I am loving the weather. A chill still lingers in the air, but thats okay. The sun is shining and soon the birds will be singing. Autumn is my favorite time but Spring holds a close second. I wish I was an artist to paint the first budding of the trees but I'm not. So I will just have to enjoy with my eyes.
I have been at a loss on what to write today. Shall we stroll down memory lane or talk about a current topic. Now since I don't stay very current, just maybe we will stroll back a little. Maybe back to ninth street. Back where life began, at least it did for me.
Spring makes me think of house cleaning, painting and of Momma. She papered every Spring. It was a Spring ritual, going to Cook's paint and wallpaper store. Mother never looked for what was new and current, she looked for cheapest. And that is what would adorn our walls for another year. If they didn't have enough rolls in one pattern she was known to finish off a wall in some obscure corner with a different pattern, So we might have pink flowered walls with a small patch of stripes along the trim boards. Momma seemed not to care as long as it was fresh and clean, that's all that mattered. I personally did not have any idea other people didn't have wall papered rooms that looked like ours.
She never scraped, she just plastered the new over the old. She painted trim the same way. I think that is where I get my hap hazarded ways, from Momma. Spring came, new wallpaper went up. She made her own paste. No money for the store bought bags where you added water. She took a pan, added flour and water. Stirred good and presto, paste. Who needed much money with odds and ends of wall paper, four and water. A whole new room in the matter of a few hours.isn't that the way everyone decorates?
Her equipment was usually chairs and a board she kept around to make a plank. One year Raplh McDonald who was a painter loaned her two ladders and a scaffolding board to run between the ladders. You could walk around up there and it made it much easier to hang the wall paper. Mom was always armed with two rags and a brush. She laid the paper out on the kitchen table, pre-measured and cut. Then she climbed up and someone pasted a strip and brought it to her. She worked her magic . Using the rags to smooth out the lumps sometimes caused by the flour paste. No matter if there was a air bubble or two. We soon would have nice clean walls. Life was good.
The year she borrowed the ladders and board it was with great anticipation the great wall paper day arrived. Several friends were there, Margie Allen, Grandma Minnie. Mom set it all up, someone brought the pasted strip. Mom was up on the runner, Minnie and Margie were up on the runner. All were going to help. So to me it looked like fun. I wanted to help too. I climbed the ladder, I crawled over on the board, it started shaking. Mom started yelling, Margie started yelling. Heck they all were yelling. The ladders separated, the board flew up in the air. The ladies, the paste, the wall paper, it all came tumbling down. I didn't fly as far as they did, I had not made it too far.
Of course I was in the dog house again and all I wanted to do was help. Mother was aggravated and I was not allowed back in the room till they were done. Nobody ever seemed too notice the mistakes. If the border didn't match the paper who cared. We were Ninth street. It just wasn't important back then. Nobody had matching wallpaper or matching dishes, not on Ninth Street. Everyone on that corner lived in a unpainted house. But come Spring we had new wallpaper and freshly painted trim. It was just the colors didn't match. But me,I thought we were uptown. I still think we were.
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