Hygene Class

Back when I was in 4th grade, one of the hours of the day was spent on Hygene. In those days a lot of people did not have hot water or running water or soap or shampoo and the family bath was once a week or maybe once a month.

I remember that class because I wanted to be beautiful.

There was instruction on bathing and brushing teeth, combing hair and how to clean your fingernails. The pictures in the book were so nice. Not in color, but enough for me to dream of being clean.

Later-

I longed for Halo shampoo and a Toni perm. Not any of that would be happening for me and lye soap was as close as I came to shampoo or bath soap and that was once a month. I remember that caustic smell. You know that you can still buy Castille soap. Why you would ever want to is beyond my mind.

Now, there are no classes in hygene. I have been around people who think that deodorant will harm their body and they are better off smelling like a dead onion. I consider that their job opportunities are nil and they are better off living with their old family who instilled that nonsense in their brains...forever. For some reason these same people consider that bathing is not required very often. I wonder that they can breathe the air around themselves. I think as unbathed as I ever was, I never smelled like an onion that had been out in the sun and damp too long.

Some creature has been caught in our drain pipe and has died and been stinking like death for two weeks. David tried to clear the pipe, but the creature is stuck. Even that stink cannot equal an unbathed 18 year old boy who does not believe in deodorant.

Love,
Betty

Betty,

You are too funny and of course correct as well.
Gotta love ya,

Alice

One of the weird subject girls had to take at our college was health. It was not required for the boys. It was about hygiene, pregnancy, etc. I have often wondered why the boys didn't have to take this class. It seems it was needed more by them than us beautiful girls who knew about hygiene and health by then.

Carol

When we were kids in Tennessee, we took a bath every Saturday, whether we needed it or not.

Still do.

At least most weeks.

Not so much in cold weather, or since I got old enough that I gave up sweating. In fact, I was raised by very strict parents, and was 22 years old before I was allowed to perspire.

I do try to drink as much after shave lotion as I can every day, just on the off chance that I will start sweating again. Next time around, the deodorant will come from the inside.

Funny Don,
Saturday was the day for our weekly bath in a large galvanized tub, using homemade soap. During the week we washed our face and any other part that needed attention using a washbasin and washcloth. As a kid I thought the Saturday bath was required before going to church on Sunday morning. Cleanliness was considered next to Godliness. We dressed in clothes reserved only for Sunday use.

Living on a farm, cleaning out the stables, etc., meant that certain odors remained in the clothes. Mom washed our clothes weekly. Clothing for school were used only for school and those for the barn were kept separate. We had no holes in our trousers. They may have been patched but they were clean. She had a program to keep us in clean clothes and made sure we had washed-up, giving us an inspection before leaving for school in the morning. The Sunday morning inspection was more thorough. Hair wet, parted on the side, the seams in our trousers straight and wrinkle free and the Sunday-only shoes shined. She checked behind the ears, even gave us a good sniffing to make sure there was no barn smell. Yes, hygiene was there, although in a crude way compared to today. Hand-me-down clothes were the norm. The oldest always got the new clothes. I was critical of how my older brother took care of the clothes I would inherit and wanted them in good condition.
One may be poor but there's no excuse for being dirty. Clothes may show wear but can be repaired, and above all, clean.

??I don't know how that over­alls came up. Or the col&shy,tion plate either??

It's okay Ann, it reads well. I think the 'editor' function does that. It's a good post, too.

They just pop up sometimes, Ann.

We had hygiene class at old Kent School but the part about the birds and bees was a waste of time because we learned a lot more by standing at the back fence of what was supposed to be a playground. From there you could peer down to Case Avenue where the prostitutes plied their trade, frequently in automobiles parked at the curb.
Think I'll write a blog about it.

I remember taking Lynn to her first college weekend. I decided I had a captive audience, so I gave The Mother's Lecture one more time. Susan had come with us so I wouldn't have to drive back alone, and I was thinking, how often can you get two for one. Lynn, in that voice that only 17 year old girls can manage, told me she got all that stuff in health class. On the way home, I asked Susan if they really taught it in health class and she replied, "I don't know. They're still teaching us how to do drugs. We haven't learned how to have sex yet."

Ann

Gotta love those health classes.

How to live--it was a great class! We had to be clean and thnk clean and eschew all evil at all times.

It wasn't easy, but what is?

Obviously you are not talking about the classes I attended. We were clean enough, but after that it was another story.

I just wish there was a class to teach kids how to wear their pants around their waist instead of around their knee caps.

It used to be a "boy" problem ... but now even girls are showing off their underwear or else they moon the public when they bend over.

While we are at it ... how about teaching school kids to bend at the knees ....

Quite right--far easier to bend the knees than to break the back.

Might even save a few ruptured discs.

When I had my condition where the nerves in my legs were detached from my brain, it was like I had forgotten how to walk, get off of chairs, pick up things off the floor. I tried to pick up something off the floor and fell over hitting my head on a counter on the way down.

Now my body is remembering and knows to pick things up off the floor safely it has to bend it's knees. This has been so strange. It is like my body forgot all it learned when it was two.

Now I just walk funny.

Carol

My knees don't bend as easily as they once did, either. I have a couple of tools that Mother got after her hip replacement surgery - like arm extenders. Did Tom have any after his surgery? They make things so much safer when the legs aren't at their youthful best.

Ann

Carol,
If you walk funny, don't worry about it. At least you can walk and are making progress.
Now if you begin to talk funny, that's another matter.