Thursday, August 5, 2010

Chicken Scratch

The ole fat boy's Mom (Thelda) was a saint's saint.

That blessed woman took near bout as good care of her chilluns as ever a woman could.

Gene's Wright City clan didn't have such as extra money, but Mom did all she could.

The grandparent's had chickens. Chickens ate "scratch". Scratch was sold in cotton cloth bags with a decorative print of some sort stained therein. Said print has been used by "poor folk" to make clothes since Moby Dick was a minnow.

Accordingly, Mom used store bought patterns to make the ranch hand and sisters dresses, shirts, underwear, and whatever was needed from the "chicken scratch" sacks.

The ubiquitous sacks naturally had "labels". Ink printed information as to the brand, etc that the manufacturer added. Mom surreptitiously placed this info in inconspicuous location so as to not be displayed. As an example, boys shirts lovingly made on the home Singer sewing machine placed the "label" on the tail of the shirt to be "tucked" into one's Levi jeans.

Your humble scribe remembers with crystal clarity the first time he tried on a store bought shirt and noticed something unusual????

No printed "chicken scratch" label on the tail.

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