Miner owned a farm. Grandma Miner had the same itchy material covering her sofa, but in blue. I was glad that we weren’t required to sit on it and could play elsewhere in the house. Here, I could roam more freely. Knickknacks and other immensely interesting drew me to check things out. Grandpa Miner was known to tussle with the grandkids…even in the parlor.

Their sitting room was supposedly off limits all kids, but entering the forbidden territory was tolerated if I was quiet and just looked around. Grandma had a large mirror that hung above the floor model wood case radio. The mirror had three connected sections. The center part was a normal silver reflecting mirror, while two blue beautiful mirrored panels flanked each side. I was in awe of the deep blue color and impressed that it reflected an image as well. On top of the radio sat a shiny black ceramic cat that peered into a globe shaped glass fish bowl. The bowl was always empty. It glistened when sunlight shone through it, dancing on the cat’s ebony surface.

To Everything There is a Season

Ecclesiastes the prophet wrote, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven… a time to break down, and a time to build up;” I finally started the break down after the Christmas season. Mid-December, I began the chore of putting up the Christmas tree with lights, garland, and ornaments I’d collected over the decades. Finishing this job was spurred by the knowledge my children and grandchildren would want to see the tree, gather around it, and open gifts.

The chore of decorating is far behind me and it was finally time to start the Herculean task of removing the splendiferous baubles from the artificial evergreen tree and store those decorations away until next year. First task was to search among the branches, find, and remove each and every ornament from their hiding places: bells, balls, and beasts hanging in wild and scattered confusion. There was neither rhyme nor reason for their placement other than to cover a bare spot in the foliage. Hearts, heirlooms, and handmade ornaments alternate their placement with stars, seraphim, and soldiers. As I removed them it sometimes caused me to wonder how I reached those spots in the first place. Cones, cartoon characters, and various types of crèches clung to the dark green branches. Yarn and felt creatures gathered in herds as Popsicle stick creations fenced them in. Some handmade ornaments were bought while some were gifts, but all were created with love and all have meaning to me.

The white sparkling garland was the next that be removed. I unwound it from the branches where its loops festooned the tree throughout the holiday season. The dark green wiring for the miniature white lights were removed next. They were difficult to discern from the needled branches. Carefully, I rewound them to prevent tangles. Finally, I removed the star. It’s clear plastic and red trimmed. The five-pointed star is like the one that graced my parent’s tree when I was a child.

Standing back, the once bright addition to my living room now seemed lifeless. All that is left for me to do is pull apart the limbs. This artificial tree has served our family for over 25 years. I think it’s strange that when I fitted the branches together the color seemed brighter. It held promises of hope and joy for the Christmas season. But now its color seemed much more drab, dull, and almost forlorn.

Slowly, I pulled it limb from limb and tied them into neat bundles. I stored into their coffin sized plastic tub and dragged them upstairs. There they will remain until next year when I will resurrect it, add the ornaments, and it will begin another year’s Christmas life cycle.

Slowly I turned Step by Step Inch by Inch

There is a skit that was performed by the Three Stooges. One on them, usually Curly would say, “Niagara Falls.” Larry and Moe would slowly rotate toward Curly saying, “Slowly I turned; step by step, inch by inch” then they would then do a slapstick assault on Curly responding to his mention of the honeymoon favorite get-away spot of the time, Niagara Falls.

Wednesday, as I pulled the key chain out of my pocket, one of the loops came apart. I was on my way to church and in the darkness, I struggled to put it back together while I keeping my balance on the slippery slope. Thinking the problem solved, I climbed into my car and drove off. Later when I returned home, I attempted to unlock my front door, but the front door key was missing. Gingerly I walked the path searching for it with no luck. I managed to open another door of my house to get inside. Gathering an extra key and a flashlight, I went back outside to resume the search.

Soon I gave up. The melting snow left a thin layer of water on the hard packed snow and ice that accumulated in my driveway. Walking in the driveway was just too dangerous. It felt much like the icy conditions that caused my tumble in February of 2015. That spill caused me to hit the back of my head when my feet flew out from underneath me.

The fall resulted in two intracranial bleeds, one was subdural and one was subarachnoid. One of the bleeds was in the grey matter of my brain and the other was situated between the two hemispheres of my brain. I am still finding out what happened after my fall. My daughter Anna Prinkey reminds me of what I said to her after the incident, before she drove me t Frick hospital. Because of the injury, I lost memory of what occurred for five plus hours. Bits and pieces of the testing at Frick and the ambulance trip to Pittsburgh are all I can recall until I was actually admitted and was in a bed on one of the hospital rooms. The moral of the story is not to fall in the first place. With weather like this, freezing and thawing, I am extremely careful when I’m outside, slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch I travel to and from my car and woodpile.

