Mystery Solved

The other day I got a new pincushion. My old one was shaped like a lady bug and I had had it for more than 40 years. It started to leak sawdust a few years ago. I sewed it up, but it kept leaking. Anyway, I don't like lady bugs as much as I used to, now that they have invaded our house and keep turning up dead on windows, floors and counters.
So I bought a new pincushion and began to transfer my pins and needles from the old to the new. In doing so, I solved a mystery that is just as difficult as to find out what happens to the socks that never come back after you wash them.
First I moved all the pins and needles that were sticking through the fabric. But I could still feel little prickly points through the material. So I cut open the old pincushion and started dumping out sawdust. To my surprise, I found about 25 needles inside the pincushion. Pins have heads that keep them from getting pushed inside the pincushion, but needles do not! Now I understand why I've had to buy new needles so often. I always assumed they had gotten lost in the sewing box or fallen on the floor. Instead, I could have found them at any time, hidden inside the pincushion.

So here was another mystery without any bad guys,

Bad Guy Stories

First Bad Guy Story

One time when I was little there was a big snowstorm that left a lot of snow and ice on the driveway that we shared with the house next door. After the snow melted, my Dad and the next door neighbor saw that there were nails on the driveway. They thought that there were bad guys who wanted to puncture the tires of our cars. They were worried about having bad guys doing bad stuff in our neighborhood. But then they realized what had happened. To help melt the snow and ice that were on the driveway, the neighbor had scattered ashes from some old wooden boards he had burned up. He didn't realize it, but there were nails in the boards. When he scattered the ashes he didn't notice the nails, but after the snow melted and washed away the ash, he saw them on the driveway! We didn't have bad guys after all!

Second Bad Guy Story

Our next door neighbor was very upset. He went up into his attic after he had been out of town. He saw that there were a lot of things torn up and scattered around. He was afraid some bad people in the neighborhood had broken into his house and made a mess. He told the other neighbors to be careful to look out for bad guys. After a few days he realized who the bad guys were when he investigated some noises in the attic. They were some squirrels who had gotten in through a hole in the roof!

Cooking Class

My mother liked to bake cookies and pies and cakes. But usually, when I asked to help, she wouldn't let me do any of the measuring or mixing. She would say "You can grease the pans". I guess she thought I couldn't make any mistakes and mess up the recipe that way, or perhaps she was too busy to help me learn new things. I knew a little bit about cracking eggs, measuring flour, etc., but wasn't very comfortable in the kitchen.
So in seventh grade, when I took cooking class, I was pretty nervous. We got a grade based on how well we followed the recipes and the teacher's instructions, which made me even more worried.
I remember that Liz, a girl in my class, cut the grapefruit the wrong way, with the cut going through the place where the stem had been instead of having that place at the bottom of one half. That makes it very hard to eat the grapefruit, and Liz was embarrassed.

I got through the grapefruit and biscuit making class ok. But the next week's class was baking muffins. It was a hot in the classroom with an oven going on a September afternoon in St. Louis. We had to read the recipe, make the muffins, set the table, and then sit down and eat like ladies.
I did what I was supposed to: measured, mixed, baked, sat politely and ate a muffin. Then I did what I was NOT supposed to. I felt awful, from being nervous and hot and from eating quickly. I asked to be excused, and rushed to the restroom, where I threw-up. Naturally my classmates found out what had happened. So I was known (and teased a little bit) for having gotten sick on my own cooking.

Snowy Weather

Today we are having a blizzard in Indiana. I walked to work this morning wearing my down jacket and hood, my wool beret, my polartec fleece and warm turtleneck t-shirt, my blue jeans and my nylon snow pants with zippers at the cuffs, my thinsulate lined boots and gloves, and my heavy socks. My jacket has a high collar and the hood has a piece that goes over my chin and mouth. The jacket has a zipper and snaps. The hood has velcro to keep it closed. I had my backpack to carry my purse and shoes and book and lunch, so my hands were free to help me balance. Every now and then a little snow would blow into my face, but only my eyes and nose were exposed, and I didn't feel very cold or uncomfortable. I was very glad I was walking instead of slipping and sliding in a car.
As I walked I was thinking about what it was like when I was a little girl. In cold weather, girls still had to wear skirts to school. We could wear pants over (or under) our skirts, but they were bulky and uncomfortable and no one did. Our coats had buttons that the wind could sneak between. Our knees would get cold between the bottoms of our skirts or coats and the tops of our boots.

Boots were rubber boots that we wore over our shoes. They were too wide at the top, so they would fill up with snow if we walked into a drift. Our socks would squinch down into our shoes inside our boots and feel wet and icky. We wore hats or scarves, but our chins would be cold. We didn't have book bags that went on our backs. We had to carry our books in our arms. In snowstorms our books would get snow on them and be heavy to carry.


When I got to high school, some of my friends and I got old army ammunition bags to carry our books in. That was more comfortable, but other kids teased us for doing something different from what everyone else did.

Fortunately it didn't get really cold in St. Louis very often, but when it did we were really miserable. My walk to school was about a mile, about the same distance as I now walk to work, but now I enjoy the walk while then I suffered. I really appreciate the new fabrics and technology that allow us to have warm winter clothes. I am also very happy that girls and women now can wear comfortable clothes to school and work without getting in trouble. I'm too old for people to tease me about how I look or how I carry my books. I hope younger people also choose what is comfortable and sensible even if some of their classmates tease them.