Finding Christ at Christmas

It's the day before Christmas, 2007. It's my seventy third Christmas...fifty fifth as an "adult". And still I struggle with the same earnest desire to become so close to my Savior that I can feel Him close to me, feel His love and peace, and more importantly feel the deep love and gratitude I know I should have for Him and my Father in Heavenly for the great sacrifice they both made that I might return to their presence. Don't take me wrong. I DO love the Savior and my Heavenly Father, but I guess what I desire is to feel more than the earthly love that I feel for my children and spouse, which is the deepest love I have yet to feel. I guess what I want to feel is true charity...the true love that Christ has for us especially during the Christmas season. You would think that at this season of the year when we as Christians and members of His church should focus on His birth and mission as the center of our celebration that drawing close would be easier. I have found it just the opposite. It has become the time that we get so encumbered with relatively unimportant things, so stressed by the demands on our time and energy, even so engaged in trying to do good things for others that we have no time left for peaceful solitude and reflection, for quiet and sincere study and prayer, to be alone out among God's beautiful creations and feel His presence there. I guess I'm talking about us wives and mothers.

This year I have been thinking back at Christmas past and trying to remember if perhaps there have been glimpses of this feeling that I desire that I may have missed because I wasn't paying attention. These are some of the things that came to mind.

• Christmas Eves as a child with family - definitely warm memories, but more of childhood excitement.
• The year I received the most beautiful doll in the whole world - definitely childhood excitement. No spiritual memories here.<>
• <>The year my little brother (Jr. High age) told mom he wanted to give the money that would be spent on him for Christmas (all of $10.00) to help a needy family that was adopted by his home room class. I was proud of him, but I'm sure it was he that had the feelings of love from the Savior.
• <>The first Christmas we were married. My mother had passed away that October and no one stepped up to planning a family Christmas. It had been mother who had always done that. The most sad and empty Christmas of my life. It could have been so different if I had stepped up to the plate.
• The next Christmas after our little Jeanie was born. This one became one of the best. Why? Jim was in school and we had next to nothing to spend on Christmas. I think that is one of the keys to having a more spiritual holiday. You become so grateful for what you DO have. And we had our little family. I remember buying three toys for Jeanie...a little four-piece plastic train (no track), a stuffed animal, and I can't remember what else. I just remember hiding them in the bottom of zip-up clothes bag...as if I needed to hide them from a nine month old. We managed a small tree, one string of lights, a dozen glass ornaments and finished decorating it with our Christmas cards as we received them. Definitely one of our more spiritual Christmas's.
• The year our landlord died and our low-rent house was put up for sale. We needed to save money for a new house so only gave the small children dime-store gifts (they didn't mind a bit) and the adults did white elephants, a tradition still going on today. Then our children gave us the best Christmas ever. They pooled their hard-earned money and gave us a down payment on a new house. How blessed we felt for having such wonderful, loving children.
• As our family grew and our Christmas traditions became established, we tried to make doing for others a part of those traditions. Each year we tried to do a service for someone in need. Surely this would bring those burning feeling of love I desired to feel. But even service projects require planning and shopping. I spent so much time and effort in preparation that I left no time for myself for those quiet reflective moments. I have often wished I had a grove of trees in my back yard where I could find the peace and quiet.

