Mom, Memories, and Hoarding

My mom grew up during the war which I am certain, was the reason for certain habits. At the time, I found some of these to be odd, but, she was my mother and clearly knew what she was doing. For example, I remember at one time asking why she had so many bed sheets.

She replied, "They're for when we can't get fabric anymore, in case we have to make clothes."

Although I was baffled, I didn't pursue it any further.

For the most part, we did not eat snacks and didn't ever waste food at mealtimes. I was of a generation where we were told that millions of children were starving all over the world.  Again, I was confused as to how finishing every last crumb of food would solve this issue.

There was one exception to my mom's leftovers, converted into different leftovers, which turned into yet another meal. When I was young, we didn't have the wide array of vegetables that's afforded us nowadays.  Sometimes there were canned peas and carrots...yuck. The peas were mushy and of a colour that can only be described as something found in a baby's diaper. Once in awhile, we had corn...again, canned. Fruit cocktail with the elusive half cherry was the fruit of choice and we rarely had dessert save for jello.  So generally, our fresh vegetable consisted of a salad alongside meat and potatoes. The dressing was always oil and vinegar, and unfinished lettuce meant soggy droopy, drippy leaves which actually ended up in the trash. I appreciated that, although I find myself wondering.

A salesman came to our two room, shared bathroom flat one day, and convinced my young parents that they needed a blender. He demonstrated the joys of powdered skim milk (again...yuck), and showed an array of veggies that could be tossed in together. He brought the food, and gave samples, which I'm certain was part of the appeal. The blender would pay for itself in savings alone. Perhaps that look in mom's eye was her thought that even the bedraggled remains of salad could be somehow re-purposed. I'm fairly confident that after a respectable period of time,  the blender salesman sent his friend the encyclopedia peddler (or maybe they were one in the same) to show mom and dad how we could all be as smart as the people in the U.S.A. with a set of  ***American Peoples Encyclopedia.

So my parents lived a fairly frugal and minimal lifestyle, mostly because of financial circumstances and of course, a lack of space. They stored nothing except for a few boxes of the dreaded powdered skim milk, which seemed in endless supply. For various reasons, some practical and some financial, I did the same throughout my life. My hubby on the other hand, enjoys shopping, and always stocks up on sale items. He fills our cupboards to the point where I've had to say, "What army are we feeding?"

I have often mentioned to him, that like Mr. Morris' grocery store on the corner of Clinton St. and Manning Avenue, which I frequented as a child, there's our current version...a Metro supermarket around the corner, if we needed anything desperately.

 Hubby's response, "You never know when we can't get out to shop."

I suppose he was thinking in terms of an apocalyptic snow storm, our elderly capabilities, or something similar. Never in either of our wildest dreams did we expect the current situation of a world wide pandemic...a virus which holds us captive in our elder years.

Although the hoarding of toilet paper amongst the populous still has me somewhat baffled, I understand things like frozen veggies, breads, dairy products and cleansers which are disappearing from shelves.

So firstly, it pains me to admit it, and say to hubby, "You were correct. Thank you."

Although in the past sixty plus years, there has never been an occasion where I would have seen a use for mom's bed sheets, there has now come a time where many stores are not open, restaurants are only offering takeout, and supplies are limited. Currently, our food stash is coming in handy in order to keep us from venturing out of the house unnecessarily. Store shelves are generally devoid of toilet paper, frozen food, cleansers, bread, and more. Meanwhile, our cupboards are set for awhile.

I suppose if I look in there carefully, I'd even find some canned corn, and  perhaps some fruit cocktail with half a cherry.


_______________________________________________________________________________
*** It's odd the sorts of things that stick in our memory. The lack of apostrophe in Peoples bothered me from early on. Maybe they were referring to the different ethnic groups within America, which would actually make this correct. On the other hand, considering it was the 1950's I might dispute that. I guess I've always been a grammatical stickler.

     I remember having a disagreement with my fourth grade teacher regarding my usage of the words cups full  as in "I had two cups full of  disgusting powdered skim milk" which she insisted should be cupfuls. To this day, I'm wondering whether either one is acceptable. Don't get me wrong...I make my share of errors so don't go looking through my blogs, because you'll find them. I'll admit to that.