EEK!

I've been stalling hoping at least one of my two sisters could come up some of those great pictures of them in their "post depression era flour sack dresses."

As I continue the "tap dance," Brenda reminds me that we raised chickens in the back yard for eggs and meat. ( Try getting that, plus burning all your trash in your home made backyard incinerator, past the HOA committee. We lived 9 miles southeast of Downtown LA.)

I still suffer mild trauma from watching dad ring a chicken's neck, and tie it up on a clothes line to led the blood drain out of the carcass. I think I was about 6 years old.

But ANYWAY, Brenda, in remembering the chickens recalls Mother demanding she be with Dad every time he went to get chicken feed. She wanted to make sure the cotton feed bag had the right design on it for dress making.

And then my sister Theda comes up with this contribution.




Theda, by her own admission, is the family pack rat. She recently came upon dad's expense book of a trip (for five) from Bell, California to Lawrence, Michigan in August of 1954. SEVEN GALLONS OF GAS FOR $1.75 IN BELL....a total of auto expenses to Holbrook, Arizona of $19.20.

The depression may be over, but Dad isn't taking any chances. On the next page you'll note he fed us breakfast in Prescott for 81 cents. That's not a typo. My guess is he went into a tiny grocery store, found some week old sourdough, a pound of cheese and we all sat around some picnic table and chowed down.

By 1954 a lot of motel chains had swimming pools. Remember the average person's car in 1954 had been manufactured sans AC. That pretty much meant the Reinertson kids begged for a pool, but seldom, if ever got one.
Did you catch the room rate up there in Holbrook? Yeah that's $3.57. ( No king size beds, no mini-bar, no microwave.)

But you know times have changed and so have we, don't you think?

Once the girls got out of their flour sack dresses, they slowly get a little "uppity," don't they. No longer satisfied with just getting to vote, they start looking for all kinds of equality.

And to their credit they've opened doors for themselves in the classroom, in the office, in the operating room, in jet airplanes, on TV, in the gym, on the field. But?

I've been married more than once, and that's important to the telling of this story.

In fact I've been married three times, once for 4 years, once for 7 years and now for 20 years. I was first hitched in 1967 just as I nailed down a teaching job in California.

My wife and I had just moved into a second story apartment in Long Beach, California, about a half hour drive from my job in Downey.

I'd not really timed it before I got a call from the Principal's office telling me I had an emergency phone call. I race to the phone to hear a hysterical woman (later identified as my wife) say, "YOU HAVE TO COME HOME RIGHT NOW!"

"Why, my dear!"

" BECAUSE THERE IS A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE AND IT WON'T LET ME OUT THE FRONT DOOR."

All the office people around me were doing their best to squelch their guffaws. I guess they'd been there.

I was, for some strange reason, allowed to travel home early to save my damsel in distress. (It took a half hour) There she stood, BROOM in hand, fiery eyes taking up most of her head, demanding immediate action.

There would be no waiting for the placement of traps or poison. I can't remember how we did the little devil in, but I know it died on the spot, and we survived the crisis and moved on.

Details are less clear in my mind with my second wife. We were comfortably settled into our home in Denver. I don't think in her case the fear factor was as high as wife number one, but the fury was fierce. I'm pretty sure SHE did the "DOIN' in."

Clearly common in both cases was the BROOM, and the less than subtle hint that I wasn't doing enough to save the day.

So I'm home today, two days after some surgery, ordered to take it easy....and.....?

"PAUL WE'VE GOT A MOUSE IN THE HOUSE. GET DOWN HERE AND HELP ME!"

Well, to her credit, Peggy let me at least go to the garage and see if I had any mouse food, and I did. I placed it under the leg of a table where she'd seen the little fella travel, and felt I could then get back to some post operative maintenance.

But then I kept hearing things? There was loud banging, and wood on wood sounds. I traveled downstairs to see that Peggy had been moving the furniture.

It didn't take long to sort out the motive because there she was holding......??????



The BROOM.

The furniture had been arranged to guide Mickey right out the front door should he surface from his new spot in the closet.

Well now you're going to have to hear it from Peggy to believe this. I'm going to tell you what happened, but you'll be skeptical until she at least says, " well, yeah, that might have been part of it."

You see, standing just a few feet away from Peggy's mouse canal sits the piano. So, I say, "Paul, the piper, will just saunter over there and ,

play the dude a tune."

I picked this scary little "halloweeny" piece titled "OOGA BOOGA BOOGIE."

And you know as I played, I saw a surprise in Peggy's eyes as Mickey just carefully crept right through her arranged path and out the front door. HONEST, IT REALLY HAPPENED. Didn't it Peggy?

Credits to all three women. I'm pretty sure not a single one of them yelled, EEK!

I still want to see those flower sack dresses.