| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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| A Word Edgewise by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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IF I WERE AN ANIMAL, I'D BE A PACK RAT
Life is funny. Human beings are funny. Thinking about the everyday actions that take no decision making, just actions and reactions, the attitudes and habits that flow free like ribbons in the wind, causes me to wonder. How did all these opinions, these mind sets come to be a part of me? Why do I shudder when I see good food from a huge Thanksgiving meal wasted? (Actually, all I wasted was some squash casserole. We enjoyed family, friends and food to the max.) Why do I hesitate to throw away a good box that would otherwise take up storage space until thrown at a latter date? Why does paying double the price of an item just for the name brand make me feel like a fool?
Stashed away beyond a memory bank must lie samples of my mother's and father's reactions to life, and, perhaps, they brought many samples of their own parents, and---
Here it is the first week of December, the gift-giving, shopping time of the year, and strange things attract my attention as I walk through stores. Crayolas. I passed by a display of Crayolas yesterday and paused to look at selections of little boxes of eight colors dwarfed by huge boxes of 96 sticks of color. I would have been in dream heaven with a box like that when I was frying size. A box of sixteen, the big box then, brought out all the stingy traits I possessed. I didn't want to lend them because someone might break one, or dull that nice point, but when someone asked, "Let me use your orange for a minute?" I kicked myself and handed it over, watching out of the corner of my eye to see what had to be painted orange. The small box didn't have orange. I'm tempted to buy myself the biggest box on display now--but what would I ever do with them--besides look and feel every one of them? "Waste not, want not," echoes in the attic, and I shake my head and move on--but they come in such nice boxes now, too.
Boxes. So many boxes of every shape and size available. Where were they when I wanted one for my paper dolls? Other than shoe boxes and match boxes, we didn't see many. Shoe boxes were really too big for paper dolls--but then we could keep our furniture, that we cut from heavy paper like the backs of catalogues, in the box with the paper dolls. Match boxes made pretty good cars for the games we played. A pretty candy box would never go in the trash. I coveted the heart-shaped one with flowers on it that my sister got from a beau--and a cigar box was a prized possession
Pencils of all colors seemed lonesome last week, because not many people seem to use pencils. Do you remember how the eraser seemed to wear out before the pencil--even sharpening them with a dull knife as I had to do at home, leaving little point exposed, the erasers were the crucial part. Wasting a whole sheet of paper from that Big Chief tablet when an error could be erased was a crime.
By standards of that day, we were not poor, but neither did we have enough to waste. Everything was used. A nail keg with a little padding on top and a skirt made from a printed feed sack made a nifty vanity stool. Apple boxes could be covered with wall paper for book shelves. Some planks and bricks made good book shelves. Old books made pretty good scrap books. I have one my grandmother made for clippings from newspapers, "dream kitchens" from magazines, poems, pasted in it--with flour paste.
Attitudes seem planted in our genes. Mother never tolerated whining and complaining. Perhaps it was because she had a very difficult life in her younger years and our troubles seemed trifling. Whatever the reason, we learned not to whine with discontent and self-pity. Her, "Hush. That's enough of that," carried with it enough threat to turn sniffles into stifled sobs. Complain? If you can't do anything about it, then what's the use. Yes, that carried through the generations.
I remember once when we lived in New Mexico, I was driving to Erath county with my three kids to see Ray's parents and my kin. Out between Carlsbad and Hobbs, miles and miles without habitation, Melissa began to whine and complain because she was thirsty. We had nothing to drink and nothing could be done. Finally, I stopped the car by the side of the road and asked her, "Look all around. Do you see any place we could get you a drink of water? Do you see a house, a windmill, a store? Do you think your whining and crying will get you a drink?" She looked and shook her head. "O.K. Now just be patient. We'll get you a drink as soon as we can." She decided taking a nap would rush us a bit.
Looking around at the stuffed closets and shelves, kitchen cabinets that cascade pots and pans when one is removed, I make resolutions that I'm going to cull out the contents and discard things used once in five years and those never used at all. It's too early for New Year's resolutions--and I will have forgotten which to cull by then. After all, I may need one of those cookie tins for Christmas cookies. What can I ever use that huge pop corn can for? Oh, yes. It still has some pop corn from last Christmas. Do birds eat pop corn?