From Then To Now

From Then to Now

I peered into and around that thing, eyeing it with suspicion. Was food really going to cook in that box sitting on my harvest gold countertop? Would any foodstuff emerging from the open door in a matter of minutes be fit to eat, to serve to my family? It was January 1979, and my husband had purchased a microwave oven for our kitchen from Mr. Arrington at Friendly Appliance Store. The thing was huge. For a month or more, I resisted learning to cook in it and merely used it as a very expensive breadbox. My sister already owned one of these new small appliances and raved about it...how quickly a cup of water boiled...how superfast the English peas heated up... she could bake a potato in 8 minutes. This modern convenience sounded good to me, until I had one and didn't know what to do with it. Truth be known, I was scared of it! Of course, now three microwave ovens later, I wonder how I ever cooked a full meal or heated up leftovers without one. Within three months, my sister and I had convinced our Mother to buy one for her kitchen, touting the marvels of the boxy oven. She had cooked on a regular electric stove for 40+ years, while my sister and I had also done all our cooking on electric or gas stoves for all our adult lives. Grinning now, I think back to the times that Mama would stand in the middle of my kitchen and just watch while I showed her how quickly she could make herself a cup of hot chocolate or heat up lunch for Daddy so he could hurry off to play golf on Saturdays.

The avocado green crock pot was a wedding gift and was something else that I thought I'd never use in my kitchen. My thoughts were to just give me a good heavy pot in which to make a Sunday chuck roast or a gallon of homemade vegetable soup. Who needed one of those cumbersome electric crockery slow-cookers? I was slow, but I gradually learned to make all sorts of good meals in that convenient little crock pot. One of the three black plastic legs snapped off long ago, but superglue works everytime. It hasn't been but a couple of years ago that I gave away the 35 years old green crock pot and purchased a modern white one with a removable and dishwasher-safe ceramic lining. Pile it half full of boneless countrystyle ribs, don't add any liquid, turn the heat level to High for 4 hours, then douse with 8 ounces of your favorite brand of barbecue sauce, cook one extra hour on High, and you've got yourself a delicious pot of BBQ ribs. That's just one of the current recipes I use, compliments of my sister who cooks with her crock pot often.

Another item that I frankly did not want to worry with as a younger lady was an electric hair curling iron. I'd rather leave that to Brooksie at the beauty parlor. Let me just continue to roll my hair with bobby pins and hard plastic curlers and sit under the domed hair dryer for 45 minutes. Fighting with the hot iron and burning my fingers, neck, and forehead a few times was enough to cause me to put it aside forever. I never did master the art of using one, and to this day, I use a hot curling brush instead.

When I turned 15 years old, it was time for Mama to teach me all about driving her car, an English model called a Vauxhall. It was an army drab green square-looking vehicle, and merciful heavens, it had 4 gears set in an H-pattern at which I would have to become proficient before I was allowed to leave the driveway! Oh, did I ever get frustrated when trying to coordinate my two feet on the gas pedal, the brake, the clutch, and shift gears in that little matchbox on wheels. At the beginning, I was sorely lacking in patience, correct timing and coordination. I didn't see any sense in all that foot-switching, gear-shift nonsense when my friends were learning to drive their parents' cars by easily turning the key in the ignition, shifting the lever to Reverse or Drive and merrily driving off. I think my resistance to learning to drive the Vauxhall could be called 'acting spoiled', much as I don't wish to own up to it. I needed an attitude adjustment, and Mama's great patience plus her gift of laughter infected me and proved to be just the antidote called for in this situation. She would not let me off the hook each afternoon during our driving lessons. After I learned the H-pattern, she and I would go riding down the quiet neighborhood street with the little car jerking and bouncing as I pushed in the clutch and tried to move smoothly from one gear to the next. Many times my driving mistakes would cause the car to just "konk out" and it would come to a shaky standstill in the middle of the street. Thankfully, Mama and I could laugh and start the process all over again. Daddy said once I learned to drive a straight shift car, I would be able to drive anything on four wheels. Of course, he was right! Today, I own a car that has a keyless ignition, that recognizes my touch as long as I have the key fob in my purse or in my hand. Once seat-belted in, with foot on the brake, I press a button on the dash and the car roars to life. The lighted dash tells me which direction I am going, what time it is, what radio station I'm listening to and gives the inside and outside temperature in which I am traveling. This latest convenience in an automobile, I've grown accustomed to with ease!

The first mobile telephone that I owned was in 1994. It was a large black bag phone which was fastened with Velcro to the floor of the car beneath the radio. It was quite handy to have even though it was not portable. An extra outside antenna had to be attached to the car for the telephone signal to be clear. It took me only a short while to get accustomed to the more modern cellphones as technology has developed them smaller and lighter; mine now is razor slim and gets lost inside my purse. I must admit that I was not as resistant to change with this wonderful invention!

Just give me time to curl my hair, boil water in the microwave for a cuppa tea, toss some ribs in the crock pot for lunch later, hop in the car for a trip to town, click on the cellphone, and I am off. I like coming from Then to Now!

Story ID:	1356
Written by:	Susan Hammett Poole (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	LaGrange, GA USA
Year:	2006
Person:	myself