Bottled Time/continued

"No, I don't remember any Ida Kelly. I thought I knew everyone on Third." Mother sounded puzzled by the new name.

"Well, I heard she went before the judge, and he sentenced her to five days in the county jail."

"You're kidding." We were all hooked on the story and stunned that something like that could happen.

"Yeah, she got five days because the judge said there were five pieces of pears and he was going to give her a day for each piece. Then her husband got up and told the judge she didn't steal a can of pears, it was a can of peas." Marge's sober face cracked a smile and our curiosity switched to knowing we had just been had. That was Marge, always ready with a joke and a clever way of delivery.

"Marge, you really had me going there for a minute," Mom responded. "Let's go outside."

The four of us headed to the patio, each with lemonade and a hand fan. "Sure is still today," Marge would start. "The fan is working overtime, and the only thing I feel is hot air."

"It'll be better outside. Thank God for that river breeze cooling us off. Sometimes at night it gets down right cold, and we have to pull a cover up to sleep."

"Maybe Les and I should come over here to sleep," Marge continued to banter mom with her idle threats. "We know it'll be expensive, but we're putting in central air.

Mom didn't like spending any unnecessary money. "Well, we don't need central air. We have the river," she did like boasting about that river breeze.

Once outside, we settled in our respective spots. Mom and dad would sit on the yellow steel glider with their back to the orange day lilies, catching the light breeze the river promised on a still, hot summer day. Marge and I would move the webbed chairs to conversation style while searching for that same breeze.

"Marge, how much does central air cost?" You'll have to put the entire system in. It'll cost a fortune." Mom wasn't cheap, but she was frugal. She knew if they needed it, they would get it, too; it's just that they didn't need it except for maybe a few days in August. And they could live through that for the amount of money they'd have to pay for central air.

Marge believed in having the conveniences of modern technology. "It'll be a few thousand to have the entire system put in. The man from Johnson's Appliance is coming over Monday to give us an estimate. I'll know more after that."

"My God, Marge, a couple of thousand," Mom was exasperated at the cost. "That's nearly as much as we paid for our house back in '57. We paid $7000 for this house, and now central air will cost a good fourth of a house. Unbelievable."

"We only paid $5000 for ours in '52, but we don't have that river breeze you always talk about. I guess you gotta pay for air, and ours is gonna be man-made. You know everything is more expensive today than what it was."

"Tell me about it. When I was a young girl we made our own bread. Actually, my sister made the bread and if it turned out bad, she would bury the bread in the yard so dad wouldn't get mad for wasting the flour."

Marge was raised as a city girl rather than as a country girl like my mom. "Then, can you remember when bread was a nickel?"

"I sure do. Now, it's nearly a dollar. And it's not as good as the homemade bread." Mom did admit, though, that it was nice to go to the store and pick up a loaf of bread.

Dad was waiting for his in -- that lull in conversation when he could put in his opinion. "Do you remember our first refrigerator? Before that we had an ice box, where a block of ice was delivered and food items were kept cold in the box on ice. I was so proud of our first refrigerator. Do you remember how we paid for it, Rosie?"

Mom put her arm around dad and said, "Sure do. You had to have it before we could save the money to out right pay for it. Johnson's Appliance delivered that refrigerator and they delivered that little box that went right next to your chair. You were to put a quarter a day in that box and once a week they came by to pick up the money until it was paid off."




Until tomorrow...have a great day.
(The end of the story will appear tomorrow.)