THE VISIT

THE VISIT

   As I sit here tonight looking out the window and watching the rain come down I started thinking about how important visiting was in my life when I was younger. In the 1930’s, 1940’s and even into the 1950’s visiting was a large part of the social activity in “small town America.”

   I suppose kid’s do not call it visiting. I think to them it was just going to play at some friend’s home, or going for a hike or spending an afternoon at the “shack”. The exception to this was when the kids went with Mom & Dad to a specific home and you went with them. On those visits you were expected to act a certain way and if you were not “good” so to speak you were told once to mind your manners and you knew you had better do it!

   If there were kids your age in the home that was not a problem because you were sent outside or to another room to play, while the Adults visited. Most of the time you were not asked to go outside or to another room; we just knew that was expected.

   The word”visit” in itself means to go to another place, or leave your home for another place. Sometimes it was for several days, but usually just a few hours.

   Visits were made for many reasons. Sometimes a neighbor just dropped in to talk. Sometimes they had been to the post office and got your mail while they were there and just dropped by to give it to you.

   It seems the ladies visited a lot more than the men. It also seems that they always had a sewing bag with them that had cross stitch, knitting, darning (another blog subject?) or something to keep their hands busy while they talked. My memory also tells me that the lady, of the house they were visiting, always had some cake, pie or cookies to snack on while they visited.

   I do not recall if my Dad told me the following story or if I read it somewhere—but it seems there were some unwritten etiquette about front yard swings and visiting. If someone was walking up the street and another person was sitting in their porch swing and waved to them- they should wave back and keep going up the street. If they stood up and waved, that meant come on in a minute. However if he did not sit down it meant you should stay a few minutes and leave. If he sit down and invites you to also then you should sit and visit a while- however if he stands up that means the conversation was over and the visitor should leave. I don’t know if this is true or not but it sounds very effective to me.

   The men seemed to visit more in a group up town. They may meet at the post office, the pool hall, the store or just standing as a group leaning on a fence.

   It seems there was always plenty to talk about. They seemed to jump from one conversation to another very easily. One would ask—“what do you think about old Jim getting a ticket for-----“ and then they could discuss the pros and cons about that for a while. Then someone would comment about some safety factor in the mine, or someone’s kids, or someone who just got a brand spanking new car, and for each subject they could go on and on or maybe just make a comment.

   As I said visiting was an important part of small town America in my younger years. Most of us did not have cars and almost none of us had a telephone in our home. Of course there was no TV, Cell Phone or cable. So what did we do? ---We visited and gossiped. And of course a good visit usually included a fair amount of gossip—Ha Ha.

               WALLY  7 August 2014