There are many more Christmases I could write about. But I want to get to this year. This year I have had brief glimpses of that elusive burning in the bosom type love of and for God and His son. And it is because I made the effort. I completed my preparations by the first of December so I could really concentrate doing what I needed to do to be truly worthy of the feelings I desired. I earnestly studied the New Testament this year and even completed the Institute manual on the New Testament. It was my desire to really get to KNOW God and His Son. It is hard to love someone you do not know. It's hard to describe how I felt as I read and studied. Christ became a person, not a story. I cried over the pain and suffering He went through and truly wanted to show my love and appreciation. Did I feel true charity as I desired and in return did I feel His love? Maybe my expectations aren't realistic, but I did have one experience in which I knew for a brief instance how that love feels. I was visiting one of the inactive sisters that I visit teach. Her inactivity is due to the fact that she feels she can never be forgiven of past transgressions. She has had a incredibly difficult life but has raised a good family. I felt inspired to buy her the book "The Miracle of Forgiveness" for Christmas. I wasn't sure how she would react, so I prayed hard before I went to give it to her. Although, since day one of meeting her four years ago, I felt a special bond today I felt such consuming love for that sister that I broke into tears as I hugged her. I thought to myself, "This is what it must feel like to have Christ-like love". I've really tried to serve God's children this year, and I've tried to give myself time alone with my Father and my Savior to express my love and feel Their love for me. They are always there for me. It is I who does not open that door to them by what I do or do not do. It is my hope and prayer that before I die I will have that constant burning love in my heart for not only my Heavenly Father and my brother, Christ, but for all of my brothers and sisters here on earth. May you all have the same desire and may you be blessed always for all your righteous efforts.

The Most Important Decision of my Life

I enjoyed my new classes at BYU following Christmas break, but as for my social life, that was a different story. I had no desire to date, so I just concentrated on my studies. That quarter I took an archery class along with my academics. My dad was an archer and made all his own equipment including his bows and arrows. He had taught me how to shoot when I was pretty young, and even made me my own bow. So I was not new to the sport. I guess that gave me somewhat of an advantage, and I ended up being the intra-mural archery champion in competition that year. I still have my medal. I still enjoy archery and have taught at several girls camps and was a merit badge counselor in archery for the Boy Scouts for quite a few years.

I believe it was towards the end of February that I was tired of thinking up excuses for turning down dates. I definitely had not been having any fun up to now and had no desire to keep trying. In my next letter to Jim I wrote that I loved him and was waiting for him whether he liked it or not. Actually, it was the first letter I had written in about a month because I was trying to decide what to tell him about those dates, what not to tell him about them, and if I was being a little presumptuous about his feelings for me. I had no idea how his lack of mail from me had affected him until he later told me that he had gone out in the nearby woods to pray. He asked the Lord to help him forget about me if I was not the right one. The very next day he received my letter and felt that he had received an answer to his prayer. The next letter I received from him was a proposal of marriage. We were pretty young to be talking marriage...I just eighteen and Jim just barely twenty. But it wasn't like we had just met. We had actually known each other for over five years.

About two weeks later, on April 1, 1953, I received a ring in the mail. (Jim still teases me that it was all just an elaborate April Fools Day Joke... getting engaged that is). Actually, he sent the set of rings because he had no place to keep the wedding band safe on the base in the Philippines. I didn't know until later that Jim had been saving his money to buy a motor scooter to ride around the base and to do some sight seeing. He gave up that motor schooter to buy those rings. I was so excited that I took a bus home to show my parents who were about as thrilled as me. I expected that of mom because she so wanted to see her children settled before she passed away. She knew she was living on borrowed time. But my dad surprised me. Everywhere we went he would hold up my hand to show off the ring...even to near strangers. It was embarrassing at times. I knew that they both liked Jim, and from their reaction to my engagement I knew that they approved.

It would be a wait of over a year before I would see Jim again. I spent the time finishing that year at BYU and then home to work. I knew I wouldn't be able to return to school that fall because I would have to earn the money for a wedding, which I knew I would have to pay for. And I wanted to have a trousseau before I got married. For you "young'uns" who don't know what a trousseau is, it is a collection of linens, dishes, silverware, etc. that all newly weds need. But back then we embroidered everything...sheets, pillow cases, even dishtowels. AND we crocheted the edges of the embroidered pillow cases. I had a beautiful cedar chest which my parents had given me for high school graduation, and I wanted to fill it up. But first I had to find a job. That was my next task.

Time to Count Your Blessings

During this Thanksgiving week my thoughts have frequently turned to the many blessings I have received throughout my life...not just the big obvious ones that we often dwell upon but the small daily gifts that we way too often overlook. Then today our lesson in Relief Society from Elder Henry B. Eyring's conference address, "O Remember, Remember" reinforced what I have been thinking. Every night before he retired he made it a habit to ask himself this question: "Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?" Then as he thought about his day and pondered that question he began to see evidence of what God had done for him or one of his family that he had not recognized in the busy moments of his day. And he would write those things down for his children to read sometime in the future. I would encourage you to read that talk if you haven't already done so or read it again if you have. I think if we took the time each day to do what Elder Eyring did, each one of us would realize how the hand of God touches our lives on a daily basis.

