Visiting

Looking back at my childhood, it’s surprising how structured our lives were, although I never thought of it that way at the time. The institutions that we served, or that served us, determined how our time was spent almost every hour of every day.

Monday through Friday for nine months each year, children went to school. Our fathers, and many of our mothers, went to work. Taking a day off, even for most illnesses, was a concept we knew from television, but not something that applied to us.

Dad never missed work. I remember when he broke his foot, he limped into work without hesitation, even though driving his manual transmission car was agonizing when he had to use the clutch. During the Soviet ICBM scare of the early 1960s, Charlotte ominously but proudly declared itself number 21 on Russia’s nuclear missile target list, although we never knew how they found that out. We had Civil Defense meetings at school that encouraged us to make plans for getting our families to Cherryville because it was outside the blast zone of Charlotte. I asked my friends if Mom and we boys could ride with them. Dad would be at work, and he wouldn’t leave work early, I was sure.

Saturday was for catching up on all the chores we couldn’t do after school or work, like getting groceries, mowing the lawn, major tasks in the garden, and cleaning the house. Saturday was also used for getting ready for church on Sunday—making sure our Sunday clothes were cleaned and pressed, shining our shoes, and for women and girls, washing and setting hair.

Mom’s hair was often in curlers while she baked the pies and cakes for Sunday dinner. Hair dryers were big bulky floor models that hairdressers used. I remember the first “portable” hair dryer Mom got for home use. It was the size of a canister vacuum cleaner and connected to a bonnet through a hose. Handheld dryers showed up years later.

Sunday morning was for church, no ifs, ands, or buts. A few people in our circle didn’t go, but we all knew what would happen to them, especially if they compounded their sin by having fun before noon. Uncle Martin was not a church-goer, and he took his boat and family to the river on Sunday mornings. Nobody said much when his children broke out in boils, but we knew. The fact that the Catawba River contained more toxic chemicals than water in those days had nothing to do with it, of course.

After church we had Sunday dinner, which was the special meal of the week. Everyone changed out of our church clothes, but we kept our Sunday behavior. There would usually be a special entree, like fried chicken (which was less common at other meals than it is today) or pork roast or country-style or cubed steak. Depending on the time of year and our current budget, we would have a table full of vegetables from the garden or canned foods (later the freezer). There was usually a dessert of cake or pie, or maybe ice milk from the grocery store. Ice cream was too expensive, so it was ice milk for us. Mom tried to please every taste with the tri-flavored kind, choc-van-straw.

Sunday afternoon was the time the pious had their fun. Usually the afternoon was dedicated to visiting. Either we would pile into the car and go visiting one of our relatives or a select few of Dad’s friends, or they would come to our house. In my early childhood, not everyone had a telephone, including us, so the idea of calling first was simply not considered. Even after almost everyone had a phone, the idea of calling to announce a visit never caught on, so our visiting etiquette more resembled the nineteenth century than today. The main point of our etiquette was that visiting depended on whose turn it was. If we visited someone, they were obligated to reciprocate within a few weeks. With all the grandparents (who did not usually visit family but expected to receive frequent visits), aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends, it got complicated to get around to see everyone in a reasonable amount of time, especially since a visit usually took several hours and could not be rushed.

Even after a visit stretched into the early evening, when the visitors announced they needed to leave, the answer was always “Don’t hurry off.” If anyone worried about getting home before dark, Uncle Danny would say, “don’t you have lights on your car?” Dad would often say, “Stay awhile and we’ll open up a keg of nails.” It was a teetotaler’s joke that always got a chuckle.

There was a certain protocol for visits. The first rule was not to waste a visiting time, so if someone was not at home, we would jump back in the car and go to someone else’s house. Dad always left a note at the door saying we had been there. It seemed to count just as much as a real visit. Many people had little decorative boxes for visitors to put their notes in. We had one next to our back door that looked like a little house, with a door that opened to allow the note to be put inside, protected from the weather. There was a small pad of paper and a pencil to make it easy to leave the note. If there was no box, Dad would fish around the glove box for a piece of paper, then write a “sorry we missed you” note and tuck it into the screen door at eye level so it wouldn’t be overlooked.

