The APRON

Where did they come from? Who bought them or gave them as gifts?

Some were as big as queen sized sheets, when we were kids. How much did our Granny’s and Aunts weigh anyway?

It didn’t matter.

They were special and wore the ever-present, mandatory APRON, anytime that they were at home. The lunchroom ladies had theirs made at Birmingham Tent and Awning Company.

The Army Swiss Knife didn’t have anything on the APRON. That piece of cloth had more uses than any survival tool that the Army issued.

It was designed to keep her dress clean. The APRON had everything on it from flour to spilled milk.  It seemed to always have a distinct odor of fried chicken and burning wood or coal.

Some of her APRONS were made from old flour sacks, with a cloth strap sewn to them. She would wipe her floured hands on the APRON. Since the old pot-bellied stove would send the kitchen temperature into the upper 90’s, she wiped her smiling sweaty face, on the APRON

Complain? Never once in her life. “This is what I live for.”

The multi-use APRON served as a type of basket.  She never had to think about grabbing a pail or a bucket. I can still see it holding fresh washed laundry from the clothesline that served as a guillotine for our backyard football games.

She never forgot the wooden clothes pins that held the fresh washed sheets and underwear that were dried by the ultimate clothes dryer: God’s fresh air and soft breeze.

Need something to gather peas from the garden? No problem.  The APRON took care of the task. She knew how to scoop up the bottom edges to form a cloth basket.

Butterbeans, black-eyed peas, corn, okra and the best tasting Big Boy tomatoes, this side of Heaven found a home in the APRON. I saw her pick these with her right hand while using her left to keep the cloth basket in place.

Could she use a bucket? Probably. But they just wouldn’t be as good as they were when they came in the house, from the APRON.

Guess what she used as a catch-basin for the shelled beans on Saturday night while sitting next to the battery-operated radio tuned to WSM and the Grand Ole Opry? You guessed it: her APRON. It made Bill Monroe, Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff sound so much better.

When it came to her chickens, Pavlov should have studied his theory on her. She would have cracked corn and left-over biscuits in the APRON. Her chickens associated her APRON with food.

As soon as she opened the back- screen door, the chickens came running, “Here Chick- Chick.” The cacklers never knew they might be the next meal themselves,

 I don’t know if the hens spoke chickenology but they knew that their next meal was coming from, the APRON.

While the chickens pecked and scratched in the dirt yard, she casually slipped into the henhouse and again, used the APRON to collect the eggs from the straw beds.  

Unfortunately for some of the hens, the APRON was used as a hearse for the just-butchered hen that was just decapitated for the Sunday dinner after church. The fluttering chicken was escorted to the boiling water to remove the feathers. In the APRON.

For all the many uses of her APRON, none compared to the security blanket that it served to her many Grandkids. And adopted Grandkids in the neighborhood.

 Many snotty noses were wiped clean on that APRON.

Where did the kids flock to if they were ever upset about not being picked for a team?  Straight to the APRON. Her big arms would engulf you as you hid your crying face, in the APRON. What ever happened to Granny arms before grannies were wearing miniskirts and getting Botox and tattoos?

Too many times, the Grandkid would come into her kitchen, with one simple complaint: “my parents just don’t understand me.” She would calm them down by going to the ice-box and getting some milk to go along with the fresh-baked apple pies in the pie safe.

After eating, she would stand up and wipe her hands. On the APRON.

For some reason or other, life made sense again. Was it the APRON?

We will never know. BUT, we knew the answer.

She was never uppity or self-conscious about her APRON when strangers came around. No Grandkid ever asked her to remove it and dress up to meet the new boyfriend or girlfriend. It was part of her persona and official uniform.

She would wipe her hands on her APRON. Then she would give the new friend a hug that would start a heart back beating, quicker than any form of CPR.

When she was told: “Sit down. We have some great news. We are getting married.” She cried and wiped happy tears, with her APRON.

When she was told that she was about to be a Grandmother for the first time, and they were naming the little girl after her, she cried a river. In the APRON.

She stood staring out the back-screen door, only a few days after her only boyfriend and husband of 52 years lost his battle with cancer and wiped her sad tears. On the APRON.

When she turned around, she dropped the APRON from her eyes and opened her big arms for each Grandkid to once again bury their face. In the APRON.

It seemed only appropriate at her final Homecoming and farewell party, to bury her.

With the APRON.