|
Things You Rarely Hear Today
|
|
It is natural that cultures change and the everyday language of living changes with it. A friend recently sent me some things that he heard around the place when he was growing up and that he thinks are extinct or nearly so in our culture today. I have adopted all of the things that he listed and have added a few more that were maybe unique to my family history (but I don’t think they were). If you are under fifty I doubt that you have heard many of these things.
Be sure and fill the ice trays, the ladies are coming for a devotional this afternoon.
Watch for the postman this morning. I have a letter for Aunt Mary that I want her to get on the afternoon delivery. Get three cents from my purse to pay the postage.
Quit slamming that screen door when you go outside.
Be sure and pull the windows down before we leave. It looks like a shower is coming.
Don’t forget to wind the clock before you go to bed.
Be sure to wash your feet before you go to bed, they are dirty from you playing outside barefooted.
Be careful opening that fifty pound sugar sack. I intend to make underwear for the children with that sack.
Why can’t you remember to roll up your pants leg when you get on that bicycle. You have the leg so torn from getting it caught in the chain that I can hardly repair it.
Don’t you go outside with your good school clothes on!
Go comb your hair. It looks like the rats nested in it last night.
Be sure and pour the cream off the milk when you open the bottle.
Put the empty milk bottles on the front porch so Mr. __________ will know how much to leave today.
Put the ice card in the window turned for 50 pounds.
Take that empty soda pop bottle to the store with you so we won’t have to pay a deposit on a new one.
Put a dish towel over the cake so the flies won’t get on it.
Quit jumping on the floor! I have a cake in the oven and you are going to make it fall.
Let me know when the Fuller Brush Man or the Watkins Products man comes by. I need a few things from both of them.
You boys stay close by. The car may not start and I will need you to crank it.
There is a dollar in my purse, go by and get five gallons of gas with it when you go to town.
Open the back door and let us see if we can get a breeze blowing through here. It is getting hot !
You can walk to Aiken. It is only four miles.
If you pull that stunt again I am going to wear you out! (No empty threat)
Don’t lose that button. I’ll sew it back on in a minute.
Let me see your hands. Go back and wash under your neck. You have beads of sweat and dirt under there. You don’t sit to a meal with a dirty neck.
Get out from under that sewing machine. When you press it on that treadle you mess up the thread in the bobbin.
Don’t forget to wash the lamp chimneys then shine them with a piece of newspaper. Then fill up all the lamp bowls with coal oil and trim the wicks if they need it.
Here take this old Sears catalog with you to the privy. We are almost out of paper out there.
Put the butter in the well. On the north side remember.
Go out to the windmill and get me a big bucket of water so I can wash these dishes.
We are about to run out of soap and hog killing is at least two months away.
That dog is not coming in this house! I don’t care how cold it is outside dogs just don’t come in houses.
Soak your foot in this pan of coal oil so that bad cut won’t get infected.
You’ve got a splinter in that foot. We’ll; tie a piece of fat meat over that to draw it out.
Hush your mouth! You know better than to say words like that. If I hear it again I’ll wash your mouth out with lie soap.
No you can’t get a barber shop haircut. They cost a quarter now and that is too much!
You look a little piqued. Hear take this spoon full of Black Draught. It will help clean out your system.
If you get a spanking at school and I find out about it you will get another one when you get home.
If you get a fever keep your bowels open and drink lots of water.
Quit crossing your eyes. They might get hung up that way.
It is "Yes Sir" and "No Sir" to me young man and don’t you forget it again. And don’t say "huh" to me when I ask you a question.
While we are at Aunt Mary’s and Uncle John’s you kids eat at second table after the adults get through and I don’t want to hear any "I don’t like-----". You eat what is put on your plate and you eat it all and you don’t ask for more. Do you understand that?
Get your hat off that bed young man. Men never put there hat on a bed. Ladies do. Men don’t.
Hang that snake on a fence or it won’t die until sundown.
I want you boys to come turn the ice cream freezer. There is a church social tonight.
You kids stay away from that dead snake. Its mate may come to revenge its death.
Milk and fish at the same meal are poison.
No one leaves a meal at table without asking Father’s permission to leave.
Go put some gasoline in the washer. I have a world of laundry to do today.
You put on clean underwear before you go to town. You might be in a wreck.
We will see about getting you one next Saturday when Grandad goes to town.
Tomorrow is haying time. You boys will get up at 4 am eat breakfast at 4:30 and have teams harnessed to the pick-up rakes by 5:30 and will be in the field to follow the buck rakes by 6:00. So you had better get to sleep.
Don't ever let me hear you say that word again!
I have some more but you are probably already to sleep. You may assume from this list of things that my parents and grandparents and I were just naturally backward and stupid and uneducated. Such is not the case. Both of my parents had some college after graduating with honors from high school. My Dad was one of the most effective construction managers I ever knew. My mother taught Sunday school for twenty five years and was dearly beloved by her class. It was just a different world then and our minds were on different things.
Charles Turrentine
|
|
|
| 