 

Snow, Frigid Air, and Cabin Fever

The past week of frigid below zero temperatures, strong winds, and heavy coatings of snow are finally over, at least for now. Several days of shoveling out my drive and clearing my walkway are now behind me.

I’ve been having a problem with the manifold on my 2011 Chevrolet Malibu. The noise of the exhaust leak has been slowly increasing. Lately the car’s exhaust has allowed fumes to creep into the car. I made an appointment to repair it and took it to my mechanic. I dropped it off Monday evening so he would have it early. He could start the job after the snow and slop melted from the chassis and the underside. I was thankful that my son-in-law James Prinkey was able to collect me from the garage and drop me off at home. Because I hadn’t driven my car for several days, the snow gathered beneath it and a low snow pile at the edge of the road caused the wheels spun. I had to rock forward and back before escaping my drive and out onto the highway.

At home with no car, I felt even more isolated and trapped inside. It intensified my feelings of cabin fever, especially after the week of confining winter weather. One good thing about having no vehicle in the driveway is that I could shovel away the snow more thoroughly. After my fall in 2015 receiving two intracranial bleeds, I had no desire to repeat it.

Tuesday afternoon, my daughter Anna Prinkey collected me at my home and drove me to the garage to claim my car again. I shared the ride to the garage with their German Shepherd Rocky. Rocky growled when I climbed into the front seat until he recognized me. I pity anyone that would try to hurt Anna with Rocky around.

I was running low of milk and stopped at the Whoa Nellie Dairy on my way home. They have whole milk, chocolate milk, and fresh eggs, at their local farm business.

I was pleased and surprised as the sun dropped lower in the sky, sending its light to shine on the snow and the trees. Ice still clung to the branches and trunks of the trees. The light danced in the branches, Silver and crystal fingers reached into the scantily clad cloud and blue sky.

Uncle Ted Miner

In my past posts, I’ve mentioned that my Uncle Theodore Miner only had the mental capacity of a child in the fourth grade. While he was walking along the highway near my grandparent Miner’s farm, two men stopped their car and tried to get Ted to drink some alcohol. When he refused, they beat him severely. The assault was so intense that he developed brain damage because of the damage he couldn’t continue his education. His mental capacity to learn was stymied.

The one thing he had going for him was a great work ethic. He always found odd jobs to earn spending money. In the summer, Ted often walked for miles pushing his bright green “Lawn Boy” mower. He had several customers and made his way to their various homes and manicured their lawns.

In autumn he would gather nuts and store them until winter, then he would crack open walnuts, butternuts, and hickory nuts. Sitting in the basement, he would pick out the nut meat goodies, weigh them, and bag them. Ted had regular customers who ordered the nut meats well ahead of time to finish their baking projects of Christmas cookies and cakes.

Ted owned a small scroll saw. He used it to shape pieces of wood from deconstructed apple crates. Fitting the cut pieces together, he’d nail them tightly with small brads, then paint the assembled project in bright red. The red sleigh was about 12 inches long by 8 inches wide by 10 inches high. It could be used as a nut bowl or hold Christmas ornaments for display.

Ted collected old tube radios that people would discard. He would check each tube in the radio  to find which tube was causing the problem and make repairs, replacing the “burned out” tube. Radios that were too far gone to save, he would salvage the “good” tubes to use in other radios. He stored the usable tubes in baskets of all sizes then he would sort through the collection until he could find the replacement. Once repaired, he would sell the repaired radios for a few dollars.

Ted would sometimes allow me to trail along with him as he searched the wooded areas around the small town of Indian Head, Pennsylvania hunting for ginseng plants. He would wander through the rocky, leaf covered hills looking for the arched green stalks and clusters of red berries that would identify the elusive root. After digging out the roots, Ted would dry them thoroughly before selling them at Resh’s Red and White store in Indian Head. Resh’s was once a company store that still sold a variety of things from clothing to hardware and food.

Corncobs

I can remember a movie where two “city slicker” actors called country folk corncobs. There were cartoons with the character Popeye having a corncob clenched in his teeth. There are memories of old people saying they kept a supply of dried corncobs in their privies for sanitation purposes. But my oldest recollection is a faint one and was augmented by stories from my mom, Sybil Beck would share. One of my great aunts was as backwoods of a woman as Daniel Boone was an explorer and statesman. My great aunt was a short lady that smoked a corncob pipe. It wasn’t very lady like, but it wasn’t unusual for country women of that time to rub snuff or to smoke.

Another group of happy memories is of our family’s annual visits to the Sweet Corn Festival in Millersport, Ohio. My parents would stay at my aunt Ina and my uncle “Nicky” Nicholson for a week in the summer when the ears of corn were yellow, full, and ripe. The festival was almost like a county fair with amusement rides, entertainment groups, game booths, and of course lots of good food. One of the community organizations had a large steam engine type thing at their booth that cooked hundreds of the bright colored cobs of juicy corn. The ears of sweet corn were pulled out on trays, lifted with tongs, buttered, and served in narrow red and white cardboard boats. Hot and butter flavored, they quickly disappeared leaving only sweet flavorful memories and butter smeared face, lips, and chins.

