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Monday, January 22, 2007 10:31 PM CST
Popcorn, games, books filled 1920s winter nights
By MARY JANE COARTNEY
Winter evenings back in the 1920s before radios there was no problem in what to do with our time.
The general household tasks took up much of the time until bedtime. In cold weather we always made sure that the irons were on the warm part of the kitchen range for those who were in cold bedrooms.
Quite often someone was popcorn hungry. Mother would put more coal in the stove and put one of the cast iron skillets on to warm up. Another had the fun of getting a few ears of popcorn from the flour sack hanging on a nail in the pantry. Rubbing the ears together to shell the popcorn was a pleasant task.
By the time the dishes were done, the skillet was hot. Three grains of corn were dropped into the hot fat in the skillet and the lid put firmly in place. We were quiet so we could hear the grains pop, one two, three.
Then, armed with two sturdy potholders, mother lifted the lid, dumped in half-a-cup of corn and started shaking. A spare dishpan was waiting for the popped corn. Usually it took at least two skillets to satisfy our hunger.
It was even better when mother boiled two cups of sugar and half a cup of water until it was “hard crack” stage, when a drop was dropped in cold water. Mother poured the syrup carefully over the lightly salted corn while she stirred.
Homemade popcorn balls are a real treat in any language. They can be made with microwave corn, but who goes to that trouble when we can get Cracker Jack, or whatever the stuff is called?
We had a set of dominoes, a checker board, and the Uncle Rhemus book that I got for Christmas. We loved the Uncle Rhemus stories about Miss Meadows and the girls.
Funny folk stories like that may be banned from today’s politically correct libraries. Like most others things, we didn’t know there was any difference in the stories we read and the beautiful Stephen Foster songs that we sang each day at our country school.
What to do with your time isn’t much of a problem any more. If I want popcorn, the biggest decision is which side up when it goes into the microwave. No searching for a ragged piece of blanket to wrap the newspaper-wrapped iron to warm my feet in bed. The bedroom is already warm.
Since the new remote replaced the one that we never found, I can watch TV or ignore it. It’s an effort to stay awake for the 10 o’clock news. Usually I drift off to sleep and wake in time for the long string of commercials.
When I first started watching the late shows they seemed quite clever. One of the hosts said he didn’t aim to shock his mom. His mother must be a woman of the world by now, as the format has changed or I have. I flip on my radio and let it sing me to sleep.
I grew up in a house with newspapers. There was usually a continued story running in the Terre Haute paper we read daily. The Charleston Courier didn’t carry a story, but there was Joe Palooka. We read the “funny paper” before we did our chores after school.
They tell us that if we wait long enough things will come around again. I must be on the second or third round.
Mary Jane Coartney of rural Ashmore is a writer and poet. She has lived in Coles County for 93 years.
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