MORE POartRY and PROSE - an excerpt
PAGE 63
Our world is not the same world in which I grew up.
People have always struggled but I get the impression that today the struggle is tougher than it was in bygone days. I believe this is because too many people have lost hope in a brighter future.
Too many are devoid of faith in anything outside of themselves.
I don't know what the future holds. Our planet is filled with wars, hunger, drugs, homelessness, violence, hatred, and fear. Perhaps it always has been but, because of social media, we see and hear much more about this negativity.
We do our best to keep our homes peaceful and safe but with social media, T.V., and cell phones, it is difficult to escape all the ugliness taking place in our world.
I pray for all the little ones coming up. I wonder what kind of a world my little Cecilia and her friends will find themselves in when they are grown.
PAGE 54
"Pretty in Print"
Even today in our modern 2023 world, I hear female friends saying, "Oh, this weather is perfect for hanging the clothes on the line."
Today, those women who have an outdoor space are blessed to be given a choice. They can choose to hang the clothes on the line or they can choose to throw the clothes into the dryer.
My mother had no choice. In fact, in the early being Mommy days of my life, I had no choice. The electric or gas dryers became popular in the fifties but weren't commonly used by the average family until the early sixties.
I have early childhood memories of my mother hanging clothes on the line in the backyard on good-weather days. I also remember the many bad-weather days when she would hang the wet clothes on lines hung in the basement and even in the kitchen where it was warm by the gas fire.
On cold winter days when she hung the clothes outside on the line, I remember the clothes freezing solid. I remember my poor mother's hands rough and sometimes bleeding. And I remember her carrying the stiff, frozen clothes into the house. The clothes thawed quickly and she would be faced with the task of hanging them again in the basement or kitchen.
As for looking pretty in print, yes, indeed my mother did wear pretty print dresses when I was a child. She called them housedresses, not to be confused with her afternoon dresses and her evening dresses.
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