Quilting

I don’t think that quilting is the most interesting subject for many readers, but it was an integral part of both my grandmothers lives, Anna Nichols Beck and Rebecca Rugg Miner. My Grandmother Anna’s quilts were utilitarian. Usually the quilt sizes she made were for twin beds and of dark colors of thick warm materials of wool, tweed, and occasionally there were patches of corduroy. She attached the quilt top to a flannel backing with knots of yarn. The finished product was so heavy, I’m not sure that a person would have been able to get out from under a larger than her twin size quilt once a person was covered up with it.

Grandma Becky almost always had a quilt set up on her quilting frame in her television room. When we visited she would often hand us a needle and thread to the stitch straight line patterns she had lightly drawn on the material. She did the fancy scroll and other designs herself. Much of the cotton material was from clothing that had outlived its usefulness. Some pieces were from clothing that no longer fit, were no longer in fashion, or from parts of worn clothing that were still usable. Grandma Becky made squares of many different designs. She would sew the patches into squares on her old Singer treadle sewing machine. Once the quilt top design was complete, she would pin it in layers to the batting and the muslin backing before attaching it to the wooden quilt frame’s rollers. As the quilt was hand-stitched, it would be stretched taut as each unfinished section was revealed. Gram was a busy person, making a quilt as wedding gifts for each of her thirty grandchildren.

My Mother-in-law Retha Johnson Morrison made quilts from double-knit fabric. That nylon material wore like iron. If the backing of flannel wore out, the yarn knots could be snipped and a new backing could be applied. Her first attempts were baby quilts of pastel colors attached to large bath towels by soft yarns. Gradually the quilt sizes increased and her husband Bud built a quilting frame for her. He made it large enough to hold a king sized flannel sheet as backing. I often helped her knot the quilts at the corners where the different fabrics met. Much of the material was from discarded clothing that was no longer wearable or in fashion. Many pieces of cloth had stories attached to them, recalling their past lives.

Last year I had a friend sew three quilt tops that I inherited. They’d never had backing applied; each one hand sewn by my great grandmothers. I passed them on to my children as Christmas gifts.

 

When I Look Back

Looking back over the years, thoughts come rushing back like a river. Sometimes they drift by in a comforting stream, while at other times they swirl by like a flooding river. I do know that the years of my life have rushed by and all that now remain is a small trickle. I think that is why I write down thoughts as they occur. Stupidly as I lived at home, I didn’t listen to the stories my parents, Carl and Sybil Miner Beck would tell me of their lives and the lives of my ancestors and relatives. Like most people, I believed my parents would live forever. Not so, and now I regret that thought. I’ve seen other people’s posts where someone would ask, “If you could tell your younger self anything, what would you tell him?”

I’m not sure that I would tell myself anything. I didn’t listen to others. What makes me think I would listen to an older me? The saying I now believes fits is, “The difference in doing dumb things as a kid and now in that I have to do them more slowly.” I still do dumb things and the ones I can remember of them, I regret. Honestly, can anyone think that telling your youthful self would change anything?

As sometimes happens, my blog wanders off down a rabbit trail and I never get to write about the original thought. I was going to share the most vivid memories of the tenting trip our church group and family made out West about forty years ago, but was sidetracked into this rambling about what might have been. The floodwaters of recollection has again changed the channel of the river and given it a new course and it flows into the ocean of eternity. I guess the major bumps in my life would be waterfalls in the map of my history. Few things can cause a river to flow backwards, even for a few minutes, so life flows on. Grab a paddle and move on. Try to avoid the rapids and toss out a lifeline to those we see struggling. Use the Christ as your anchor and His Word, the Bible as your chart.

 

Yucky Things Moms Used to Do

Not that many years ago mothers handled many tasks that no longer may exist. I always thought my mom was inexplicably brave by reaching into the sink trap with her bare fingers to remove the flotsam and jetsam that accumulated from dish washing and meal preparation. The indefinable conglomeration and congealed mass of debris gathered there waiting for Mom to remove it and toss it into the waste can. Today, many moms just flip a switch and the hidden garbage disposal genie magically makes it disappear, along with several fingers if moms today weren’t careful and tried to remove the yuck by hand.

Another yuck was the cloth diapers. It wasn’t like today with the disposable pull out a new one and toss the old one. Moms had to go through a ritual of removing the safety pins of the old diaper, washing the kid’s bottom, centering the child on a clean diaper, folded to fit the kid, pinning the new one into place, (taking care not to pierce the squirming child) and covering it all with a plastic protective barrier. If that wasn’t yucky enough, now mom had to rinse the mess from the soiled diaper, most often in the toilet. Washday, diapers were separated and washed in Ivory Snow or Dreft so the infant wouldn’t be exposed to harsh soaps and get an irritated and sore bottom. There were few things worse than diaper rash.

