When we were children in Ohio, the worst insult we could give was to call someone a Hoopie.  We didn’t have any idea what it meant.  We just knew we didn’t want to be called one.

Later, I read that the term had spread to Pennsylvania and West Virginia with the same meaning. It actually means a poor white person. The meaning is similar to Hillbilly or Redneck. It is usually associated someone who lives in a trailer parks, has dirty hair, and wears heavy metal band tee-shirts.

In my adult years, I was told that years ago a hoopie was a person who lived along the Ohio River and put hoops on barrels. Recently I read that West Virginia residents looking for work in that area were only skilled enough to bang together the metal strips that would make the hoops needed for barrel construction. So they didn’t put the hoops on, they just made them. 

I read recently that a fireman used the phrase "hoopie" as a derogatory term for overly gung ho firemen. Over the years, this term has grown to mean something different from the original meaning. Now "hoopie" has come to mean someone who really likes anything having to do with firefighting. It is also a term that is actually used with respect in some circles. It is a word some are proud of, especially if they are a firefighter.

Isn’t it interesting how things change over the years? But I still don’t think I want to be called a Hoopie.

I think I can safely say we would have called him a hoopie.

One of my most vivid high school memories is of the time all the students of car driving age were gathered along the road in front of our high school.  We were asked how fast we thought we could stop our cars.  Of course, we thought we could stop them “on a dime”, if necessary.  The driver education teacher came driving up at that time.  One boy and one girl were selected from the group and told they would be drivers.  The teacher explained that when they heard a bang like a gun shot a blue blob of paint would be exploded from underneath the car onto the pavement.  They were to slam on their brakes when they heard the shot.  When the car stopped, a yellow blob of paint would explode onto the pavement.

The girl driver went first.  She jammed on the brakes as soon as she heard the shot.  We were amazed at the distance between the blue and yellow blobs of paint showing how far the car had traveled from the bang to the complete stop. Of course the boy laughed and said he could stop a lot faster than that. To his chagrin, he went even farther than the girl did. 

I learned from that demonstration that a car going only 35 MPH takes 106 feet to stop even when one slams on the brakes, and a car going 65 MPH takes 306 feet to stop. To this day, I don’t tailgate because I know that if the car ahead of me stops suddenly, I would probably run right into it.  Or if a child should run out in front of me, chances are I wouldn’t be able to avoid hitting it. That was a lesson that has lasted a lifetime.



This is what our old driver training car looked like on the inside.

My son was born in the 1950’s.  Those were the days when women spent 5 days in the hospital after having a baby.  Then they sent us home with cans of formula.  We had bought 8 glass nursing bottles with rubber nipples and every day we would fill the bottles with formula. Then we would put them on the stove in a pan designed to hold the 8 bottles and bring them to a boil to sterilize them.

My husband usually took care of that chore late at night since he was a “night owl”.  One evening about 11:00 when we knew our son was due to wake up anytime before midnight to be fed, my husband forgot the bottles were sterilizing and let all the water boil away.  And disaster struck!  All of the bottles broke and formula went everywhere.  We didn’t have any more formula or bottles. I panicked because there were no all-night stores open in those days.  What was I going to do with a week old baby and no formula or bottle?

Then my husband had a brilliant idea.  He said there were people awake all night at hospitals and they had plenty of formula to feed the babies in the nursery so he would go and ask them for some.  He hopped into the car and left. I was almost afraid to move for fear of waking my son.  My husband arrived back home with several bottles of formula about 10 minutes before my son woke up with a hungry yowl. 

The formula was warmed and waiting for him.



This is similar to our bottle holder but ours held 8 bottles.

I remember only 1 science experiment in all my 8 years of elementary school and it was more of a demonstration than a hands-on experiment that we did.  We were studying air pressure.  Our teacher invited in a guest speaker.  I remember that he unpacked a can that looked like a 5 gallon gasoline can and something that looked to be a hand tire pump.

First he talked about air pressure and told us how many feet per square inch, I believe, of pressure that we had at our local feet above sea level.  Then he started to pump the air out of the can. I thought nothing would happen but I could hardly believe my eyes as the can was crushed by the air pressure.

It was a very successful demonstration for me because I still remember it 60 years later.  I think that was probably what prompted me to allow my students to do experiments when I became a teacher.  We can read about things, or be told what will happen, but nothing takes the place of actually seeing the results.

