Seamed Stockings, Sleeping Under Quiilts, Vinegar Pies and Garters

Before heading home, I picked up the local paper, 

The Sandersville Progress.

I want to share an editorial by one of

my favorite writers. 

Please allow me the liberty of cutting the article 

to save time and boredom. 

Thanksgiving in Cotton

I had waited a long time for this day and now I was 14 years old, a junior in high school, and I was getting my first pair of stockings.  It was before seamless, nylon pantyhose "ran" their course-they were pure silk with seams up the back and kept in place by blue satin garters. 

I placed them in my little lingerie case and packed them with the other clothes in my overnight bag. A friend and I were taking the school bus after school to Cotton, GA, 7 miles in the almost undisturbed countryside to spend Thanksgiving with an older friend.  

The evening was spent helping Mrs. Joiner cut up things for the next day's feast.  The food was put in crockery bowls and covered with waxed paper bread wrappers.  The cakes and pies were placed in a cold room.  After gathering around an old pump organ and singing "chapel" songs, we went to bed and slept in a cold room under three quilts.  We slept like big brown bears. 

The morning started early with excitement.  Sisters and aunts and uncles began to arrive and first cousins and first cousins once removed.  They brought preserves and jellies and arms of greens. The old folks would gather at the first table while the children waited for the second table.  To pass the time, the girls played jack stones on the floor in front of the fire.  The boys would sneak up behind us and kiss us on the cheeks and run away laughing while we screamed, chased them, and slapped at them perfunctorily. 

The food was amazing.  The turkey that only yesterday was roaming around the yard, was now before us.  I remember vinegar pies and applesauce cake with brown sugar and walnut icing, and strong coffee with chicory that I wasn't allowed to taste. 

Later on, Mrs. Joiner said, "Now come here and let me see your legs in those new silk stockings. They're pretty," she said.  The garters were digging into my inexperienced legs, but I smiled and was thrill that she noticed. 

Yes, a different day in time, I was unfamiliar with some parts of this article. 

First of all, I've never actually laid eyes on stockings with seams except in old movies.

Killing the turkey that yesterday ran around the yard?   

A junior in high school at 14 years old.  I was in the 9th grade when I was fourteen.

My grandmother had crockery bowls and because I looooove vintage, I'd like to have a few.  

I know what wax paper is, but what are waxed paper bread warmers? 

I remember my mama telling me about how they put the cakes and pies in a cold room.  Why?  I would think the turkey would go in the cold room instead of the entire meal being covered with a tablecloth until supper time. How did they survive without getting salmonella?

I loved sleeping under quilts.  I love to feel the cold on my face.  I turn the temperature down low when I go to bed and I still sleep under an old, worn soft quilt.

  

Vinegar pies??? What on earth?

  

Garters?  Yes, my mama worn a long-line bra, a girdle with garters and hose.  Thank goodness, my first pair of hose were panty hose.  I got my first pair the same Christmas that I got my white laced vinyl boots and white fur coat.  All my friends got black shiney boots.  I'm still glad I got white. Groovy!  

What part of the items in the article are you familiar with?  This should be fun.