Sometimes when the seasonal flu bug hit, moms would be awakened by a gagging sound and a soft mewling of “Mom” coming from the bathroom. Carefully making her way to the ill child, wanting to avoid stepping into a puddle of puke deposited on the trip to the commode, she might encounter a soiled commode with the child hugging the porcelain throne. She would fetch water to rinse the distasteful reminder of the up-chuck from the child’s mouth. She would guide the child back to bed placing a pan beside the bed, “just-in-case.” Her task wasn’t complete. She had to return to the battlefield and face the mess in the bathroom, making sure it was ready for the assault of the next flu victim.

 

Graduation Day

Wednesday was graduation day. I finished my six weeks of cardiac rehabilitation that was required for me after my open heart surgery in March. I’m glad that I went, completing the series of exercises to regain my strength and to breathe. I noticed some shortness of breath during the 2020 hunting season. I couldn’t walk as far I could in 2019. I had to rest more often to catch my breath. I’m hoping that this year I’ll be able to keep pace with my younger brother Ken Beck.

I know people say I needed to be careful and not to push myself, but if I didn’t push a bit, I don’t think I would be strong enough to keep up with my daily chores. Last Monday, I helped my friends can tomatoes, salsa, and spaghetti sauce. It’s an all-hands event scalding, peeling, and cutting up tomatoes. Caution needed removing seeds and stems from the peppers: green bells, cow horns, jalapenos, mild and hot Italian wax. The aroma of garlic and chopped onions filled the kitchen as the concoction rendered down. I believe that we’ll be making more today and possibly more ketchup-pepper mix. It’s great on burgers and a simmering sauce for roast beef, if anyone can afford the price of beef.

Thursday was chore day at my house. I prepared stuffed peppers for my supper and tossed them into my Crockpot. I carried a load of towels down to the basement to wash. The grass outside was too wet to cut grass, so I burned a bag of trash. Because it was wet I hooked my lawn roller to the lawn tractor and made a few turns around my yard. Over the spring and summer, a few ruts and rough spots developed and needed my attention. By then, the towels were washed. I would have hung them outside to dry, but the trash was still smoldering. I like fresh air smell to towels dried outside, but not smoked.

By now the grass was dry and could mow. I did my lawn and my neighbor’s. Tomorrow and the next day is the neighbor’s yard sale. I wanted their lawn to look nice too. I’m not sure what they plan to do with the house, but I hope my new neighbors aren’t told that it comes with free lawn service. While mowing beneath my apple trees, fruit had fallen and was being chopped. I decided to pick apples for a friend who used some last year to make cider and apple butter. Better to share them than to waste. Later I delivered them to his home. He had a leg injury and hadn’t healed completely. P.S. the stuffed peppers were delicious.

 

Flush With Fear and Excitement

Somewhere the waterline in my neighborhood (if you can call the countryside where I live a true neighborhood) there was a water leak and apparently a loss of water pressure. I was away most of the day Monday and didn’t notice until I listened to a phone message on the answering machine. The water company discovered leak, was looking for it and planning to repair it, not leaving until the water was restored. I saw the repair trucks and flashing amber lights about 1,000 feet away from my house, but thought it was the yearly flushing of the hydrants before winter.

Of course I had no water in my home, but did odd chores that could be done without water. Later in the evening, I checked and the water had been restored. As I turned the taps, the hissing and burping of trapped air greeted me. I believe the amount of air was greater than I’ve had before because of the proximity of the leak. I was downstairs until I went to bed. The sink in the upstairs bathroom hissed at me as I endeavored to brush my teeth, then checked my computer before I retired to my bedroom.

I awoke during the night, and shuffled into the bathroom to relieve the pressure of my aging bladder. The house was dark and still. The bathroom was bathed in a soft half light from the feeble rays of a nightlight. My brain wanted to return to bed before the cobwebs of sleep fled from me entirely. I reached for the handle of the commode and pressed it. BANG! I nearly jumped out of my aging skin. The air from the waterline repair had compressed and concentrated itself in the water pipe to my upstairs commode. When I released the trapped air, it detonated like an M-80 firecracker. The explosion rattled the porcelain tank cover and the sound echoed off the bathroom walls. I stood in the middle of my bathroom, perplexed, befuddled, stunned, confused, and bewildered. I tried to sort out what had just happened. Suddenly, it dawned on me. The explosion had been from the escaping trapped air of the water company’s repairs. I must say, it was a blessing that my bladder and bowels were empty at the time or another accident would have probably occurred. The last vestiges of sleep had flown and I sat at my computer until the adrenalin had fled and the desire to meet Mr. Sandman returned.