 

This is what the can looked like after the air was pumped out of it.

Since school is about to start, I’ve been trying to think of science experiments we did when I was in school.  However, the first one that came to mind was one I did at home.  I called it a Crystal Garden.  Here’s how I did it.  First I got an old bowl.  Then I went down to the coal bin in the basement and got a lump of coal that would fit in the bowl.  The next ingredients I gathered were salt, laundry bluing, ammonia, water, and iodine.  I mixed the salt, bluing, ammonia and water in equal parts in another bowl.  I used 3 or 4 tablespoonfuls of each depending on the size of the bowl I was allowed to use.  Then I poured the mixture over the coal.  Finally, I put several drops of iodine or food coloring on top of everything so I would have another color.

I put it on our dining room window seat so it would be away from normal foot traffic because if anyone bumped the plate, the crystals would crumble.  Within a few hours, the crystals began to form.  It was fascinating to watch them “grow”.  The spots where I put the iodine were red and the rest were blue.  I really don’t know the scientific explanation behind the “garden” other than the fact that salt forms crystals.  I’m not sure what part the coal, bluing and ammonia played so I'm not sure I learned a lesson.

To me, it was a fantasy garden unlike anything I had ever seen.  I felt that if I watched long enough I would see little creatures playing in the garden and peeking out from behind the crystals.



This is similar to what my garden looked like.

Yesterday I saw millions of very tiny dots on the surface of my swimming pool.  I took my skimmer net and pulled some of the dots out of the water.  To my surprise, some of them jumped off the net.  I have no idea what they were.  I skimmed them all up and I haven’t seen any more.  I guess they fell out of the pine tree branch that grows out over the pool.

For some reason, even though they were much, much smaller, they reminded me of what we called Oat Bugs in Ohio. I haven’t thought about them in years. During the summer when we were sweaty, tiny long blackish brown bugs less than 1/8 of an inch would land on our arms or the backs of our necks.  My mother always said they came from the grain fields growing near our house. I checked them out on the internet tonight and it said that Oat Bugs bite and cause a rash.  We must have been very fast about squishing them because I don’t ever remember any of us having a rash or even getting bitten by an Oat Bug at all.  I just remember that they were pesky little critters and when they got too bad, we spoiled their fun by going inside our house.



This is what an oat bug looks like.

I learned something today.  I wonder if my memory is incorrect.  I remember Mom making what I thought she called Opera Creams.  She mixed brown sugar, cream, and butter. Then she boiled it using her trusty candy thermometer.  I don’t remember to what temperature.  When it cooled, she put butter on her hands and rolled it into small balls.  Then she flattened the balls twice with the tines of a fork leaving a criss-cross pattern.  That candy was delicious!

Today when I was reading recipes for Pralines the recipe called for brown sugar, cream, and butter. The directions said to boil it and so on and so forth.  I thought, “That is Mom’s recipe for Opera Creams.”  Then, I found a recipe on line for Opera Creams and they don’t take brown sugar.  They’re mostly white sugar and cream or milk. 

So, either my memory is wrong or Mom was making really making Pralines when she thought she was making Opera Creams.


This is, as my son would say, kinda sorta what Mom's Opera Creams looked like if you take away the pecans and add criss/cross lines on top.  This is also a picture of what everyone else says is Pralines.

One of our favorite things to do for entertainment on Sunday afternoon in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, after church and dinner, was to go for a ride in our automobile. Dad would put a dollar’s worth of gas (5 gallons) in the tank and we’d take off. As I remember, it was a ’48 Ford.  I recall it as being a 4-door with a running board but I could be wrong.  My father liked to drive fast – fast being about 55 miles an hour.  My mother wanted to be able to watch the scenery and hated going over 45 or 50. I rather leaned toward the 55 myself.

After we were through riding around, we would stop at the Mahoning Valley Dairy and get ice cream cones. These were huge cones. They really were big.  They just didn’t seem that way because I was little.  I went there even when I was in high school and older and the cones still seemed very large.  I think that the ice cream cost a nickel a scoop.  We were always extravagant and bought double deckers. Today cones that size would run about $3.00. I believe that’s about a 300% increase in price. 

Somebody correct my math if I’m wrong, please.

Here is one of our double dipper cones.