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When I Was Growing Up In Sweetwater in the forties, fifties, and early sixties, so much of what we have today simply did not exist.

I grew up before there were colored sheets or fitted sheets. All sheets were flat and white. They were lightly starched and ironed. Making a bed involved learning to make hospital corners. My mom stopped just short of throwing a dime onto my freshly made bed to see if it bounced.

Beds were either baby bed sized, twin bed sized, or full bed sized. No queens. No kings. I slept in a full sized, or double bed, because my bed and room doubled as the guest room when there was overnight company. I got booted to the couch, an old Army cot, or a pallet on the floor, depending on the amount of company and their needs ( which always came before any needs of mine). short length wedding bridal wears look mini

This was back in the days of "children should be seen and not heard"--unless I was called upon to show off by reciting a poem I had memorized for school or to play the piano.

Clothing was either washed, starched, and ironed, or sent to the dry cleaners. There was no perma press until the summer of 1964 when I left for college.

The new 1964 Sears Summer Catalogue had some perma press dresses. I had received some monetary gifts for graduation, along with about ten pair of shortie pajamas, and I ordered all these dresses. About six or so. Some people criticized me for wearing them. I didn't care. I was tired of ironing.

I guess mother was too.

After I left home and wasn't there to do the ironing, I was amazed at the amount of perma press that had entered our house by the Thanksgiving holidays.

Colored sheets and fitted sheets were slower in coming to our house. Funny though, once mother started buying them, she couldn't seem to stop. When she died she had ten to fifteen sets of sheets for each bed. When I a kid we had one or two extra sets in case of an accident, but that was all.

Now you know why there was no perma press wash load back in the fifties. We had:

Whites, including sheets and pillow cases and uniforms, coloreds, including what mother called wash dresses--clothes we wore only at home for chores and cooking, towels, and work clothes. Curtains, bedspreads, quilts and blankets, and throw rugs were washed separately and less frequently.

Almost everything was starched, line dried, and ironed.

I quickly learned to use a pressing cloth--in my case, a cup towel or a piece of a paper grocery sack-- to keep the starch from gunking up the iron. A gunked up iron stuck to the clothes and barely moved.

It only took a couple of times for me to have to unplug the iron and wait until it had cooled down and scrub the sole plate with Ajax, before I learned to use a pressing cloth of some kind. Otherwise, I would spend more time cleaning the iron than ironing.

I learned a lot when I Was Growing Up In Sweetwater.

I learned to buy perma press and send anything that needs to be starched and ironed to the nice people who do this for a living.

I might iron nowadays, but it would have to be an emergency. Not an everyday occurrence like it was when I Was Growing Up In Sweetwater.