Sometimes we would tell the next visitee on our list that we had been to so-and-so’s but they weren’t home, just to be told “oh, they just left right before you got here.” And sometimes we would find notes at our house that so-and-so had come while we were gone. It got complicated sometimes, but Mom and Dad always seemed to know where we were due to go next.

Besides my grandparents, one of our most frequent visits was to Aunt Margaret and Uncle David Morris. (In our family, the blood relative came first in the name we applied to a married couple. Margaret was Dad’s sister, so she got top billing. In fact, she was the sister who introduced Dad to Mom.) At least once a month, we would go to their house or they would come to ours. Cousins Joyce and Judy were like non-resident sisters to us. (Note that Judi later changed the spelling of her name. After all, she said when she made the change, her full name was Judith, not Judyth.)

Margaret and David were very close to Mom and Dad, in fact close enough that a certain friendly competition was a big component of the relationship. Soon after one family arrived at the other’s house, the tour of newly acquired tools or gadgets would begin. For example, Dad would take Uncle David to see his new lawn mower. David would express admiration and ask lots of questions—where did he buy it, what size was the cut and the motor, how much did he pay, etc. And almost inevitably, soon after when we visited the Morris household, Uncle David would show Dad his new lawn mower, which had just a little wider cut, bigger motor, etc. It got to be something of a running joke, but Dad never seemed bothered. He was very frugal (cheap!) and never bought the best when good would do. David and Margaret both worked outside the home, while Mom didn’t, so David could afford a little more than Dad. So we rode around in a 2-door Ford Fairlane 6 cylinder (the only car Dad ever bought new) while they had a 4-door Ford Galaxie V-8.

In the summer, the two families often made home-made ice cream together. Dad had an old, big home freezer, made like a straight-sided half-barrel with a hand crank. David had a newer, but smaller model, which he at some point replaced with one with an electric motor. Dad didn’t get an electric model until one was offered in the employee rewards catalog at work. It worked, but it was small and often jammed. The ice cream it made was never as good as the hand-cranked, but cranking gets old after awhile.

The best ice cream sessions were the ones with the two hand-cranked machines. As I remember one typical Sunday, we stopped by Stanley Coal & Ice for a large reinforced brown paper bag of crushed ice and some rock salt on our way to Margaret and David’s. It was one of the few places open on Sunday afternoon, and the best place to get ice any day of the week.

Soon after we arrived, Aunt Margaret and Mom went to the kitchen to make the ice cream mixtures while Uncle David and Dad set up the freezers in front of the garage. Because we had two freezers, we usually made two flavors, commonly vanilla and peach. Aunt Margaret made the best peach ice cream, with just-the-right-size chunks of fresh peaches.

The family’s best vanilla ice cream was made by Dad’s Aunt Vera. It was a custard-type formula, with eggs. But the custard base had to be cooked, so it took longer and was harder to get right. Mom and Margaret made Vera’s recipe for special occasions, but an uncooked mixture was the go-to.

With the steel containers filled and the dashers in place under the lid, the men would attach the cranks, pour ice and salt around the containers, and start to work. It wasn’t particularly hard at first, but it took a long time. When we were old enough, most of us demanded a turn at turning the cranks, but we usually lasted only a minute or so.

As the ice cream started to set, the crank got harder and harder to turn. At some point, the dads would stop and lift up the lid to check the progress. One of the women would always caution them not to let any salty ice water leak in (they never did). If things were far enough along, they would pull out the dasher, and then we had to let the ice cream set up for a few minutes.

Then we would scoop servings into individual bowls using large serving spoons. I don’t recall even seeing an ice cream scoop before I was in high school. Anyone who wanted chocolate ice cream could add Hershey’s chocolate syrup at the end, so we had three flavors to choose from.