It is Valentine’s Day, and boxes of candy, sweet valentines and gifts of all sorts are being exchanged back and forth. It was so different in my childhood days when penny valentines (and handmade ones) were exchanged at grade school. We would fix a paper box with elaborate trimmings of crepe paper and ribbons, and place the box on the teacher’s desk. All the valentines would be dropped in the box, and the teacher would pick up each card and call out the recipient’s name.
With red face and quivery legs, we walked up front to receive the card, and with even redder face we opened it–especially if it was from someone that we were sweet on. That is another thing that has changed–the expressions that we once used. How long has it been since you heard of “being sweet on someone?” Kids have crushes now, or they are “in a relationship” according to Facebook. I remember asking my younger Cousin Kay (who had just come in from a date,) “Well how did you make out?” We used that expression to inquire how you did on a test or a job interview or any number of things,
I remember how she giggles and told me. “Alyce Faye, that is dirty!” Perhaps it still is; I don’t know. Words seem to have a completely different meaning than they did when I was a kid. When you were gay, you were happy and merry. (My father’s name was Gay and he’d turn over in his grave at the meaning the world puts on it now.)
There are lots of expressions that we still use that have gone out of style–or are no longer used. I heard Patty tell one of the girls. “I can read you like a book!” That’s what Mom used to tell us when we were trying to “pull the wool over her eyes.” I reckon our talk does date us as old fogeys, as we are prone to use the same expressions that our parents used.
“You better straighten up and fly right!” was what we heard a lot when we were young. I was giving the boys a lecture one time and finished my tirade with, “You are going to ship up or shape out!” Of course I meant to say, “shape up or ship out!” My lecture sort of lost its impact. I told a neighbor one time that I was going to do a certain thing “if it cow-lipped every hare in Texas!” I meant “hare-lipped every cow in Texas.”
We never hear anyone say now, “Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper” do we? Or, “she looks mighty puny” or “she looks like death warmed over.” A friend once described another person as being “pusey-fat” and when I looked shocked, she asked me if I’d never heard of that word. I hadn’t. I looked it up in the Whistlin’ Dixie dictionary, and it described the word as “pussel-gutted, meaning big, protuberant-bellied. I’m afraid that a lot of our talk was not politically correct. Well, I’ll see you in the funny papers!
We’ve had some response on the request for th apple pie recipe. And Don Norman of Elyria sends this, “My Aunt Ella Ward Norman used a crust that was more like biscuit dough than a pie crust. She made very thin pies and would stack four or five on a plate. Don is also a pie maker, and says he’s found using Musselmann’s Chunky applesauce works fine for pies. He adds two teaspoons cinnamon, two teaspoons allspice, one cup brown sugar, two tablespoons flour for a 48 ounce jar of applesauce, and it makes two 8” pies.
Mary Ann McMillen of Scott Depot sends a recipe that is somewhat similar to the one Don Norman sent. She says that her mother-in-law, Florence Gwinn McMillen made her pies with applesauce and biscuit dough for the two-crust pie. She added cinnamon and nutmeg to the applesauce. Her small fried apple pies were made the same way, just as her mother made them. This is an old recipe that has been handed down.
Another take on the “Brown Cake” that was requested a few weeks ago comes from Gladys Null of Charleston. She found it in a church Cookbook and it is called “Brown Pudding” or “Hot Fudge Pudding.” I made it last evening and it was good, but really needs to be served with ice cream.
BROWN PUDDING
1 cup sifted flour ½ cup milk
2 tsp. baking powder 2 tbsp. melted butter
½ tsp. Salt ½ cup nuts
¾ cup sugar 1 square melted chocolate or
2 tbsp. cocoa
Sift flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and cocoa together in bowl. Stir in milk and butter. Blend in nuts. Spread in 9X9” pan. Sprinkle batter with ½ cup sugar and ½ cup brown sugar mixed with 4 tbsp. cocoa. Pour 1 cup cold water over top. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. (During baking, cake rises to the top and chocolate sauce settles to the bottom.) Serve with ice cream.
Cousin Bobby of Florida reminisces about a young groundhog that his father (my Uncle Dick Samples) once trapped when he was searching for muskrats. His injured leg healed fast, and he became a household pet. They named him Floyd, and he loved roasting ears. One day he was given a leftover ear that was buttered, and then from then on he turned up his nose at unbuttered ears of corn.
He loved Sugar Daddy candy, and Uncle Dick made sure that he got one every day. He built his fall den in a retaining wall near the house, but when spring came, he was gone. Bobby said he must have resumed a normal whistle pig’s life, but I figure he’s somewhere giving out weather forecasts.
Since this is Valentine’s Day, I would love to send out bouquets to my special friends. But since so many folks are special to me, I’m afraid of leaving someone out. So to all my friends who make my life truly blessed, I send this poem. Happy Valentine’s Day and every day!
FOR ALL OF A TROUBLED HEART
By A. Warren
The snow is falling softly on the earth,
Grown hushed beneath its covering of white:
O Father, let another peace descend
Of all of troubled heart this winter night.
Look down upon them in their anxious dark,
On those who sleep not for their fear and care,
On those with tremulous prayers on their lips,
The prayers that stand between them and despair.
Let fall Thy comfort as this soundless snow:
Make troubled hearts aware in Thine own way
Of Love beside them in this quiet hour,
Of Strength with which to meet the coming day.