As I have reflected on the many many things I have to be grateful for, the ones which came to my mind first were those that were very obvious and for which I express gratitude on a continuing basis. But as I have given time and thought to the more subtle blessings I came to realize that many people had touched my life in small but powerful ways, and I came to understand how God has used His children as instruments in His hand to bless and enrich my life on a daily basis.

So here are some of the things for which I am so grateful today.

• My Heavenly parents and my Father's great plan of salvation
• My life. The blessing I have of coming to this earth to receive a body.
• My parents who gave me life and loved and taught me.
• My eternal companion whom I love so dearly
• My special, special family (that includes all of my extended family)
• The Restoration of the gospel and the prophet, Joseph Smith, who suffered so much to establish Christ's church once again on earth
• A prophet to guide us through these troubled times
  
• The beautiful "paid-for" home that we have at this time in our life. This has been a true miracle to me being that we were so late in life being able to purchase a home.
• The beauty that surrounds us here in Tehachapi

These are the big obvious things. Now the smaller ones that have come to my mind.

• My sister, Georgia, who was my friend and confidant for many years before her death. Although Jim complained about the high telephone bill because of my long talks with her, I would tell him that it was cheaper than having to pay a psychiatrist. He soon quit complaining.
• The first person that said, "Hi! My name is Frances Bennett. Welcome to Tehachapi".
• An orthopedic surgeon who did micro surgery on my back even though he knew my insurance would not pay for the "micro" part of the operation. And he didn't charge me the difference.
• A Sunday School teacher who motivated me to read the New Testatment with a whole new depth of understanding and feeling of gratitude for our Savior and the great leaders of His church following His death who were so dedicated and committed to the gospel to suffer and die to spread His word throughout the known world. How I learned to love and appreciate these great men!
• A home teacher who dropped by to give us a pumpkin pie the day before Thanksgiving and his wife who baked it.
• A mission call to Uganda for a grandson who made the choice to go on a mission rather than to go back to Africa on his own to work for the people he learned to love.
  
• The animals and birds who frequent my back yard. I love watching them out the window
  
• Having grandchildren run up to me and yell, "Grandma, Grandma!" when they see me
• The close friendship and love I feel for and from my Jim. I love having him at home all the time.
• Technology that helps me stay in such close touch with the family (even though I have a love-hate relationship with computers)
• A sister in our ward who has many debilitating health problems but when asked, "How are you today?" always answers, "Blessed". She has become one of my pool buddies.
• The Christmas season and the joy, peace, and happiness it brings
  
• Puppies and kittens

I could go on and on the more I think about it. My goal this season is to write some over due thank-you notes to some of the people who may not realize that they have been instruments in God's hands to bless my life in small but important ways. May you also take time this season to count your blessings and give gratitude to those through whom they come.

Dating Can Be Fun?????

College was more difficult than I expected, especially since I was (am) such a perfectionist. Anything less than an "A" on any paper or especially on an exam was very traumatic for me. It didn't take too much effort in high school to get A's, but now it was a different story. I don't remember my grades that year, but I'm sure it they weren't a 4.0. And trudging to class at 7:30 in the morning in snow up to your knees wasn't a piece of cake either. I remember a few times just putting a long coat over my warm pajamas to head for that class.

I tried to go home as often as I could on the weekends. I needed to see Mom as often as I could because she had sacrificed my help in order for me to get more education, and I appreciated that. I felt better about being gone when my sister, Claire, and her family moved into a house about a block away from Mom and my Grandma Knapp (Mom's mom) moved in with her. They became readily available to help out on Mom's increasingly frequent "bad" days. No matter how bad she was feeling, she would always make the necessary effort to go to church every week, and even taught Relief Society one day a month from her wheel chair. In her weekly letters to me at school she would often bounce ideas off me regarding an upcoming lesson. Once in a while she would ask me to draw an illustration for her to use. I remember once drawing a large picture of Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life and the "iron rod". I didn't have anything to look at so had to draw it strictly from my interpretation of the scripture as a reference. That was a real challenge for me because I was never good at getting a picture from my mind transferred to paper. But Mom was happy with the results, and that was all that really mattered to me.

