Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois (c) Bill Oliver 11 May 2003 Vol 2 Issue: #19 ISBN: pending Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that nostalgia is a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for the return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; And, that memories are, among other things, particular acts of recall or recollections, or images or impressions of one that is remembered, such as fond memories of one's youth. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?? That was one of our favorite discussion topics when we were tired and didn't want to study any more. We would leave our dorm rooms and gather at the local college hangout and "relax". While reading this week, a variant question came to my mind — which came first; the hunt for ancestors or the hunt for their belongings.?? Sometimes it is called antique hunting or shopping, but on my budget it more likely is called "flea- marketing" or "garage sales". Well, it may be "fleaing" to some of us but is has become very fashionable by celebrities. Even fashion designers are "stitching" flea touches to their very pricy clothes. Once while walking a neighborhood "garage sale", I saw a "Skippy" wagon for sale. I had one when I was but a tad of a lad. In fact, it still hangs by its handle out in my garage. Even in the terrible shape that it is in, I can't yet bear to give it up. It has traveled everywhere with me; Dad was a US Marine, so that includes overseas. My Grandpa made an extension for the handle so it fit my tall frame when I was in my early teens growing spurt. I pulled ice in it in Bermuda and groceries in North Carolina. In addition, our boys rode in it when their mother went to the milk store or the A&P Grocery. When visiting my maternal Grandmother, my sister and cousins often headed straight for the cookie jar sitting in the pass-through window sill in the kitchen for a flour coated "sugar cookie". That cookie jar was the shape of a broad kindly smiling monk holding up two fingers. Across his robe were the words "Thou Shalt Not Steal". I have that cookie jar setting on my bureau. It can't be used for holding cookies any more because water seeped past the glaze into the bisque. Once while we were visiting our Father, my sister and I were visiting shops in Capistrano, and I discovered another of those Red Wing cookie jars and my sister bought it. She paid ten or less dollars for it. Recently I found another one in "collectibles" establishment in the mid-west. It was chipped around the edges and they want sixty dollars for it. <sigh> It's now a collectable. My paternal Grandmother once gave me a cow's horn that she used to blow when she wanted to call Grandpa in from the fields for meals. The horn is old and dry and I'm afraid to blow it very hard any more for fear of splitting it. But, hanging there on the wall, it reminds me of the many stories that she would tell of her earlier life. For instance, when she and Grandpa were first married, they lived with Grandpa's Uncle Monroe. Grandpa farmed the land and Grandma took care of the house and cooking. Uncle Monroe liked his daily ‘cornpone'; warm for breakfast and cold for the other two meals. Uncle Monroe must have had a "grand" house according to Grandma. The wooden floors were bleached clean by a method sailors call "holystoning". <http://www.bb62museum.org/images/Hart/holystoning.html> Grandma said she did it on her knees. Robert Watson recorded in his Civil War Diary the often "holystoning of spar decks". Dad was stationed in Bermuda once and we moved there to be with him. He often served as Sergeant of the Guard on Military Police Duty. He was friendly with the local Crown Police and he obtained a night stick from them. He used to "flip" it expertly and taught me how. Dad passed that night stick to me and when I see it hanging on my study wall many memories of him, Mom and Bermuda come rushing back to me. We have a kerosene wick lamp or two around. We don't use them very often. They are messy. I didn't like to clean them as a boy and I still don't like to clean them. For the twenty five years I spent with the Boy Scouts of America and summer camps, we used lanterns which needed cleaning. The boys never seemed to get the hang of not blackening the glass. <grin> I remember the use of lanterns in the old freight train switching yards across from our house. The sound of the puffing of the steam locomotives and the sound of the cars crashing together was music to lull me to sleep at night. The whistle was music, not like the blast of a diesel horn today. "Every" boy had a Lionel Electric Train! Well, I can't pass by any display of "wanna-bee" engineers. I had one. I had enough track to make a figure-8. My cousin has a model train display to envy. If it was made he had it. Water towers, stations, houses, multiple transformers and what seemed miles of track. As I remember he even had different gage tracks. It filled a large part of his basement. Sigh, I guess we moved around the country and world too much to pack a model train around. <biggrin> So, model trains remind me of living near a switchyard, traveling on trains, and the good times I had with my cousin. He turned out to be the closest thing I had to a brother. There is a tin soap container on my workbench. It contained the what was left of the pictures that almost survived a house fire we had when I was about six years old. Mom treated those pictures as if they were gold. I am in the process of digitizing them and some reconstruction or restoration work. These and other things that have belonged to my families can't talk for themselves. So, I have written as much of their stories as I can and am storing them with the objects. I don't know if anyone of the family will want them, but if they do they will know their stories from my side of the picture. This last week has not been the best for many families of my acquaintance and distant kin. The storms have been violent and some of them lost so much. All my friends and relatives have checked in and are doing fine. However, there seems to be a lot of "clean-up" in some places. Guess the graveyard restoration attempt will have to wait a bit longer. I hope all your friends and family are as well as mine. Plus, Happy Mother's Day to all Mother's and to those who come from Mother's. Remember that they, our Mother's, spent much time rocking us when we were very young. Wado, Bill -=- Other sites worth visiting: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html