Aprons

This was forwarded to me in an email from my aunt. I thought it was outstanding and really quite touching. It talks about the "simpler" times--when most things were done by hand and a little work was put into the things that were done. That is something definately missing from our present time--that sense of where things are made and the sense of accomplishment of making things yourself. There is of course a resurgence of handcrafted items but for the most part, people want what they want quickly. People are out of touch with the physical world I think-not knowing how things are made and out of what material. Not to say I'm very different--I love the dollar store too! But I also have an appreciation of handmade things and get such pleasure of making tings myself. But we are such a technological society now that I fear that soon we will lose touch the physicality of making items ourselves. I suppose time will only tell.


The History of 'APRONS'
I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms. Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls. In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds. When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner. It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes. REMEMBER: Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs was on that apron. I don't think I ever caught anything from an Apron.