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I'm home alone , my daughter has gone to a family birthday party in Dallas , I have more time to type than usual . I was born in 1952 , in a neighborhood that was not the best , it was called Dogpatch by the locals . We went to church three times a week , my sister and I were shelterd by loving parents that worked their guts out trying to make a better life for us than what they had . My dad was born in a dugout in 1901 and run over by a truck when he was 16 years old , he was crippled his whole life but he worked every day and provided for his family . My mother was born in 1912 in Big Springs , during the depression she and my grandmother truck farmed raising vegetables to sell . She raised white leghorn chickens and sold eggs to put herself thru "beauty school" to have her own business .
The Couny Farm .
We had a county farm here in Wichita Falls , most will not know what that even is . There was a two story brick building , county prisoners were kept in the second story to work the farm . The farm had about 90 acres , they raised hogs , cattle , had a garden , did many things to sustain the jail and the county farm .
Another part of the county farm was a place where the old folks , the sick , the one's that had no where to go were kept . My mom would bake cookies , muffins , whatever was cheap and go one time a week to help these folks . She took me also , they didnt get to see children very much . It was a great long building , there was a curtain that was drawn in the middle that seprated the men from the women when they all were taking a towel bath or needed privacy . The people they were pathetic , all sad .
Mom would sing hymns (she sang in choir and good at it ) and read bible verses for them , for many it made their day . I remember all of it and it has been a blessing to me .

The times were hard but the people were great

Dang right OldGrumpy .

Wow.. Amazing story...

I thank you but no it wasn't amazing for the time , just life . Most of the old folks had no teeth or 'robuckers' (Sears and Robuck usta sell dentures mail order) and sat on the porch and dipped Levi Garrett snuff for entertainment , it was cheap . If you were walking down the alley and saw a trashcan with brown bottles around it you knew old folks lived there.
You could go to the drug store and Get a big cherry phosphate (a drink)for a dime . I'v often wondered what the phosphate part was , sounds kinda deadly now .
You could buy a round red paper box of redskin peanuts about as big as a medium salt shaker for 15 cents and it garuenteed you there was 1 penny to a fifty cent piece in the box with the peanuts , I never found more than a nickle .
They took up contributions in grade school to help buy iron lungs to keep polio children alive , you saw the polio kids a lot , most parents would not let their kids play with them for fear they would catch polio . Many of these kids lived out their short lives in an iron lung .
Our ice box would make two trays of ice cubes a day , we were threatened with death if we got into them they were for tea at supper, the ice truck would come down the street and we would ask if we could have the broken ice in the back of the truck , if he said no......well he was gonna have to go to the front door of the next house and we would just snag a piece and leave . A big old sliver of ice was as good as a rasberry snowcone when it was hot .


That ought to be enough to bore you for a while , lol