To those who like to cook, you know that many recipes call for a couple of Bay Leafs in that soup or what ever to add seasoning. I got my Bay Laurel Plant about 20 years ago and have it in a nice Large pot on my deck. The only extra care I have to give it besides water and an occasional bit of organic fertilizer is to protect it from freezing. I have done it and it thrives as a approx 3-4' little shrub/tree. So when ever a recipe calls for Bay Leaf I just step outside and pluck them from the bush!

I am sure many of you were not aware of this fact about the year 1934! In the first place, it is the year of my birth. Thanksgiving was often the same date as my birthday for many years, due to President Delano Roosevelt manipulating the date for Thanksgiving.

Another reason was the Ford automobiles that were rolling off the assembly lines in Detroit. These vehicles were the favorite cars, the ones most often stolen by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker for their chosen activity of robbing banks and then out running any pursuit by the law enforcement’s vehicles.

In fact, the 1934 Ford was so superior, Clyde penned a letter to Henry Ford, extolling the superiority of Mr. Ford’s cars. He said he would not drive any other make of car. Unfortunately, the 1934 Fords were not bulletproof and Bonny and Clyde found out on a road in Northern Louisiana one fateful day.

1934 also saw the gangster John Dillinger shot to death by government agents. I had a manager who was attending the same movie as John. After he had been shot and his body removed, there was a swarm of people who were taking pieces of newspaper and soaking them in Dillinger’s blood. He said he also had such a macabre keepsake. But one gangster’s blood was a long way from what was happening elsewhere in the world.

In China Mao Tse-Tung is spreading communism and killed dissenters. Joseph Stalin has begun his purges and massacres. Adolf Hitler had just declared himself as the Furher! Further weather drought in the U.S. Midwest and some 32 million acres of farmland were destroyed.

So, not everything was ‘swell’. These were some tough times for many, requiring tough people to survive. A lot of folks migrated to California. Now it is a rare case when anyone from California will admit they, or their ancestors, migrated from the dust bowl to California back in the 1930s. So, I am still here as proof that 1934 was a great year. Just Sayin…RJS

Even when I was too small to handle an axe, I had the job of collecting arm loads of wood and bringing them into the house for the kitchen stove and a heating stove in the living room. A little later, I would chop up tree limbs and such for my mother to cook in a huge wood stove in the kitchen. I guess by the time I was seven or eight, I was reasonably handy with a double bit axe.

I do not remember where or when cut trees were delivered to our wood pile, but there was always a pile of raw wood. I would have to cut limbs and even trunks to a reasonable size, maybe 14 to 16 inches in length so they would fit inside the kitchen stove. The stove for heating was able to handle much longer pieces. We always made sure these wood stoves had burned down to a manageable size, or even completely cold before we would leave the house.

In those days, there were many more accidental fires and one always had to be extra careful. Later, we had a Kitchen stove that burned kerosene. It had a system where the kerosene was poured into a bucket that had a
valve on top. When you turned it upside down, this opened the valve to allow kerosene run out to the various burners. One time Mom was trying to get the thing started and for some reason the fire erupted all over the place on the burners, and all around. She took this can of kerosene and threw it out the door! I don’t remember but think we did not keep that stove much longer but went back to a more reliable wood stove.

To compare how things were before electricity is almost like from cave man living to modern appliances. With wood stoves, not only did one have to find, cut and carry in wood, you had to be patient and wait for the fire to get going
good before cooking, but there were the ashes that had to be carried out and dumped. Water had to be heated on this monster before one could take a bath in a # 2 wash tub. In looking back, it seemed to be everything was hard to do, took a lot of effort but that was your only choice. I believe it was 1945 before we got electricity. Thanks to LBJ and FDR! Just Sayin…RJS