On one of those weekend visits home I had an experience that still makes me laugh. From the time I was a child I had always been told that I should never take anything out of the refrigerator to eat unless I asked. This was a rule I obeyed (most of the time) even as an adult. But this day I opened the fridge to look for something to drink. There, right in front of me, was an opened bottle of 7-up. "That looks good", I thought. "I'll just take sip and nobody will know the difference." So I did. My reaction to that sip was to spray it all over the interior of that open refrigerator. It wasn't 7-up...it was beer! I was in shock. What was beer doing in a 7-up bottle in OUR refrigerator. Mother had to confess that the doctor had prescribed a little beer each day to stimulate her enlarged heart and to help increase her appetite. She was too embarrassed to keep a beer can where it could be seen, so she transferred the beer to a pop
bottle so no one would know what she was drinking. Serves me right for breaking the rules!

Did I do as Jim asked and accept dates at school that year? Yes, for a while. I wasn't asked out a lot, but one stand-out date was with Dwight Stucki. Yes, I remember his name for several reasons. First, he was the student head honcho (I don't remember his rank) of the Air Force ROTC for which I was a sponsor. It made me feel special to think that this "important" guy, a senior to boot, would ask a lowly freshman out on a date. Actually there was more than one.
The second reason I remember his name is that it didn't take me long to find out that he was a total jerk! He began trying to take me alone to his apartment (I refused) and trying to become too familiar on dates. I dropped him FAST. Another man I dated whose name I also remember was Jerry Moss. I had good reasons for remembering him as well. He was a returned missionary who served in South Africa. I was initially interested in him because of his last name "Moss". It was a James E. Moss that who was the initiator and head of seminary at Granite High School. He was a much loved and respected man, and if Jerry was a relative, he just had to be a great guy, too. Well, he WAS a grandson, but definitely not like his grandfather as I found out after dating him a while. I became a little suspicious of his intent when he tried to convince me that it was OK to participate in more intimate activities on dates because "they weren't forbidden according to the temple ordinances". Even though I had no idea about what information was in a temple endowment, I knew this wasn't right. My own conscience confirmed that. Then his mother made me this gorgeous formal skirt for Christmas. Since when do mothers make fancy gifts for a son's "casual" date? The next thing that gave me more concern was when the large diamond that he had purchased in Africa and had set in ring which he wore suddenly disappeared. He had told me that he bought the diamond for an engagement ring when he met the right one. That did it. I was dating for "fun" and I knew he was getting serious. I planned to tell him that I didn't want to see him anymore on our next date which had already been set. I was in Salt Lake that weekend and we had a date to go somewhere up there. I don't remember where. But on the way home, driving through Parley's Canyon, I gave him the news. I never anticipated the reaction he would have. He began driving like a maniac on that curvy icy canyon road. It was in January. Needless to say I was very scared but kept my composure enough to reach over and pull the keys out of the ignition. I opened the car door, jumped out, threw the keys on the seat and told him I was walking home. He calmed down and promised that if I got back in the car that he would drive me home in a sane way. I wanted to believe him because it was 12:00 o'clock at night, freezing cold, and we were at least five miles away from my home. He kept his word and I got home safely. I watched him from our front window and was concerned to see him standing in the middle of the street instead of driving home. I was concerned about his frame of mind because he was acting so irrationally, so I woke my parents. I had told them about my feelings towards Jerry, and they knew I was breaking it off that night. My dad was wonderful. He got dressed, went outside and talked to him for quite a while. I have no idea what he said, but Jerry got in his car and drove off. I didn't see him at all after that...not even at school. I believed once again that God had protected me from "evil designing men" as my patriarchal blessing had stated. I don't believe that Jerry was evil, but his thoughts and actions were not the best.

