Jimmie Rodgers - English Country Garden

It's sort of strange how something so technologically futuristic can bring a person so close to their past. Of course I mean computers; and more so, what they contain, and the most amazing (to me) are Google and Youtube. If you are anywhere near my age, you might want to play this YouTube video while you read this, and it might bring back memories for you too. And if you're young, with small children of your own, well, maybe it might make a nice change from The Wiggles, or Barney, or whatever is trendy these days.

My Mother used to sing lots of songs to me when I was little, and a lot of them were songs that she learned from her Mother. That was what we often did for entertainment we sang, we read, we walked and played. We didn't have a TV for years and years (and when we did, it was a small B&W and we only got CBC, but that's a whole different time and place)

I remember my mum singing while she cleaned the house, singing while she made dinner, singing when she made the beds and dusted. I have no idea if her voice was any good, but to a child, a Mothers singing is always perfect. Hmmm...my voice is simply terrible, I can't hold a note worth beans. I wonder what my kids remember of my singing?

Mum would sing while going downstairs to use the old wringer washer, I'd have to stand back because we all knew the stories of someone getting an arm torn off because they stood too close to the wringer.

She'd sing while hanging the clothes on the line, I can still hear that "snap" as she shook out the pillowcases before hanging them . I'd play with the clothespins, which isn't as much of a poverty thing as it sounds, the old wooden pins made perfect clothespin dolls, every little girl had clothespin dolls.

My dad made me a child size ironing board and I'd iron along with my mum. I can still hear the "psssst" of the spray starch, and the sizzle that the iron would make as it hit the damp clothes. Not my iron, mine wasn't real. Things were different back then, but I didn't have to iron at 5 years old!

It sounds pretty old fashioned and gender biased, but it wasn't a bad thing, not then. A women didn't have to work, but she could if she wanted. My mum was a photographer in the Airforce, and she retired to stay at home and raise me. She loved taking care of my Dad and me, and being a housewife. And I'm not going to say "homemaker"...that was a term no one had even heard of back then, and there was no shame in being a housewife at all.

My parents were pretty modern for those times. I'd get toy trucks and toy guns for Christmas, as well as Barbies. I'd go to "work" with my Dad on weekends and he taught me about carpentry and how to use tools. My Dad would do dishes and laundry, and these were things that most men just didn't do back then. Again, it wasn't a bad thing, it was just the way things were.

And he sang too. His favorite song, or at least the one I recall hearing him sing the most was "They Called the Wind Mariah..." My mums  was "An English Country Garden".

I had long forgotten the words to both songs, and not that many years ago I'd be feeling pretty sad about it...knowing that the words and the tune were long gone. BUT, the whole point of this post is to shout out the joys of Google and Youtube. Seriously, you can enter a few words of whatever you're thinking of, and "voila!" Chances are really, really good that whatever you are looking for will be but a mouseclick or two away. I just am always amazed. My mum never used, or even saw, a home computer, and to think that something she could not even visualize would bring her back to me, is truly like a little technological miracle.

It makes me wonder what good things are yet to be invented, things that I can't even imagine, will bring me closer to my kids, when I'm gone.