Under The Tonto Grin, Part II

[Bob Boze Bell]

February 13, 2013

Still working on a logo for a friend of mine who wants a Cave Creek Cowboy and a Tonto Apache aligned and gazing at the same future. Did six sketches, this being the most recent.

 

Also working on a love letter to growing up on Route 66. Sent this page of old photos down to Dan The Man's this afternoon. This is out of my grandparent's photo album showing my father's gas station in Peach Springs in 1947.

 

This was where I got my arm in a washing machine ringer. I have a bad scar on the inside crook of my left arm but thanks to Dr. Arnold in Kingman, I can still use my left arm. Frankly, I'm somewhat amazed I made it this far. In addition to putting my hand in the washing machine wringer in Peach Springs, because I was fascinated by the contraption, I also leaned in a stock tank on the Bell family farm and almost drowned. I was saved by a Ladies Aid woman who saw my feet flailing in the air as I leaned over and went right in. I also was enamored of an elevator conveyor belt driven that was loading corn out of my grandfather's corn crib and I would have rode it, but my grandfather was onto my poor judgement and took me down to the house where my grandmother tied me to the clothesline on a leash. They still laugh about this in Iowa whenever I go back.

 

Anyway, I often wonder how I made it to the here and the now. This is the theme of a song I have been listening to quite a bit lately. I absolutely love Loudon Wainwright's album Older Than My Old Man Now. One song could have been written about my own life, including the year of my birth (and the motive of my parents):

The strangest story ever told

is how I got to be this old

At the close of World War II

my folks did the deed that the young folks do

In '46 out I came

This world would never be the same

I don't know why, I'm not sure how,

I wound up here in the here and the now

_______

chorus [sung by his kids]: 

He don't know why, he's not sure why, 

he ended up here in the here and the now.

_______

In the 1950s I was just a kid

Did all the kid stuff all you people did

I rode a bike, I threw a ball

childhood yeah, I got through it all

The sixties came I got incensed

The girls were scary and the parents were pissed

I don't know why, I'm not sure how

I wound up here in the here and the now.

_________

Chorus sung by his kids. Repeat.

_________

 

"Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed."

—Old Vaquero Saying

 

 

[Dave McGowan]

BBB, not good times but great memmories. A lot of things are great looking back.

Did the wringer thing, but mother banged the tension release just after the rollers went past my wrist. Same woman who came and backed the needle of a treddle sewing machine out of the little fingernail on my left hand. Yes, it went right through and up to 5 or 6 years ago I still had a line running the full length of that nail. About 55 years?

I just realized I could probably write a blog on this subject. A lot of near misses.

[Sue Cauhape]

Curiosity is a wonderful thing, BBB, but for pete's sake, go a little easy on the stupidity, okay! 

I learned to do laundry with my mother's Maytag ringer washer and that was the first thing she told me. DON'T GET YOU FINGERS CAUGHT IN THE RINGER!!! And then she showed me how to finesse the clothes into the ringer so I wouldn't get hurt. I wonder if I would've figured it out without her telling me? You see, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer; but sheeesh, BBB, your whole arm???

[Bob Boze Bell]

Yes, it ground my entire forearm up to the elbow then ground on that until my father came and broke the machine open. Crazy dumb, but indicative of much of my life. I've been doing the same kind of thing in different forms for 66 years now—and counting!

[Gold Lady]

This is why women live longer than men!

[Sharon Tally]

In 1948 mom had twins. They got a new fangled washing machine with a separate tub to spin the water out. No more wringer. Could you imagine putting all those diapers thru a wringer? That style washer didn't last long. Folks went to the washer/spinner tub being all the same soon after that but it was special when it first came out.

[Sharon Tally]

Love the cowboy/injun piece, by the way.

[Sue Cauhape]

Sharon, funny you should mention that the wringer washers didn't last long after the washer/spinners. Those old wringer washers (thanks, btw, for correcting my spelling) were built to last a long long time. If you can find them, I'll bet you can get them working. Oh, and they're really good a saving water; at least the way my miserly mother used hers. One tub of soapy wash water cleaned the entire laundry for four people, from underwear and socks to my dad's work clothes. You could plant flowers in the water after that, the dirt was so thick in it. When my sister's in-laws gave mom an old washer of theirs (the spinner type), she lamented copiously about the wasted water going down the drain. Soooooo... she hooked the drain hose so that the used water from one load of laundry in the spinner washer would empty into the tub of the wringer washer and she would finish the laundry in that tub. Old habits die real hard in my family. I don't know whether it's because they're luddites, pioneer stock, or Scots/Danish, but my mom could turn frugality into an art form.

[Dave McGowan]

When we first came to the west we packed water with a drum in the back of a pick-up; a drum we had filled with pails from the closest stream that happened to be clean that day. Every possible method of saving water was explored.

What about the old wringer machines powered by a 2 cycle gas engine? Anyone remember those. Or having to repair the engine (spark plug/magneto/carberurator/plugged fuel line/water in the gas) so you could have a clean pair of socks.

 

[Sue Cauhape]

Heavens, Dave, you can rinse out a pair of socks by hands, for pete's sake. A person didn't bother using the washer unless there was a major pile of clothes to be laundered.

[Sue Cauhape]

By the way, I've read that wash day in the Nineteenth Century was the day you didn't go near the laundress. After hauling water from a creek a mile away, filling a cauldron where the water was heated over a fire, scrubbing each garment on a scrub board, rinsing the clothes in another pot of water, then hanging them up to dry, hoping it wouldn't rain or the children, livestock or other misadventurer wouldn't pull them off the line, the laundress' mood wouldn't tolerate any misguided comment or humor.

Meanwhile back at the Frazier laundry, my mother used naphtha soap as a stain remover and put bluing in the rinse water to brighten the clothes. Every now and then, I'll go in a hardware store that still carries old fashioned laundry soaps, scrubbing boards, tubs, clothesline, and pins. It's good to know this stuff still exists in case the grid goes down. (Sorry, my Doomer mentality is kicking in. I try to keep it under control, but some habits die hard.)