All these months I had been writing at least two or three letters a week to Jim. I loved his letters which came just as often. They were always so up and supportive and loving in a friendly way. Those letters helped me keep a positive perspective towards men when I had those negative experiences. It gave me a greater understanding and appreciation of what a special person he really was. I was seriously contemplating what my next step should be.

BYU Here I Come

Tearfully I said good-bye to Jim and began packing to go off to college. Several friends from school and I rented a little old run-down house (all we could afford) about a mile from campus. None of us had a car so we needed a place within walking distance. A few days before school started we took in a "cutie", Carolyn Joyner, from South Carolina who was desperately looking for a place to live. She was really the "life" in that old house, and we learned to love her a lot. We would take her home to Salt Lake with us on the weekends that we went.

There was no pre-registering on phone back in 1952, and no computers. We had to stand in long lines to sign up for each individual class, and, of course, by the time you got to the front of the line the class would be filled and you'd have to start all over trying to get into an alternate class. By the time you finished registering your schedule didn't even resemble the original "perfect" one you had planned. Those early 7:00 AM classes that you definitely did not want were all too prevalent, and the time between classes was ridiculous not to mention the distance from one class to another. Back then classes were still held on "lower campus" which was the old original BYU building on University Avenue which I think has now been preserved and turned into a library. Upper campus was composed of the Maeser Administration Building, the Brimhall Building (library), the Joseph Smith Building, and the brand new Science Building...the one with the Foucault pendulum. There were a few miscellaneous small buildings that housed classrooms and some dorms (I think Helaman Halls). That was it!

School was divided into quarters rather than semesters, so you were able to take more classes during the regular school year. Some of the classes I remember taking that year were Spanish, English, bacteriology, geology, sociology, interior decorating, American history, and Book of Mormon. I think my favorite was geology. I still remember a great deal of what I learned and find I still notice and am able to identify many geological features in the environment. I loved the field trips we took around the Salt Lake valley where so many geological events occurred.
My favorite professor was Marden Clark, my English teacher. Actually he is the only one I remember by name. That should say something. I really don't like the writing part of English, and that is probably all we did the first quarter. And literature isn't my favorite, either, and that was mainly the second quarter's curriculum. I had to write my very first research paper that year in English, and my second for sociology. Talk about being thrown into the fire! I had never had to do a research paper in high school as you do now, so I was oblivious as to how much work it was, especially because of what was expected on a college level. Writing that paper for English was the hardest thing I had to do that year, but it was what gave me the greatest feeling of accomplishment as well. The subject I chose to write on was, "The Effects of Literature on the Civil War". I still have that hand written paper...yes, hand written. There were no computers then, and I didn't own a typewriter nor did I have access to one. Not that it would have done me any good, anyway, because I couldn't type. But can you imagine writing a long paper with footnotes by hand trying to anticipate how much room you were going to need at the bottom of each page for footnotes? It was CRAZY! But I did it, and I even got an "A". The sociology paper wasn't quite as bad because it came later on in the quarter, and now I had had a little experience. The subject I chose for that one was "Man's Pugnacious Nature as a Cause of War". I think I still have that paper as well.

At the beginning of the school year I applied to join the Sponsor Corp, a women's service auxiliary to the Air Force ROTC there on campus. It required filling out an application form, going through several interviews, and then finally meeting with a board of high ranking officers in the ROTC for a final selection. There were only a few spaces available for freshman applicants so the competition was pretty tough. I was lucky enough to make the cut and was issued my formal uniform. As I said, this was a service organization, and as such we ushered at school events, helped with activities sponsored by our male counterparts, help plan service projects on campus, and interacted with other Air Force ROTC units at the University of Utah. We even had social activities with them, one of which they matched up the Sponsors at BYU with the cadets at the University of Utah for a dance...you might say a "blind date" affair. That was interesting! The only thing I remember about my date was that he was barely as tall as I was...maybe even a little shorter. I was a little uncomfortable with that, but I had fun anyway.

