Remembering the olden days
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Ever since I don't know when, I've been fascinated with historical reenactments. In California they did it on a big scale, recreating the time of good Queen Elizabeth with the Renaissance Faire. We loved going there, dressing up in our peasant dresses, pretending for a day.
We did our own reenactments on a much smaller scale, right in the back yard. I made Indian teepees for my daughter and her friends — little one-man tents to cut down the quarreling — and they played Indian by the hour, by the day, setting up their camp, getting dressed in all their Indian finery, dreaming up war dances and harvest dances to their heart's content. Since their teepees were too small for a camp fire, my 10-year-old built a rock-lined fire pit in the middle of the circle of tents and the kids took turns snitching flour and salt, carrots and potatoes, corn and beans from the refrigerator to make their concoctions of bean-spice soup and roasted bread.
Of course, I kept an eye on them and their land of enchantment. It was delightful to behold, especially in the evening as the day wore on. My little Indians were quieter, their camp was in order, they had played to their heart's content and as the last of the smoke from the campfire drifted up and they sat around it talking softly, I could have sworn I'd stepped back into time.
There are times that I remember from my childhood that I've wanted my children to experience, too — eating supper by the light of the kerosene lamp in Grandma's kitchen (so we have kerosene lamps at our house), milking cows and attempting to squirt milk into the cat's mouth (Dad made sure the girls got that experience), driving the team of horses back to the barn (yes, we had horses in California), swimming in the stock tank (we brought Dad's from the farm — it's yet to be installed here), and making homemade cottage cheese.
Every Schubert family reunion, we try to do something from the past. "I want the kids to know," I tell my sister as we drag the churn down from the shelf and fill it with cream.
"How long does this take?" the ever-efficient Jessica wants to know. The time we churned butter for the family dinner, it took forever. While the kids took turns, Aunt Gertie told them how many pounds of butter she'd churned as a girl. This precious commodity was part of the family income. When we about all gave up that butter would ever appear in the glass jar, Aunt Naomi said, "Keep going! It's almost done." And she was right.
This penchant for the past has brought so much fun into otherwise ordinary circumstances. During the "Indian Period" I tried tanning deer hides and ended up with raw hide — ah, well. "I don't know any other kids who'd have to explain to their friends about their mother's deer hides soaking on the back porch," my daughter chides.
I remembered the smell and feel of homemade soap, so I saved oil, bought lye, found a recipe and tried making some. It was a lot of work! We take hay rides and retell the stories of our times on the farm, then climb down, put the tractor away and exercise gratefulness that we can drive the car to town and not settle for a horse and wagon. One year, we even made a family quilt.
When our computers are daunting and modern-day life seems a little overwhelming, we get out our costumes from the olden days and enjoy dragging our skirts around in the dust for a few hours, remembering the era when an ankle was NOT to be seen and a big bustle was a thing to be desired.
Last week we visited the Lebold House in Abilene and were enchanted with the experience. Not only is the house a piece of wonderful Victorian art, our tour guide was utterly delightful. Before the tour was over, we'd learned so many fascinating tidbits about the Victorian Era that we wished we'd come in costume!
"Could we do something like this in Ramona?" we asked each other on the way home. "It's no Victorian, but we still have Green Acres to fix up," said my sister. Truth be told, we've been hankering to outfit that little old house like a 1920s farm house. It already has an outhouse and a cellar. "We'll find a wood stove for the kitchen and
I can see us in the kitchen turning out warm biscuits and homemade jam for our guests, sweat pouring down our faces as I dream of another day, in the country.