When my mom served corn on the cob, we had plastic holders that looked like small corn ears with two metal prongs. When they were plunged into each end of the cob, it secured the ears, and allowed us to eat the delicious kernels without burning our fingers. My dad, Carl Beck would eat the kernels circling around the cob, while Mom at them like a typewriter, going end to end.

After I married Cindy Morrison, summer get-togethers often had sweet corn served at family meals. Her dad, Bud would hang a large kettle of water over a wood fire. Once the water boiled, he would fill a pillowcase with ears of corn to cook. With one swift move, he would lift the top of the pillowcase out, let it cool, and remove the cooked corn. All of the corn was available to enhance the meal.

With the cold winds and snow swirling outside today, I makes memories especially warm and welcome.

Defective Detectives

If it wouldn’t have been for a challenge from one of my writing groups, I wouldn’t have written stories to fill four books and probably wouldn’t have had the courage to revive and publish my latest two novels. Thomas Minerd, Tommy Two Shoes series was the result. Tommy is a retired Pittsburgh police homicide detective who is evolving into a private eye because of his skills. His devotion to work caused his divorce, uncovered a corrupt judge, and led him through a meandering path to find a new wife and to adopt an abandoned child. His deceased uncle is Tommy’s muse and this uncle shares insight to crimes with often obtuse, but meaningful clues.

Tommy’s dedication to work is one of his greatest assets as well as one of his biggest faults.

I’ve written other short stories about different detectives as I attempted to uncover other plots and to share some of the experiences in my life with my readers.

One of them is a reluctant detective named Luigi Garibaldi. He’s a professional gambler who had to leave New Jersey and his profession in a hurry because of a dalliance with a casino owner’s wife. Luigi is forced to act as a detective when clues fall into his lap. He settles in southwest Pennsylvania, then needs to take a vacation from there to avoid being recognized. A trip I took to Newfoundland and Labrador lent itself to the background of the story. I shared my experience as though Luigi was really there and traveling.

A second story starring Luigi finds an assaulted rabbi, does CPR, saves the priest and uncovers the theft of an antique Torah. This discovery led to follow a trail of robberies of irreplaceable religious articles: a Bible, an iconic painting, and Shaman masks.

Luigi faults as a womanizer and gambler put him in a position to share his detective skills.

My third detective is female, Mary Alice Brandon, nicknamed Brandi, whose muse is Mae West. Brandi is a private eye whose one fault is her inability to handle money and is constantly chided by Mae to use her feminine wiles more. Hired to investigate possible infidelity case, Brandi works undercover as a salesperson at a high-end and pricey car dealership, called Tooters. She stumbles onto the body of the man she was hired to investigate. Her tenaciousness helps the police uncover the identity of the killer and fulfills her contract with the deceased wife.

Like all human beings, each detective has strengths and assets. Each one has good traits and bad. I try to make my characters seem true to life.

Razor’s Edge

As a corpsman in the United States Navy and early in my career as a nurse, prepping a patient for surgery often required the shaving of the incision site and a wide swath of hair surrounding it. The instrument we used was a straight razor with a disposable blade, much like those used by barbers today. I used one in my profession, but not in my daily life shaving my face.

I remember my grandfather Ray Miner using a double-bladed safety razor. New blades came in a prepackaged flat case and each blade could be pushed out and dropped into an open chamber at the top of the gold colored razor. The open jaws would close with the twisting of the bottom of the handle. Granddad had a stropping machine that would resharpen a worn blade to be used over and over again. The machine was about the size and shape of a fishing reel. After securing the blade, leather covered cylinders would rub against the edge of the blade by turning a crank handle.

My father, Carl Beck had a single bladed razor. It was a much lighter razor having only a metal head, imbedded in a thick ribbed plastic handle. The new blades for it came in a rectangular box with an aluminum arm. The arm was inserted into a slot on the razor and the blade was pushed out and into the razor’s head. As the new blade was inserted, the old blade was pushed out by its replacement.

What I remember most about my dad’s shaving routine was the way he made soapy foam to facilitate the daily removal of his facial whiskers and stubble. He had a brush and mug. The mug was the collection receptacle for our family’s soap bars that became too small for practical use. Adding a bit of water, he would insert the brush into the mug and after a few brisk whisks of the hairs rubbing against the soap bars, he would pull it out and apply the frothy result to his face. Once is face was covered, he would set the mug and brush on the sink, then expertly guide the razor across his face and neck removing the beard with the soap.

Today, we’re sold very expensive electric razors, costly multi-bladed razors, or the inexpensive disposable razors. Recently, I’ve seen a re-emergence of the double-bladed razors like my grandfather used. I wonder what memories tomorrow will bring