{"id":1255,"date":"2020-09-19T04:02:35","date_gmt":"2020-09-19T09:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/?p=1255"},"modified":"2020-09-19T04:02:37","modified_gmt":"2020-09-19T09:02:37","slug":"before-radio-new-fridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/before-radio-new-fridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Before Radio – New Fridge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Before Radio or TV
Aunt Pearl’s new “Fridge”
<\/big><\/big>by Jeannie Travis<\/div>\n




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\u00a0Before Radio or TV<\/big><\/div>\n

We didn’t have a radio till I was about 9…Got our first TV after I got\u00a0 married at 17.\u00a0 We got electricity in my area in\u00a0 1947 or 8….Our minds were much clearer and ‘cleaner’ then, and one\u00a0 rarely heard of meanness…NO mass killings, rapes, child molesting that\u00a0 we knew of. Folks visited more back then and passed on the neighborhood\u00a0 news at quilting bee’s, First Monday around the Courthouse Square,\u00a0 etc…And some had battery powered radios…Daddy used to hitchhike, ride the bus or drive his team to his hometown 20 miles away sometimes on Mule Day, and he could visit with his family and pick up all sorts of news of\u00a0 the world. He also swapped work with neighbors and heard news that way. Traveling salesmen were common..Watkins, Jewel Tea, etc…plus the\u00a0 Peddler Man..

We had books at school, nothing but the Bible at home…which nobody but\u00a0 Mom read. Sometimes she would get magazines and I remember her reading\u00a0 an interesting story to Daddy after we’d gone to bed. I knew not to let\u00a0 them know I was awake or they’d have fussed\u00a0 at me or maybe spanked me, so I lay there in bed quiet as a mouse and listened to the story\u00a0 unfold…She’d read till her throat got sore then do another segment the\u00a0 next night after all was quiet. I don’t know why she didn’t read to the\u00a0 entire family, but maybe she and Daddy needed a quiet time alone away\u00a0 from all us goomers. When I was about 10 she subscribed to the Nashville Banner newspaper and I went from reading the comics to reading most of\u00a0 the paper.

We lived in a really big log house at this time..[I was about 7]…Two\u00a0 big rooms with a dogtrot hall between and a lean to kitchen…Mom and dad would sit by the fireplace, lamp light helped out by the fire as it\u00a0 snapped and crackled….There was two big iron bedsteads in that room\u00a0 across from the fire place and us girls slept in one, Mom and Dad in the\u00a0 other, usually with a baby in there with them so they could keep it\u00a0 warm. The older boys slept across the hall in an unheated room..I\u00a0 remember so well laying there on that feather bed, while Mama read the\u00a0 story of a man lost in a wintery wilderness…..Oh no ! He fell through\u00a0 the ice in a stream and was about to freeze to death.. Talk about\u00a0 riveting ! The man found a cabin and broke into it and found food and\u00a0 firewood so he was saved. Mom never did know that I was listening…faras I know. She loved to read…one time she said she got as hungry for\u00a0 something to read at times as she got for food.. Our entire family\u00a0 turned into read a holics. Course Daddy had to whip me more than once\u00a0 to get me to learn to read, and I DID hide my books a few times…..[I\u00a0 know now I had attention deficit, still do…but it hadn’t been invented\u00a0 at that time…] Then they had to whip me to make me do my chores instead of reading….Jeannie T

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Aunt Pearl\u2019s new \u201cFridge\u201d<\/big><\/div>\n

We went on a rare visit to my Dad’s parents when I was a child…They had the most amazing thing , called Electricity! There were light bulbs hanging down on cords in the middle of the room, and when the string was pulled they gave so much light it just about blinded you. In the kitchen was a big white box set up on legs, called a ‘fridge’. After dinner the grownups went out to set in the cool shade of the Big Catalpha tree, and we decided we’d look around a bit in the now empty house…Ah, the FRIDGE. Opened the door and stood there enjoying the nice cold air seeping into the room…UH OH! THAT SUCKER STOPPED RUNNING! Now what?….Ah !Theres a button that says ‘push to start.” Just what we need…..We took turns pushing that butter and praying…all the time having one of the culprits peeking around the door to check on the adults. I mean, if Aunt Pearl even suspected we had broke her fridge…….Nothing on this earth could have saved us from that big laughing woman.. We pushed that button, prayed, sweated….and NOTHING HAPPENED! We looked at each other, carefully closed that door and ran out of that kitchen like our shimmies were on fire!\u00a0 Now came the hardest part…waiting around all afternoon for Aunt Pearl to find out we had broke her ‘fridge’….Waited, and waited , and waited. Then it was time to go home and I just couldn’t leave without checking that fridge…Would you believe that sucker was running just fine ? That sure ruined a trip to Mammy and Papa’s ….

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before Radio or TVAunt Pearl’s new “Fridge”by Jeannie Travis \u00a0Before Radio or TV We didn’t have a radio till I was about 9…Got our first TV after I got\u00a0 married at 17.\u00a0 We got electricity in my area in\u00a0 1947 or 8….Our minds were much clearer and ‘cleaner’ then, and one\u00a0 rarely heard of meanness…NO Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-gutenberg.php","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"full","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"MaryCarol","author_link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/author\/marycarol\/"},"featured_img":null,"coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Uncategorized<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Uncategorized<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 19, 2020","modified":"Updated on September 19, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 19, 2020 4:02 am","modified":"Updated on September 19, 2020 4:02 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1256,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255\/revisions\/1256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/weakley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}