A Journal of Sorts

Saturday, 13 March 1999

Slick the slide

This morning, we were out on the front porch and he mentioned that he keeps forgetting to get baggies when he goes to the store. I told him that I had also intended to pick them up on my last few trips. Then, I mentioned to him that we had plenty of Saran Wrap and aluminum foil -- somewhat old fashioned, but it works. That started us on a discussion of waxed paper.

My family was big on picnics. It was nearly a ritual, we had picnics several times a month. Mom had a big metal washtub that she would use to pack up dishes, silverware, the tablecloth, napkins, waxed paper and charcoal along with the food. Our standard picnic was hot dogs, with potato chips, pork n beans and my grandmother's potato salad. My dad made a big production out of the mustard and relish. (Dad still makes a big production out of food. One of his favorite things when he comes to visit is to stand in front of our open cabinets and read the food).

While they were starting the fire for the hot dogs, my brother and I headed to the playground. He would not get on the merry-go-round, but he could push it really really fast. I liked that. I was killer on the swings, going so high that I could see over the top bar, then bailing out. The monkey bars were always my favorite thing -- probably because they were my Dad's least favorite thing. I climbed anything that I could, all the time and always got a reprimand from my Dad. His usual words were, "why don't you go sit in a corner and knit???"

After the meal, I normally went out exploring the woods or creeks nearby and played on the slides. There were always slides. I didn't much like the little slides, but would play for a long time on the big slides, usually shinnying up the poles instead of using the ladders. There were humped slides, spiral slides and usually one really tall (to me) slide where I could go so fast I had to run when I hit the ground at the bottom of it. What I really hated was to get up on the top, sit and push off and STICK there. That's where the waxed paper came in. If you have a slide that is sticky, just sit on waxed paper and go down it that way. After a couple of waxed paper trips down the slide, it is as slick as a slide ought to be.

I had collections of pretty leaves and flowers I'd collect. First, I'd put them in one of the encyclopedia volumes and stack several others on top of it. After awhile, I'd take my treasures out of the books, all perfectly flat and go for the waxed paper. I'd carefully place my specimens between two sheets of waxed paper and iron them, sticking them together. (I'd sure hear from my Mom whenever she'd get wax on Dad's shirts.) The next step was to cut pretty shapes on the borders and punch holes in the side so they would fit in my leaf notebooks.

It wasn't thundering when I woke up this morning, but the wind was whistling outside and the wind chimes were really clanging away. I certainly slept late -- it was nearly 8 o'clock. Ah, such decadence. Ed came and got all the kids last night, even Katie, much to his surprise. With Tom at work, I have the place to myself today. I love the solitude; it is such a rare thing.

I can't find any new growth on anything in the yard. I'll bet when the sun comes out and it warms up out of the 30's, things will take off again. Texas weather being what it is, I'll probably be wearing shorts tomorrow.