It wasn't long into the year that we met several young men who lived in the house next to ours. They let us know that they weren't eating too well, so we arranged to feed them the evening meal for a price, of course. They were willing to pay thinking that they would get a good home made meal each night. What they didn't know was that none of us were the greatest cooks, even if we had the time to actually cook. I remember eating and preparing meals that weren't so great. I think our guests soon realized that, too, and made other arrangements. I think they did meet one of their secondary goals, however....that of getting to know several of my roommates well enough to ask for dates...which they did.

Did I have a career interest when I started college? Yes, I had a goal major that I knew was not available at BYU, which was Occupational Therapy. Through counseling I was informed where I would have to go to complete that major, the closest of which was the University of Colorado. I knew my chances of making it that far were pretty slim, but I decided that I could at least finish my basic requirements at BYU. And I was on my way.

The Seeds of Love are Planted

The summer following my high school graduation was very eventful. My Uncle LeGrande (my dad's younger brother) and his wife, Aunt Myrt, treated me and my sister, Georgia, to a trip to Southern California. They had recently moved there with their two small children and were anxious to show us the sights of their new city. It was my first time to see the Pacific Ocean, or any ocean for that matter, to visit the famous San Juan Capistrano where the swallows return on the same day every year (we only saw pigeons and lots of them), to drive through Hollywood and Bel Air to see the homes of the rich and famous, to see all the stars on Sunset Boulevard, and eat for the first time in a cafeteria where you walk down a line of food and choose what you want to eat. It was a wonderful vacation for me before returning home to work.

Since I would be leaving for school in the fall, my parents decided to sell our house and move to a smaller one with less property to take care of. Only Georgia and J.D. would still be at home. They purchased a small home on Dearborn St. nead Stratford Road. There was only one bedroom, a kitchen, living room, and bathroom upstairs, and two finished bedrooms in the basement. Georgia and I shared one bedroom that summer and J.D. the other. Our new house was within a short walking distance to the church, Stratford Ward, and was closer to my work at the bakery. That was nice.

It was only a few weeks after moving that I was called to teach Junior Sunday School (Primary was held on a weekday). I remembered that special teacher I had had who made books for all of us and decided to do the same for my little class. I spent a lot of time cutting and pasting and writing reminders of each lesson I taught. It was fun for me even though it only lasted the three summer months. I continued to work the whole summer, putting away most of the money to pay for housing at BYU and only buying a few new clothes. My parents waived my paying room and board, as we were expected to do once we turned eighteen and were working, because I was saving for school. I don't think my sister thought that it was fair as she was paying her monthly "dues". But she was making a lot more money than me working in an office.

The best part of the summer was when Jim came home on leave from the Air Force. He had been gone for a year for basic training and to attend electronics school. He was going to be home the whole month of August before being shipped overseas to the Philippines. I heard that he was back, and really wanted to see him. But I knew he wouldn't make the first move to see me since we hadn't dated that last year he was in school, and I hadn't even written to him as a friend the whole year that he had been gone. Soooo....being the wuss that I was, I had my sister call him. She told him that she thought I would go out with him if he would ask. I was standing right next to her the whole time she was on the phone. Well, it only took a few minutes before the phone rang, and you can guess who it was. We went out that night and two or three nights a week the whole month of August. He took me to movies, to dinner, on walks, to the top of "I" street which looked over the whole valley, and invited me to his home for dinner. He introduced me Mexican food which I had never eaten before and which I found a little too hot(spicy) for my taste. There was only one Mexican restaurant in Salt Lake, Cordova's, and we went there several times as Jim assured me that the taste of Mexican food would "grow" on me. It took quite a while before I learned to really like it....only if it wasn't too hot. During that month Jim would often send me flowers. It wasn't until later that I discovered he was also sending them to another girl, Pat, a friend I knew and really liked. It seems that he had another "friend" that worked at a florist and would give him wholesale prices on the flowers if he bought enough. I guess he was covering all his bases just in case I got flakey again.

