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Chapter
12
Odds
&
Ends
Part
1
TAW
muting:
a
large
marble
(agate
preferably)
to
shoot
in
a
marble
game;
also
the
line
from
which
the
marble
is
shot.
Taw
is
a
word
seldom
used
now.
This
preface
is
to
show
what
my
father
meant
by
the
following
story:
When
Dad
was
a
boy
in
grade
school,
the
teacher
lived
next
door
and
Dad
walked
to
and
from
school
with
him.
This
was
in
the
small
town
of
Ridgefarm,
Illinois
where
Dad
was
born.
The
pupils
used
double
desks.
A
boy
from
the
outskirts
of
town
sat
in
front
of
my
dad
and
his
desk
mate.
This
boy
had
rather
long
hair.
One
hair
was
standing
up
alone.
My
father
and
his
desk
mate
looked
up
and
noticed
a
louse
crawling
up
the
hair.
The
hair
bent
and,
as
my
dad
said,
it
'scrambled
back
to
taw.'
Both
boys
got
so
tickled
they
couldn't
keep
from
laughing.
The
teacher
told
them
he
would
have
to
whip
them
if
they
didn't
quit
But
every
time
they
looked
at
each
other
the
laughing
broke
out
again.
Finally
the
teacher
whipped
them.
Dad
waited
for
his
teacher
as
usual
after
school
and
on
the
way
home
he
asked
Dad
what
had
happened.
Dad
told
him.
The
next
morning
the
teacher
gave
the
boy
from
the
outskirts
a
note
and
sent
him
home.
When
the
boy
came
back,
his
hair
was
almost
all
shaved
off.
Other
uses
of
words
now
seldom
used:
Twenty-three
Skidoo
-
So
long;
good-bye
Whammy
-now
probably
"neat";
Work
brittle,
as
"I
don't
feel
very
work
brittle
today"
-not
up
to
par;
draggy.
In
conversations,
"kid"
seemed
to
used
a
great
deal
as
in,
"That's
right,
isn't
it,
Kid?"
or,
"Well,
Kid,
I'll
be
seeing
you."
"Light
Housekeeping
Rooms
for
Rent"
usually
referred
to
a
big
house
with
a
room
or
two
furnished
so
that
you
could
do
your
own
cooking.
Tulsa
grew
so
fast
that
this
was
done
in
many
homes.
If
a
woman
looked
sexy,
she
had
"It."
A
phase
still
heard
locally
at
times
is
"I
like
to
have."
When
I
was
first
married
and
lived
in
Wisconsin,
I
made
a
remark
saying
"I
like
to
have
lost
my
father
just
before
I
left
Tulsa."
My
father
had
been
in
an
accident
and
was
unconscious
for
an
hour
or
so.
I
was
very
upset
by
this
but
luckily
he
had
no
other
damage.
My
husband
said,
"Did
you
really
wish
your
father
had
died?"
From
that
time
(1923)
I've
used
the
word
"almost"
instead
of
"like
to
have."
Here
in
Oklahoma
we
used
to
call
green
corn
"roast'n
ears,
a
contraction
of
roasting
ears.
At
the
grocery
store
in
the
small
town
of
Plymouth,
I
saw
a
bushel
basket
of
corn
and
so
I
went
in
and
asked,
"How
much
are
your
roast'n
ears?"
To
this
the
clerk
said,
"We
don't
have
any."
My
reply
was,
"You
have
a
bushel
basket
of
them
in
front."
He
said,"
Show
me
what
you
are
talking
about."
When
I
pointed
out
the
corn,
he
doubled
up
laughing
and
said,
"Oh,
you
mean
green
corn!"
Another
time
at
this
same
store
I
asked
for
dry
butter
beans.
This
time
the
clerk
said,
"Tell
me
what
they
look
like."
After
I
told
him,
he
got
a
can
of
small
lima
beans
and
wanted
to
know
if
that
was
it.
Of
course
it
wasn't.
An
A
&
P
store
was
a
couple
of
blocks
up
from
this
store
so
I
decided
to
see
if
they
had
the
beans.
To
my
surprise
they
had
glass
containers
with
plenty
of
bulk
large
lima
(butter)
beans.
I
went
into
Bade's
Drug
Store
in
Plymouth.
All
drug
stores
seemed
to
have
soda
fountains.
I
ordered
a
"George."
Of
course
the
fountain
clerk
didn't
know
what
a
George
was
because
it
was
a
local
mixture
in
Tulsa
made
of
various
ice
creams.
This
same
drug
store
served
lunch.
One
day
chili
was
on
the
menu.
I
ordered
it.
I
was
very
much
disappointed
as
all
it
was
was
a
thin
tomato
soup
with
a
very
small
amount
of
spaghetti
in
it.
Also
when
I
was
first
married
in
1923
and
lived
in
Plymouth,
(population
then
about
3000),
artificial
gas
was
piped
in
from
Sheboygan.
When
I
saw
the
men
working
-
digging
ditches
for
the
pipe
-stopping
at
10:00
a.m.,
getting
their
lunch
baskets
and
drinking
coffee,
I
was
very
surprised
as
they
also
took
their
lunch
hour.
With
the
boom
in
Tulsa,
we
were
always
in
a
hurry
to
get
things
done
and
we
were
lucky
if
we
got
the
full
noon
hour.
Now
it
seems
most
places
take
coffee
breaks
in
the
mid-morning
and
mid-
afternoon
here.
So
in
growing
up,
Tulsa
forfeited
the
leisure
time
of
smaller
cities.
Since
Tulsa
has
had
gas
for
fuel
as
far
back
as
I
can
remember,
most
of
my
cooking
has
been
with
gas.
Even
lots
of
farms
in
Oklahoma
had
and
still
have
their
own
gas
wells
and
so
use
gas
in
cooking.
When
I
went
to
my
sister's
farm,
I
cooked
on
the
wood
burner
stove
but
had
nothing
to
do
with
the
control
of
heat.
Someone
else
attended
to
that.
In
Wisconsin
we
had
a
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