Remember When

These days, you just don’t know what to believe. I’ve seen plenty on television and picture show screens to make me skeptical.

But there is one thing I do believe in; talking tables.

Now that I have your attention, let me explain.

This isn’t your typical flat piece of furniture suspended on four legs. And it isn’t an end table, card table, nor coffee table and the like.

It’s the family dinner table.

I guess it was a Monday when the lady of the cave decided it was time to wash out the family hides.

Years ago, it was called “Blue Monday,” not because washing clothes without a washing machine was depressing, but because of a bluing agent used in the rising water.

Blue Monday still lingers in some households, but the advent of modern washers and dryers has made every day a potential wash day.

Well, it wasn’t always that way.

When I was a small boy, Mama didn’t have a washing machine, not even the old wringer kind.

All of us boys had dogs.    To tell the truth, they were mostly just plain dogs of various sizes and folks called them “mixed breeds,” whatever that means.

These dogs were talented, too. Why, they could chase balls, cars (and cats)  and bark at strangers, which is what you expect from a good dog. There’s nothing better than having a big, old dog beside you in a pup tent on a dark and scary night.

I didn’t have very much to do with girls. They always wanted to play house, cook pretend stuff from mud and china berries and have us around to be a daddy for their dolls.

You know, I sorta felt girls always had to prove they were better than the boys.

That feeling was engraved in my head ever since Teen Roddey pulled me from the deep end of the city pool on Gay Street after I got all choked up, went under and just about drowned.

Just my luck, about every boy I knew was at the pool that day. One fella called me a sissy because I was rescued by a girl.