By the end of the summer we were getting pretty serious, but being the great guy that he was and still is, he told me that since he was going to be gone for two years, and I was going to school, he didn't want me to just sit around and wait. He wanted me to date and have a good time. I reluctantly agreed, believing I would be hard pressed to find anyone with whom I could have fun when I was feeling the way was about him. But I was young and Jim was young so I thought that this might be my chance to compare and be sure of my feelings. It was really hard to say good-bye when Jim left. Two years seemed like such a long, long time. But fortunatly the time for me to leave for school was just days away, and I was excited about starting a new adventure in my life.

Last Memories of Childhood

Thinking back to the many changes and advancements in technology that have occurred in my lifetime, I stand in awe and amazement. I thought of some things that were so different at home and at school as I was growing up. And risking that you may think that I am much older than I really am (73 years young and not born in the Stone Age) I'll share a few of those things that have changed so much.

• Telephones - Growing up we had dial phones and party lines. Most of you probably have at least seen a dial phone, but I'm sure not too many have experienced a party line. A party line meant that four people shared a single phone line. If any of the the four were using the phone, none of the other three could. AND you could listen in on any conversation going on by the other parties. If you could afford the extra cost, you could opt for a 2-party line. If we got bored as kids and if a parent was not around we would pass the time listening to others on the party line. The idea of cells phones was still out there in space somewhere.
  
• Furnaces - The furnace in our first home operated on coal. Each month a truck would deliver coal and the driver would shovel it through a basement window on to a shute that carried it into a a storage bin. The furnace was not just a small metal box that we see today but a large cement fire-burning oven that took up a whole small room in the basement. (I think it was cement. It could have been heavy metal of some sort) Dad would have to shovel the coal into the furnace morning and night where it would burn and heat would rise into vents that took it to rooms in the house. Before we moved from that house Dad had a stoker installed that automatically fed the coal in to the furnace. He then only had to fill the stoker with coal once or twice a week depending on how cold it was. Our next house was heated with oil instead of coal. I can't remember what that furnace even looked like. I only remember the oil truck delivering the oil each month.
  
• Washing machines - We've already talked about that.
• Automobiles - No automatic transmissions, push-button window openers, signal lights, seat belts, sun roofs, power steering or brakes (no power anything...not even the engines seemed very powerful.) The only car we ever had while I was growing up was that little ford club coupe that Dad bought from Uncle Ken.
• School Supplies and Dress - No computers, not even calculators. We were very good at doing math in our heads and very fast at using a pencil and paper to do problems. I can still do math as fast and more accurately on paper than with a calculator. We had no ball point pens, backpacks, tape recorders or players, memory sticks, i-pods, etc. etc. Girls only wore skirts to school. No pants were allowed. Boys wore jeans or slacks and nice shirts...no T- shirts.

I'm sure there were other things if I took the time to think about it. These were just things that popped into my mind this week.

Foods I never had at home (never even heard of some of them)

• Broccoli
• Artichokes
• Jicama
• Tortillas (actually not any kind of Mexican food)
• Fresh herbs
• Nectarines
• Leeks
• Squash of any kind
• Yogurt
• Romaine lettuce (or any other kind of lettuce except Iceberg)

Foods I ate (and hated) that you probably have never tasted:

• Parsnips - my mom loved them.
  
• Clabber milk (milk that is left out to sour until it actually thickens then sprinkled with sugar.
  
• Endive - a leafy vegetable (very bitter)
  
• Asparagus (You've probably have eaten this, but I gagged on it as a child. I still hate it.)
• Kippered herring - raw herring (a fish) in a milky white sauce. My dad loved it.
• Hutzpot - Potatoes, carrots, onions, and bacon pieces all mashed up together. My dad said that the Dutch people survived on this during the World War II. I guess you could say that we survived on it, too, since it was cheap and we had it real often. I have never made it during my married life and don't plan to (unless we're starving and had nothing to eat but potatoes, carrots, and onions.
• Lots of fried rabbit - I did like this. It was our usual Sunday dinner.

So goes some of the memories of my childhood. When I graduated from high school I began a whole new phase of my life as I became and official "adult". But I still had so much to learn.